The Power of King Lear : Fatal Flaw..

Shakespeare’s tragedies take us on a journey: They confront our greatest hopes and fears, our best and worst of actions. They probe the extremities of what it means to be human.

ANALYZING KING LEAR’S TRAGIC FLAWS

Q)What is a Tragic flaw?

A= Hamartia in the olden days…from the  Greek theatre… thanks Aristotle.

= personality flaw, we all have them , Shakespeare dramatises them

1. Egoism
2. Self Centered
3. Arrogance
4. Pride/ Hubris
5. Ignorance/ Blind to truth of humanity >>>>LINK TO IMAGERY

King Lear is a play about a tragic hero, by the name of King Lear, whose flaws get the best of him. A tragic hero must posess three qualities. The first is they must have power, in other words, a leader. King Lear has the highest rank of any leader. He is a king. The next quality is they must have a tragic flaw, and King Lear has several of those. Finally, they must experience a downfall. Lear’s realization of his mistakes is more than a downfall. It is a tragedy. Lear is a tragic hero because he has those three qualities. His flaws are his arrogance, his ignorance,  egoism and  his misjudgments, each contributing to the other.
The first flaw in King Lear is his arrogance, which results in the loss of Cordelia and Kent. It is his arrogance in the first scene of the play that causes him to make bad decisions. He expects his favorite, youngest daughter to be the most worthy of his love.

PRIDE

His pride makes him expect that Cordelia’s speech to be the one filled with the most love. Unfortunately for King Lear’s pride, Cordelia replies to his inquisition by saying, ‘I love your majesty/According to my bond and nothing less’;(1.1.100-101). Out of pride and anger, Lear banishes Cordelia and splits the kingdom in half to the two evil sisters, Goneril and Regan. This tragic flaw prevents King Lear from seeing the truth because his arrogance overrides his judgement.

ARROGANCE

Lear’s arrogance also causes him to lose his most faithful servant, Kent. In addition, in the first act, Lear’s arrogance causes him to refuse to listen to Kent’s plea to look deeper into the true hearts of his two eldest daughters. Even after the king tells Kent to mind his own business, Kent continues to try to reason with him. Kent exclaims, ‘See better, Lear and let me still remain/The true blank of thine eye‘;(1.1.180-181). Kent shows his worthiness by keeping up his fight to show King Lear the truth. Soon King Lear gives up and decides to banish Kent as well. Because of his arrogance, he splits his kingdom, banishes both his daughter and faithful servant, and abdicates his throne.
IGNORANCE/ BLINDNESS

King Lear’s other flaw is his ignorance, which is seen through his carelessness and foolishness. King Lear is a story of the consequences caused by the foolish decisions of the main character. His other flaw, arrogance, contributes to his ignorance. He is carelessness in making decisions causes him to make ignorant choices. The king believes only what appeals to him and nothing less. When his daughter tells him how she feels, he quickly begins to make choices that are full of mistakes. Kent states,
Reserve thy state,/And in thy best consideration check/This hideous rashness. Answer my life/My judgement,/The youngest daughter does not love thee least’;(1.1.167-71).

His ignorance causes him to give his throne to the wrong children, eventually resulting in his downfall. Lear also ignores the fool who always attempts to show King Lear the truth. The fool implies, ‘Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst/been wise (1.5.43-44). Despite the fool’s efforts, King Lear ignores him because he refuses to take the fool seriously. In actuality, King Lear is the fool. Because of his carelessness and foolishness, he continues to contribute to his downfall.

>DESPITE HIS FATAL FLAWS LEAR DEVELOPS AS  A MORAL HUMAN

LEARS STRUGGLE to endure his treatment by his daughters

Disbelief
They durst not , they could not
I gave you all
Overwhelmed
Down thou climbing sorrow ! Thy elements below
Angry
I would rather wage against the enmity of the air

Powerless + isolated

Man’s life is as cheap as beasts

Check the Storm Scenes on the powerpoint!

• How does he treat the fool and Edgar?

• Is man no more than this a poor bare forked animal?

• How is Lear orientated and interested in what it means to be human

HOW DOES SHAKESPEARE DRAMATISE LIFE AND ITS STRUGGLES?

