Hello everyone, my name's Miss Kella, and welcome to today's lesson.

I'm so glad you could join me for this session because we are going to be reading and understanding Lord Byron's poem, The Destruction of Sennacherib.

So in today's lesson, we'll be able to explain how Lord Byron depicts the destruction of the Assyrian army.

So let's have a look at today's key words.

We have destruction, divine intervention, Jerusalem, morale, and righteous.

Now feel free to pause the video at this point and take a close a look at any of those definitions if you think you need to, but would just like to zoom in on two of them because they are going to be used quite frequently in today's lesson.

And the first one is that word there, Jerusalem.

So Jerusalem, you may have heard of it, is a historic city that is very significant to many world religions, especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

And Jerusalem is located in the Middle East.

And the other word that I would like to draw your attention to is just above it there, divine intervention.

So this is a way that perhaps religious people would term the direct involvement of a deity in human affairs, often in response to prayer.

So an example of divine intervention would be a miracle.

So any time where a God intervenes into human affairs or human conflict or a disaster or something like that, we might refer to it as divine intervention.

So how is today's lesson going to look? Well, we are going to start off by getting stuck into the text itself, reading and exploring the poem.

And then once we've done that, we're going to explore the wider context.

So before we start looking at the poem, I'd just like to focus on the words of the title and hand over to you for a quick discussion.

So looking at the title here, what predictions can we make about what we think might happen in the poem or key ideas or themes in the poem? And more importantly, how do we think it might link to the idea of conflict? So pause the video here for a few moments where you take some time to have a think to yourself and discuss this with the people around you and click play when you're ready to feedback together.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of really interesting discussions taking place there.

So let's have a little look at some of the ideas you might have been discussing.

So I would like to start with that word there in bold, destruction.

So I'll go over here, lots of people talking about perhaps that this could link to a military conflict, something has been completely destroyed or perhaps a natural disaster.

Another key word then that people were zooming in on was Sennacherib.

We've got perhaps a name here, maybe of a person or a place.

So someone or something has been destroyed perhaps in this poem.

And finally, as I was saying, in picking up on those small words, we've got that definite article, the.

So we get the impression that it's referring to a specific event is the destruction of Sennacherib.

So actually there were lots of biblical links to this poem, and Byron based it on an account in the Bible of God's intervention to stop a siege on the city of Jerusalem.

So Sennacherib was a king and he was the leader of the Assyrians, and he threatened to destroy Jerusalem if King Hezekiah of Judah and his people didn't surrender.

So he sent a message to Jerusalem informing them that he was intending to do that.

And upon receiving this message, king Hezekiah prayed to God and showed him Sennacherib threatening message.

And in response, the prophet Isaiah, received word from God that he would intervene and stop Sennacherib's attack.

And that night, God performed a miracle, and he struck down 185,000 members of Sennacherib's army, essentially wiping out his forces.

And obviously waking up the next morning to find that his army had been destroyed, King Sennacherib retreated and Jerusalem was safe.

So this is the basic structure of that story as it appears in the Bible.

So now I'd like to explore the poem.

So as we are reading through together, do try to think to yourself what links can we draw between this poem and the story that we've just discussed here? So pause the video if you'd like to grab your own copy of the poem, but I will be showing it on the screen.

This Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea when the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, that host with their banners at sunset was seen.

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn has blown that host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

The angel of death spread his wings on the blast and breathed in the face of the foe as he passed.

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, and their hearts but once heaved and forever grew still and there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide and through it there rolled not the breath of his pride and the foam of his gasp bin lay white on the turf and cold as a spray of the rock beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale with the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail and the tents were all silent, the banners alone, the lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur allowed in their wail, and the idols are broke in the temple of Baal, and the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

What did you think of poem? What were your first impressions? What moods could we perhaps draw out of the text there? I quite like this poem, I think it's written in a very interesting style.

I think it's very different to a lot of the other poems in this conflict anthology.

So let's return to this idea of biblical links then and discuss this in a bit more detail.

So my first question to you, here is that summary that we were discussing earlier of what happens in the biblical story.

And I'd like you to think about which part of the story does the poem focus on.

So discuss this with the people around you or make some notes on your paper, but pause the video for as long as you need to to give this a really good think through and click play when you're ready to discuss it together.

Welcome back.

So arguably this poem focuses just on this end part of the story.

So let's explore the poem together then thinking about how this story is conveyed and also how a sense of conflict is conveyed here by Byron.

So starting with that first stanza.

