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02 July 2022

Percy Shelley and Re-Writing The Past

Percy Shelley and Re-Writing The Past

This week we looked at 2 of Percy Shelley’s poems, England in 1918 and Ozymandias. We talked about Shelley’s life and his rebellions, and discussed what the two poems told us about what he thought of his country and its leadership. After analysing both poems and discussing their stories our young writers were tasked with rewriting their own version of Shelley's poems but making them about life in 2022.

Here is Percy Shelley’s poem England in 1918, a poem about a despised king and Shelley’s feeling of shame around the state of a country he felt was ‘fainting’.  Below are photos of our young writers' poems inspired by this, about the world today.

England in 1918 By Percy Bysshe Shelley

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow

Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;

Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,

But leechlike to their fainting country cling

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.

A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;

An army, whom liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;

Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;

A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—

Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.








Next week is our end of term showcase. We can’t wait to hear our writers favourite poems, scripts and stories from the year. We’re both very proud of the work they’ve created and the level of talent in both of our groups makes us excited for next term.

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