Shakespeare’s tragedies take us on a journey: They confront our greatest hopes and fears, our best and worst of actions. They probe the extremities of what it means to be human. They expose the suffering we inflict and the suffering we bear. Despite being written hundreds of years ago, the dilemmas of Shakespeare’s tragedies are dilemmas that still rule our public arena and our private lives; family relations, power struggles, obsessions and betrayals. What can we learn from seeing terrible events played and replayed? How can we uplifted by seeing tragedies on stage? Tragedy explores the human capacity for cruelty but also for endurance. Tragedy heals by showing us what we are capable of.

 

King Lear as a Tragic Hero.

 

From the very beginning of the play, Shakespeare challenges our understanding of the tragic hero.

First of all, he is not likeable in Act 1. As a matter of fact, we generally despise King Lear at the opening of the play. If we have sympathy and empathy for any of the characters in Act 1, they would lay with Cordelia. Yet, the play focuses upon King Lear and his actions.

One of the greatest challenges of the play is that Shakespeare forces you to confront a tragic hero who you cannot stand, and, as the play progresses past Act 2, you grow to love.

Secondly, King Lear seems to have experienced some sort of tragic fall before the play has even begun. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of the play (and several other by Shakespeare) for me. At some point before the beginning of the play, it is evident that King Lear has had some sort of downfall that has led him to act in such rash and bizarre ways. My assertion as that Shakespeare depicts a Christian world in his concept of tragedy: humans are already fallen, in Christian doctrine, the moment they are born. We are all victims of the tragic fall of Adam and Eve. As I said, one of the mysteries of the play involves the question, what happened to King Lear before the play began? It is evident that Lear was once, even recently, an extremely powerful and effective king. The biggest evidence of not only his power as a king, but his popularity, is the fact that the good characters—Gloucester, Kent, Cordelia, Edgar—adore King Lear, and even continue to serve him loyally after he acts so rashly. Kent even returns to the kingdom in disguise as a servant in order to serve Lear loyally AFTER Lear banishes him from the kingdom upon the threat of death.

Using the axis of the double plot, we grow to love King Lear the more that he loses his kingship and the more that he grows into a human being.

Thirdly, the fact that Lear appears to have already fallen further exacerbates the tragedy of the play. Although he has already fallen, he continues to suffer tragic downfalls as the play progresses. The protracted fall is a dominant motif of the play: each time that you think the play cannot fall into more tragedy, the depth of tragedy deepens, all the way until the seemingly bottomless ending.

 

 

Patrick Kavanagh Sample Essay

Imagine you have invited Patrick Kavanagh to give a reading of his poems to your class. What poems would you ask him to read and why do you think they would appeal to your fellow students?

If Patrick Kavanagh was to come to my school for a poetry reading the poems I would ask him to read would be Iniskeen Road: July Evening, Shancoduff, A Christmas Childhood, Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin, Epic and Advent. These poems contain such qualities as providing an insight in rural Irish life, celebration of the ordinary and familiar world, the transformation of the ordinary into the exceptional, varying moods and atmospheres, as well as the use of “I”, all of which I feel would appeal to my fellow students, as they have done for myself.

Kavanagh was a poet whose poetic themes were directly derived by and infused with his experiences in his native Monaghan and later in his adopted Dublin. Place is a very important element in his work, described in most of the octets of the poets I have studied. I noticed that most of his poems are geographically rooted. Due to his rooting of his poems in rural and urban life, I discovered a theme of nature growing out of his poems. Kavanagh’s awareness of nature is acute yet he has a love-hate relationship with his native countryside. Sometimes it shows in the bitterness and the isolation of his life as in Inniskeen road and sometimes a deep pride resonates through his poetry as in Shancoduff. Kavanagh’s use of language reinforces his major themes to convey the mystery of a mind, looking at the commonplace as though for the first time with wonder and yet dealing with issues of isolation and acceptance.

In the early poems he is ill at ease in a countryside and culture he condemns, yet he still inherently loves the land if not the shouting Mc Cabes and Duffys. Despite the disillusioned tone of Raglan Road, I discovered this love of nature and the ordinary rekindled following his operation for lung cancer. He said “As a poet I was born in or about 1955, the place of my birth being the banks of the Grand Canal”. After near death he could look at life and nature with newfound wonder. Nature is glorified in a pantheistic manner in the poetry written from then on. His language becomes imbued with the marvelous. Kavanagh had come full circle back to the glory and was at peace with himself and the world.