So in this stanza, this is where the Assyrian army arrived to attack Jerusalem.

We've got that first line there, came down like the wolf on the fold, they have arrived.

So my first question to you is this.

How does Byron suggest the Assyrian army are powerful? So we are just looking for examples from that first stanza there in purple.

So pause the video while you think and take some time to discuss it, and when you're ready to go through it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Welcome back.

Lots of interesting interpretations of the text there.

So well done if you also managed to spot this simile on the first line.

So by comparing the Assyrian army to wolves, we are already getting that impression that they're aggressive, that they're strong, that they're perhaps a force to be feared.

And also we've got the use of colour imagery, purple and gold.

So Sennacherib's cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold there.

And Byron's choice of these two colours does have some symbolic meanings, got that obvious link there to gold and riches.

And something that we often see is a colour used to emphasise somebody's wealth.

But also purple, purple is a colour that is often symbolise nobility, high status, royalty, that sort of thing.

It was quite popular during the Roman Empire with Roman emperors and it was also popular with a lot of monarchs, including the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth, the first.

So this choice of colours is quite interesting here because we're already getting these symbolic, subtle implications about this army.

They're strong, they're powerful, they're high status, they're a force to be reckoned with.

So onto stanza two then.

So by the end of stanza two, the army have been destroyed.

So again, over to you, what is significant in this second stanza about Byron's references to summer and autumn? So pause the video again.

Take some time to think, discuss it with the people around you or make your notes, and when you are ready for us to discuss it together, click play and we'll continue.

Okay, welcome back.

I definitely overheard some people discussing a similar idea to my interpretation of this stanza.

So well done if you're picking up on this idea as well.

Byron uses a lot of natural imagery in this stanza.

So lots of references here to the natural world.

And we could argue that this illustrates how the army changed from strong and vibrant, how they presented up there in that first stanza to weak and dying overnight, because we've got references here to the seasons.

We've got this idea, like the leaves of the forest when the summer is green.

So when they first arrive, we are getting this very vibrant, full of life, energetic description of them.

Summer, they're in the height of their life cycle, perhaps their peak.

However, like the leaves of the forest when the autumn have blown overnight.

So the following morning, the host on the morrow, the next morning they were dead and weak, perhaps like crumbling autumn leaves.

So we are really getting a clear image there of quiet how their fortunes changed overnight.

So onto it stands three and four then.

So here, the army is killed by divine intervention.

So although Byron told us the result of what happened at the end there of stanza two, here in these two stanzas, we get a description of what actually occurred.

So over to you again for another quick fire discussion.

So how in these two stanzas does Byron emphasise the sense of death and destruction? Pause the video while you have a think and click play when you're ready to discuss it together.

Welcome back.

Again, lots of interesting discussions taking place there.

I like the different methods that people are managing to pull out of this section.

So let's just explore a few now.

So starting off, first of all, with the semantic field of body parts.

So a semantic field is a fantastic method to look for in a text, particularly if you're struggling to find anything else, because a semantic field is quite easy to spot.

Is when a writer uses lots of words that all relate to the same subject or topic, they can all be grouped because they're associated with the same thing.

So here, Byron is using lots of words from the semantic field of body parts, which I would argue gives us a really vivid image of the dead.

We could see perhaps this look of death on their faces and their eyes as they grew dead and empty, and their hearts that once heaved are now still.

So we're getting a really clear image perhaps of what the soldiers look like and we are seeing perhaps that scene or death painted out there.

And we've also got a natural metaphor here, and it's one that continues across that stanza.

So if we just start that bottom line, we'll be able to work out what it is a bit easier before we look at the other two words.

So cold as the spray of the rock beaten surf.

So we've got this idea of the sea, a metaphor linked to the sea here, and then those two words above we've got rolled, which is a word we could use to describe waves and again, foam we could also use to describe the sea.

So what is this metaphor describing? Well, it's describing the soldiers' steed, so the horses that they rode on, but also more widely the soldiers themselves as well.

But it's comparing the dead here to the sea, which we could argue if we think about the sea, one of the most obvious things we can think about to describe it is how vast and enormous it is.

So perhaps, this natural metaphor here could be emphasising quite the enormity of the death and destruction because remember, in the Bible story, 185,000 people were killed.

So this would've been a lot of bodies strewn over this area.

So then onto the final two stanzas of the poem.

So here, Byron continues to describe how the army have been killed by the divine intervention and then the effects or the impact of that destruction on the Assyrians.