Kavanagh’s poetry would appeal to all those with an Irish connection, not just my fellow students. His early poems provide an insight into rural Irish life, a period unthought-of nowadays. Therefore his poetry is an historical device; it has a sense of history and patriotism to it. In Iniskeen Road: July Evening we hear of the dances that the Catholic Church disapproved of in the 1930’s as they considered them immoral and dangerous: such dances are the one “in Billy Brennan’s barn tonight,” The reader of the poem is also given insight into the role of the poet in Kavanagh’s time, as we hear from Kavanagh that “I have what every poet hates in spite”, that “I am king/ Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.” In the 1930’s the poet, while respected, was avoided by the rural Irish; Kavanagh called the poet “a stranger within the gates.” Here we see this; Kavanagh cannot partake in the dances. The repetition of “and” in the first stanza shows his compounding misery for the multitude of activities he is missing out on. Poetry in rural Ireland is again exposed in Shancoduff. Kavanagh, tired of the pastoral and almost georgic imagery produced by Irish poets up to and around his time, presents a realistic portrayal of the land. Here we see another aspect of rural Irish life; the difficulties facing farmers with the poor land symbolized by Kavanagh’s “black hills” which “have never seen the sun rising,” Shancoduff consisted of seven, watery hills bought by the Kavanagh family in the 1920’s which were later to be inherited by Kavanagh. The outsider even remarks of Kavanagh “by heavens he must be poor.” The dilapidated state of rural Ireland continues to be Kavanagh’s focus in Advent. Here the land is again poor. The “spirit-shocking wonder” for a child is simply a “black slanting Ulster hill”, possibly alluding to one of Kavanagh’s hills. Also present in the poem are “bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables”, again creating a picture in my classmates’ minds of rural Ireland, an important and interesting part of the development of Ireland to its current state today.

Another appealing feature of Kavanagh’s poetry which I feel would appeal to my classmates is Kavanagh’s celebration of the familiar and ordinary world. We see that Kavanagh does not deal with abstract issues but with ones that mean something to him and hence his poetry gains in credibility. The “bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables” from Advent adds to his recreation of childhood innocence as Kavanagh will go and watch these as they are “where Time/ begins.” Initially in the poem he remarks that “we have tested and tasted too much” and realizes that he, and others, must abandon the life of luxury to fully experience life. He sees in the final stanza that there is “no need to go searching” for beauty as it is present all around him, in “dung in gardens under trees,/ Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.” Likewise in Iniskeen Road: July Evening Kavanagh turns the ordinary village where “The bicycles go by in twos and threes” into a magical setting with “the half-talk code of mysteries/ And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.” Adding to the wonder of the scene is the mention of “A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.” Outside the town of Iniskeen were Kavanagh’s hills of Shancoduff where more celebration of the ordinary is seen. The hills are nothing to look at. Kavanagh himself remarks they are “my black hills”. We even hear of an outsider remarking of “them hungry hils/ That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?” However the hills are majestical in the eyes of the poet with Kavanagh’s calling of them “my Alps” and even the “sleety winds” of the area are described in a warm manner; they “fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff.” The farm attached to Shancoduff is another ordinary setting that Kavanagh acclaims for the reader in A Christmas Childhood. Here Kavanagh celebrates the family farm where he spent his childhood. When his father played the melodeon, above the farm “There were stars in the morning east/ And they danced to his music.” As the poem concludes the farm is alluded to the birthplace of Jesus Christ as he remarks that “I had a prayer like a white rose pinned/ On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.” Again a place in Monaghan is glorified in Epic. Kavanagh celebrates the mundane argument over half-a-rood of rocky Monaghan land and compares it to the 1938 Munich Crisis which had a hand in the beginning of WW2. He asks “Which/ was most important?” Homer’s ghost reminds him “I made the Iliad from such/ A local row. Gods make their own importance.” Monaghan seems to be preferred. Setting switches to Dublin for the poem Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin. Again the banal, here the canal and its surroundings, is presented as astounding. Kavanagh’s simple joy in being so close to nature is clear with the soothing sounds of the words “stilly and greeny”. “Mount Parnassus” is mentioned and such is the power of this serene setting that “no one will speak in prose” when they are present, only poetry.

In Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin Kavanagh does not only celebrate the familiar world, but he turns things ordinary into the extra-ordinary. I feel my classmates would find this unique method appealing; it is striking and adds to the poem, yet clear and easy to identify. Here the canal water has redemptive qualities and he asks “commemorate me when there is water,/ Canal water preferably, so stilly/ Greeny at the heart of summer.” The canal setting is turned from the ordinary everyday to the heroic with the juxtaposition of the hero’s tomb and the “canal-bank seat for the passer by” at the end. Elsewhere in his poetry, Kavanagh recreates the irrelevant fight and surroundings of Epic so he can remark that he has “lived in important places, times/ When great events were decided” Also, in A Christmas Childhood, Kavanagh remoulds his childhood farm into an Eden-like scene, saying “The light between the ricks of hay and straw/ Was a hole in Heaven’s gable.” Mention of the apple tree “With its December-glinting fruit we saw” alludes to the Tree of Knowledge. Even the familiar act of milking cows is depicted as making “the music of milking”. As general as the milking of a cow is the footfall in Iniskeen Road: July Evening which Kavanagh believes is “tapping secrecies of stone.” The empty countryside devoid of people who are at the dance is his “mile of kingdom” while all are at the dance. Another object of equal regularity, a hill in Shancoduff, has been climbed by the poet, but he tells us “I have climbed the Matterhorn.”

This transformation of the hill to “the Matterhorn” shows Kavanagh’s affection for the hills of his. However tone varies from poem to poem of Kavanagh’s and this variance I feel would add to the appeal of his poetry for my classmates, who would encounter a different message, setting, tone and theme in every Kavanagh poem they immerse themselves into. Even in Shancoduff we are given confliction of tone. Kavanagh’s affection is countered by the cattle-drovers condemning tone who believe of the poet who owns the hills: “by heavens he must be poor.” They are not poets, and cannot see what Kavanagh can see, that his “hills hoard the bright shillings of March/ While the sun searches in every pocket.” Further opposition of tone is seen in Iniskeen Road; July Evening. The opening octet contains a tone of partial envy with missing out on the “wink-and-elbow language of delight.” But envy is replaced by self-consolation in the concluding sestet as he realizes and accepts what his being a poet will bring. Pride and frustration combine as he is “king/ Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.” Similarly, ambiguity of tone is shown in Advent. Self-disgust pervades the opening stanza as the poet recognizes his and others’ gluttony; the “chink too wide” has allowed everything to be known and now “no wonder” enters. But hope enters the poem as he believes “penance will charm back the luxury/ Of a child’s soul.” Another tone, celebratory, is present in A Christmas Childhood. He praises even the frost the partially covers the potato-pits: “How wonderful that was, how wonderful!” Contentment is the poet’s adopted tone in Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin where Kavanagh feels at one with nature, asking “Commemorate me thus beautifully”.

The final appeal of Kavanagh’s poetry I will examine is his use of “I”. The appeal of this characteristic for my fellow classmates is obvious. Using “I” includes the reader and he/ she can feel affinity with the poem knowing it means something to the poet, for they have placed themselves in the poem for a reason. My class-mates would thus realize the poem has some worth; not only for them, but for Kavanagh also. As said above, Kavanagh feels an affinity with nature in Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin. He says “O commemorate me where there is water,” and shows his new-found love of simplicity and nature, after his spell in hospital in the 1950’s. In Epic Kavanagh’s use of “I” is crucial to the poem as his being a poet is of relevance to the ghost of Homer, the famous epic-poet, visiting him. Homer tells him “I made the Iliad from such/ A local row. Gods make their own importance.” Elsewhere, the poet-Kavanagh is at the centre of Iniskeen Road: July Evening. Apart from him, only “Alexander Selkirk knew the plight/ of being king and government and nation.” There are no inhabitants for his “mile of kingdom” for all are dancing. Isolation affects Kavanagh in Shancoduff too. While he corrects the cattle-drovers about his “Alps”, Kavanagh remarks “I hear and is my heart not badly shaken.” He is content with his lot, but his being left-out is notable. Kavanagh’s presence in another poem, Advent, adds to another poem’s credibility again. Here self-inclusion validates the criticism that “We have tested and tasted too much”. He and others must repent and he tells his lover that “we’ll return to Doom/ The knowledge we stole but could not use.”

As shown, Kavanagh’s poetry contains many features which would appeal to my classmates. Through reading Kavanagh’s poetry, they are transported back to rural Irish life and given a taste of life not just for the poet, but the common inhabitant of the time. Devices of Kavanagh stretch from the celebration of the familiar world to the making the ordinary exceptional. Variance of mood and atmosphere circles the poetry, intruding when Kavanagh sees fit, creating wonderful poetry. He would appeal to any reader, including my classmates.