So my next question to you then is this.

How does Byron emphasise the fall of the Army in stanza five? So we are looking at the top stanza on the screen here.

So pause the video while you take some time to discuss this or make your notes and when you're ready to feedback together, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back some fantastic discussions there again.

So how does Byron emphasise the fall of the army in stanza five? Well, we've got this negative language, and what I mean here is not necessarily pessimistic language, it's not got a negative attitude, it is negative in that, it's negated.

It talks about things that didn't happen.

So we've got that prefix on, the lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.

Rather than saying nobody blew the trumpets, it's interesting that Byron has chosen to phrase it in this way, and we could argue that this emphasises the loss that the army have suffered because these were things that were due to happen.

The lances were due to be lifted, the trumpets were due to be blown.

But this has not happened because of that destruction.

And one final question then about this last stanza.

So how does Byron emphasise the power of God in the final stanza? So pause the video one more time while you have a think and discuss it with the people around you.

And when you're ready to go through it together, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of great ideas that I could hear there in your discussions with people particularly focusing on the impact of this destruction.

It wasn't just something that impacted the soldiers, but it had lots and lots of longer lasting impacts, especially back in Assyria, which we learn here in the first couple of lines of this stanza.

But in particular, I think that the power of God is emphasised here in that final line, melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

We've got a simile there.

This idea that the army have melted really emphasises how they bowed to the power of the Lord.

And also, that word, glance as well, it really makes it seem like the Lord didn't really even have to try to destroy this army and they were so easily destroyed.

So now it's time to pause and check our understanding.

So Jerusalem was saved by what? So take a look at these four options and decide which one you think best completes this sentence.

Pause the video while you have a think and when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer, click play.

Okay, welcome back, and well done to those of you who said C.

Jerusalem was saved by divine intervention because God destroyed Sennacherib's army.

So now it is time for the first practise task of today's lesson.

And what I would like you to do is this, answer the following questions, but most importantly, I would like you to support your answers with evidence from the text.

So let's have a look at these questions.

Number one, how does Byron present the Assyrian army at the beginning of the poem? Number two, what is the significance of Byron's uses of natural imagery in stanza four? Number three, which simile emphasises the power of God? Number four, how does Byron emphasise the destruction of Sennacherib's army? And finally, number five, what do you think is the most powerful line in the poem, and why do you think this? So pause the video and give this a really good go.

Have another read of your copies of the poem and make sure you're selecting some all important evidence to support your ideas.

So it pauses a video here and click play when you're ready to go through it together.

Welcome back and well done for giving that a really good go.

I could see lots of you working really hard and going back over your copies of the poems to select your evidence, so fantastic.

So let's just have a look at how some of our oak pupils responded to each of these questions.

So number one then, how does Byron present the Assyrian army at the beginning of the poem? Well, Jun said at the beginning of the poem, Byron presents the Assyrian army as powerful and of a high status.

He uses colour imagery to describe how they were gleaming in purple and gold.

These colours symbolise wealth, power, and status, especially purple, which is a colour often used to symbolise royal power and status.

And what's particularly effective about this idea is the way that he's using those methods.

So he drew out that use of colour imagery and also of symbolism.

Number two, what is the significance of Byron's use of natural imagery in stanza four? Andeep said, in stanza four, Byron emphasises the losses suffered by the Assyrian army by using natural imagery.

It compares the fallen soldiers and horses to the sea and explores different aspects of their death using this extended metaphor.

For example, the foam of his gasping cold as the spray.

This highlights the suffering of the enemy soldiers and suggests their death was painful and drawn out.

Perhaps Byron did this to show the power of divine intervention.

And what I particularly like about this answer is the way that Andeep pis leading with those key ideas.

He's not leading by saying, Byron uses natural imagery.

He starts with the idea and then that analysis is there to support.

Number three, which simile emphasises the power of God? So Laura said at the end of the poem, Byron emphasises the power of God.

He uses a simile to describe how the soldiers melted like snow in the glance of the Lord, the verb, glance, suggests that God was able to easily defeat the Assyrian army since they withered under his gaze.

So again, really good answer here from Laura.

And what was particularly effective was the way that she zoomed in on the language of that simile.

So she identified as simile and then she zoomed in even further to draw out the significance of that verb.

Number four, how does Byron emphasise the destruction of Sennacherib's army? Sam said, Byron emphasises the destruction of Sennacherib's army in his vivid descriptions of the soldier's deaths.

He uses words, from the semantic field of body parts, to describe each element of their deaths in detail from how their eyes waxed to how their hearts forever grew still.

He also focuses on their inaction following the divine intervention.

He uses negative language such as lances unlifted and trumpets unblown to show how the army can no longer function after the attack.

And onto that final question then.

So what do you think is the most powerful line in the poem and why do you think this? And you think is obviously signifying to us that we are asking for personal opinions here.

So don't worry if your answer doesn't look exactly the same as these ones.

So first of all, Laura said, I think the line, widows of Ashur allowed in their wail, is most powerful as it emphasises the sense of loss the Assyrian people felt after their army was destroyed by God.

And Jun said, I think the line, the tents were all silent, the banners alone, is most powerful as it vividly describes how quickly the power of the Assyrian army was lost leaving behind an empty camp.

So I have one final challenge for you.

I would like you to have a look at these two interpretations from Laura and Jun, and discuss with the people around you or have a think to yourself, whose interpretation do you most agree with, and why? So pause the video here while you have a think and take some time to discuss it and click play when you're ready to continue.

So we've made it to the halfway point of today's lesson.

I hope you are already starting to feel a lot more confident when it comes to understanding this poem.

So now we've looked at the text itself, it is time to think about the wider context of the poem.

So this poem was published in 1815 by Lord Byron, who was a British poet.

So I'd like to start off by having a think about what Europe was like during the 1800s.

So into what world was this poem published? So I'd like to hand over to you, first of all, what do you already know about this time period? So take some time to discuss it with the people around you or make some notes to yourself.

And when you're ready to feedback together, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, welcome back.

Lots of interesting historical discussions there that I overheard.

I just wanted to pick up on one common misconception before we discuss some of the things that were associated with Europe in the early 1800s.

And that is I overheard some people saying that this was the Victorian times.

It wasn't the Victorian times because although we usually associate them with the 1800s, the Victorian times didn't actually begin until much later in 1837.

So this was actually just before the Victorian times took place.

So what was happening in Europe at this point? Well, one big thing were the Napoleonic Wars.

And this was conflict between the French Empire headed by Napoleon Bonaparte and lots of different European coalitions.

And a coalition is when perhaps two countries or two armies or two different groups band together in order to defeat a common enemy.

And there were lots of different varieties of coalitions that stood up to Napoleon and the French Empire.

There was a significant loss of life, there was lots of political upheaval and economic disruption across Europe.

And second big thing that was affecting Europe in the early 1800s was the Romantic movement, which began during this point.

So another misconception here, romantic with a capital R, a proper noun is not to be confused with romantic, meaning associated with love and relationships.

Instead, romantic here refers to a widespread cultural movement that swept across Europe during this time, affecting the way that music was composed, how artworks were designed, how literature it was written, how poetry was written.

It was a very, very important cultural movement.

And one thing that it did that in particular had an effect on Europe was it began to critique authoritarian governments.

So it began to critique strict perhaps and controlling governments, and question the way that society was being run.

And in doing so, promoted the idea of political reform.

So over to you again then for another discussion.

How might these two contextual factors affect our interpretation of the poem? So take some time to think and discuss it and when you're ready for us all to discuss it together, click play and we'll continue.

Welcome back, lots of interesting discussions taking place there.

So let's just pick up on a few of the key ideas, starting with then Napoleonic Wars.

So we could argue that many people across Europe were concerned and worried about these conflicts and the effects that they were having.

So this poem may have resonated with people who were grappling with the realities of war and its unpredictable outcomes.

So although this poem is describing a conflict from the Bible, lots of people may have been able to see echoes in what happened here with what they were experiencing in their day-to-day lives.

So over to the Romantic movement then, how might this have affected our interpretation of the poem? Romantic literature and romanticism in general focuses on individual experience, which means that many people prioritise personal fulfilment over conformity.

And that was a key idea of romanticism, is that the individual's experience was arguably more important than conforming perhaps to society's rules.

So as such, traditional authority began to be seen as something that could be challenged, could be questioned.

So during this period, poems depicting divine intervention on the side of the good soldiers were very popular.

And I've put good there in inverted commas because I mean good in terms of how they're being cast in the poem.

That's not necessarily my personal opinion or not necessarily what we've come to think about Sennacherib and the conflict that ensued there.

It's just the depiction of the good soldiers, the heroes in this poem.

So I would like you to have another think.

Why do you think this was? Why do you think that divine intervention was really important to readers during the early 1800s? So pause the video here while you take some time to discuss it and click play when you're ready to be back together.