Sample Essay – Kavanagh

Imagine you have invited Patrick Kavanagh to give a reading of his poems to your class. What poems would you ask him to read and why do you think they would appeal to your fellow students?

If Patrick Kavanagh was to come to my school for a poetry reading the poems I would ask him to read would be Iniskeen Road: July Evening, Shancoduff, A Christmas Childhood, Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin, Epic and Advent. These poems contain such qualities as providing an insight in rural Irish life, celebration of the ordinary and familiar world, the transformation of the ordinary into the exceptional, varying moods and atmospheres, as well as the use of “I”, all of which I feel would appeal to my fellow students, as they have done for myself.

Kavanagh was a poet whose poetic themes were directly derived by and infused with his experiences in his native Monaghan and later in his adopted Dublin. Place is a very important element in his work, described in most of the octets of the poets I have studied. I noticed that most of his poems are geographically rooted. Due to his rooting of his poems in rural and urban life, I discovered a theme of nature growing out of his poems. Kavanagh’s awareness of nature is acute yet he has a love-hate relationship with his native countryside. Sometimes it shows in the bitterness and the isolation of his life as in Inniskeen road and sometimes a deep pride resonates through his poetry as in Shancoduff. Kavanagh’s use of language reinforces his major themes to convey the mystery of a mind, looking at the commonplace as though for the first time with wonder and yet dealing with issues of isolation and acceptance.

In the early poems he is ill at ease in a countryside and culture he condemns, yet he still inherently loves the land if not the shouting Mc Cabes and Duffys. Despite the disillusioned tone of Raglan Road, I discovered this love of nature and the ordinary rekindled following his operation for lung cancer. He said “As a poet I was born in or about 1955, the place of my birth being the banks of the Grand Canal”. After near death he could look at life and nature with newfound wonder. Nature is glorified in a pantheistic manner in the poetry written from then on. His language becomes imbued with the marvelous. Kavanagh had come full circle back to the glory and was at peace with himself and the world.

Kavanagh’s poetry would appeal to all those with an Irish connection, not just my fellow students. His early poems provide an insight into rural Irish life, a period unthought-of nowadays. Therefore his poetry is an historical device; it has a sense of history and patriotism to it. In Iniskeen Road: July Evening we hear of the dances that the Catholic Church disapproved of in the 1930’s as they considered them immoral and dangerous: such dances are the one “in Billy Brennan’s barn tonight,” The reader of the poem is also given insight into the role of the poet in Kavanagh’s time, as we hear from Kavanagh that “I have what every poet hates in spite”, that “I am king/ Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.” In the 1930’s the poet, while respected, was avoided by the rural Irish; Kavanagh called the poet “a stranger within the gates.” Here we see this; Kavanagh cannot partake in the dances. The repetition of “and” in the first stanza shows his compounding misery for the multitude of activities he is missing out on. Poetry in rural Ireland is again exposed in Shancoduff. Kavanagh, tired of the pastoral and almost georgic imagery produced by Irish poets up to and around his time, presents a realistic portrayal of the land. Here we see another aspect of rural Irish life; the difficulties facing farmers with the poor land symbolized by Kavanagh’s “black hills” which “have never seen the sun rising,” Shancoduff consisted of seven, watery hills bought by the Kavanagh family in the 1920’s which were later to be inherited by Kavanagh. The outsider even remarks of Kavanagh “by heavens he must be poor.” The dilapidated state of rural Ireland continues to be Kavanagh’s focus in Advent. Here the land is again poor. The “spirit-shocking wonder” for a child is simply a “black slanting Ulster hill”, possibly alluding to one of Kavanagh’s hills. Also present in the poem are “bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables”, again creating a picture in my classmates’ minds of rural Ireland, an important and interesting part of the development of Ireland to its current state today.