Okay, welcome back.

So I'd like to just pick up on two really important contextual links to these depictions of divine intervention.

So first of all, during this period in history, widespread religious belief was common.

Most people were religious, and in particular a lot of people in Europe in the 1800s were Christians.

So adherence to Christian moral values was very important to people, and many people lived their lives by these Christian values.

So therefore, divine intervention would align with prevailing religious beliefs about divine providence and justice.

So what do I mean by that? Well, what I mean by that is that divine intervention, stepping in to stop something that perhaps people might view as unjust or immoral is a depiction of God almost defending these Christian values, standing up for the people that are living perhaps their lives according to these religious values.

So onto the second key idea then, patriotism and propaganda.

These are two things we tend to associate with societies that are experiencing wars and conflict.

So that word patriotism then is a very strong and passionate belief in one's country.

So national pride.

So patriotism is something that is often played on during times of war because it stokes up this idea of it's us against them, of heroes and villains.

And propaganda is usually how this is done.

So propaganda is types of literature or types perhaps of advertising or artwork that are subtly perhaps persuasive or influential.

They help to boost morale during these times.

So how were these two ideas relevant to divine intervention then? So during periods of conflict, divine intervention served to boost public morale and belief in a righteous cause.

So this idea that perhaps God could step in and perform a miracle in order to save the heroes and destroy the villains is an idea that would have worked very well in a piece of propaganda's literature because it would boost the morale perhaps of the people reading it.

And this belief that the war that is taking place is a righteous cause, and therefore, that the soldiers of that particular country, perhaps the British soldiers were fighting on the side of good.

So let's pause here and check our understanding.

So what was a significant concern in the early 1800s when Byron wrote this poem because? So take a look at these four options and decide which one you think best fits the end of that sentence.

Press pause while you have a think and click play when you're ready for me to reveal the correct answer.

Welcome back, and well done to those of you who said B.

The Napoleonic Wars raged on in Europe.

So now it is time for the final practise task of today's lesson.

And my question to you is this, do you agree with Aisha? So she says, this poem was popular because it played on the patriotic and religious ideals of his readers who were living through an unpredictable period of conflict.

So I would like you to write a paragraph responding to Aisha's interpretation of the poem.

And your answer should include the following.

So it should respond directly to Aisha's opinion.

It should be supported by evidence from the text, it should analyse Byron's use of language, it should link to this wider contextual knowledge that we've just been discussing.

And finally, it should use tentative language.

So this is language that we would use to show a personal interpretation.

So examples include perhaps, implies, may, could, suggest or likely.

So pause the video here and click play when you're ready to feedback together.

Okay, welcome back.

So here's how you could have responded to Aisha's interpretation.

I agree with Aisha somewhat.

In the destruction of Sennacherib, Byron draws on his readers religious and patriotic beliefs in his depiction of how divine intervention enabled Jerusalem to avoid destruction.

During the early 1800s, the Napoleonic Wars meant that many Europeans were very concerned about their country's ability to defeat the French Empire, a powerful and formidable enemy.

Depictions of divine interventions showed readers examples of good forces overcoming a powerful evil, which helped to provide people with hope and boosted morale.

For example, Byron describes how the once powerful Assyrian army melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

This simile emphasises the power of God and perhaps gave Byron's readers a sense of optimism that God would intervene to ensure their victory against aggressors.

I also somewhat disagree with Aisha's view since she suggests that these reasons were what made this poem popular.

While I believe these reasons could have contributed to the poem's literary success, it's important to note that Byron was a very prominent poet in the early 1800s.

A seminal romantic poet, Byron had already achieved celebrity status by this point in time and his works more widely read.

So now I'd like you to take some time to review your response and ask yourself the following, did you respond directly to Aisha's opinion? Did you support your ideas with evidence from the text? Did you analyse Byron's use of language? Did you link to your wider contextual knowledge? And finally, did you use tentative language? So pause the video here while you review your response and when you're ready to continue, click play and we'll carry on.

Okay, so we have made it to the finish line of today's lesson and a massive well done for all your hard work today.

So let's just summarise what we've covered in this session.

The poem is based on a biblical depiction of how King Sennacherib and the Assyrian army attempted to invade Jerusalem.

The Assyrian King was defeated by a divine intervention from God.

War was a significant concern in Europe at the time Lord Byron wrote this poem, and poems which saw God intervene to help the good forces during war were popular during this era.

So once again, I hope you're pleased with everything that you have achieved today, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.