Another appealing feature of Kavanagh’s poetry which I feel would appeal to my classmates is Kavanagh’s celebration of the familiar and ordinary world. We see that Kavanagh does not deal with abstract issues but with ones that mean something to him and hence his poetry gains in credibility. The “bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables” from Advent adds to his recreation of childhood innocence as Kavanagh will go and watch these as they are “where Time/ begins.” Initially in the poem he remarks that “we have tested and tasted too much” and realizes that he, and others, must abandon the life of luxury to fully experience life. He sees in the final stanza that there is “no need to go searching” for beauty as it is present all around him, in “dung in gardens under trees,/ Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.” Likewise in Iniskeen Road: July Evening Kavanagh turns the ordinary village where “The bicycles go by in twos and threes” into a magical setting with “the half-talk code of mysteries/ And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.” Adding to the wonder of the scene is the mention of “A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.” Outside the town of Iniskeen were Kavanagh’s hills of Shancoduff where more celebration of the ordinary is seen. The hills are nothing to look at. Kavanagh himself remarks they are “my black hills”. We even hear of an outsider remarking of “them hungry hils/ That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?” However the hills are majestical in the eyes of the poet with Kavanagh’s calling of them “my Alps” and even the “sleety winds” of the area are described in a warm manner; they “fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff.” The farm attached to Shancoduff is another ordinary setting that Kavanagh acclaims for the reader in A Christmas Childhood. Here Kavanagh celebrates the family farm where he spent his childhood. When his father played the melodeon, above the farm “There were stars in the morning east/ And they danced to his music.” As the poem concludes the farm is alluded to the birthplace of Jesus Christ as he remarks that “I had a prayer like a white rose pinned/ On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.” Again a place in Monaghan is glorified in Epic. Kavanagh celebrates the mundane argument over half-a-rood of rocky Monaghan land and compares it to the 1938 Munich Crisis which had a hand in the beginning of WW2. He asks “Which/ was most important?” Homer’s ghost reminds him “I made the Iliad from such/ A local row. Gods make their own importance.” Monaghan seems to be preferred. Setting switches to Dublin for the poem Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin. Again the banal, here the canal and its surroundings, is presented as astounding. Kavanagh’s simple joy in being so close to nature is clear with the soothing sounds of the words “stilly and greeny”. “Mount Parnassus” is mentioned and such is the power of this serene setting that “no one will speak in prose” when they are present, only poetry.

In Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin Kavanagh does not only celebrate the familiar world, but he turns things ordinary into the extra-ordinary. I feel my classmates would find this unique method appealing; it is striking and adds to the poem, yet clear and easy to identify. Here the canal water has redemptive qualities and he asks “commemorate me when there is water,/ Canal water preferably, so stilly/ Greeny at the heart of summer.” The canal setting is turned from the ordinary everyday to the heroic with the juxtaposition of the hero’s tomb and the “canal-bank seat for the passer by” at the end. Elsewhere in his poetry, Kavanagh recreates the irrelevant fight and surroundings of Epic so he can remark that he has “lived in important places, times/ When great events were decided” Also, in A Christmas Childhood, Kavanagh remoulds his childhood farm into an Eden-like scene, saying “The light between the ricks of hay and straw/ Was a hole in Heaven’s gable.” Mention of the apple tree “With its December-glinting fruit we saw” alludes to the Tree of Knowledge. Even the familiar act of milking cows is depicted as making “the music of milking”. As general as the milking of a cow is the footfall in Iniskeen Road: July Evening which Kavanagh believes is “tapping secrecies of stone.” The empty countryside devoid of people who are at the dance is his “mile of kingdom” while all are at the dance. Another object of equal regularity, a hill in Shancoduff, has been climbed by the poet, but he tells us “I have climbed the Matterhorn.”

This transformation of the hill to “the Matterhorn” shows Kavanagh’s affection for the hills of his. However tone varies from poem to poem of Kavanagh’s and this variance I feel would add to the appeal of his poetry for my classmates, who would encounter a different message, setting, tone and theme in every Kavanagh poem they immerse themselves into. Even in Shancoduff we are given confliction of tone. Kavanagh’s affection is countered by the cattle-drovers condemning tone who believe of the poet who owns the hills: “by heavens he must be poor.” They are not poets, and cannot see what Kavanagh can see, that his “hills hoard the bright shillings of March/ While the sun searches in every pocket.” Further opposition of tone is seen in Iniskeen Road; July Evening. The opening octet contains a tone of partial envy with missing out on the “wink-and-elbow language of delight.” But envy is replaced by self-consolation in the concluding sestet as he realizes and accepts what his being a poet will bring. Pride and frustration combine as he is “king/ Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.” Similarly, ambiguity of tone is shown in Advent. Self-disgust pervades the opening stanza as the poet recognizes his and others’ gluttony; the “chink too wide” has allowed everything to be known and now “no wonder” enters. But hope enters the poem as he believes “penance will charm back the luxury/ Of a child’s soul.” Another tone, celebratory, is present in A Christmas Childhood. He praises even the frost the partially covers the potato-pits: “How wonderful that was, how wonderful!” Contentment is the poet’s adopted tone in Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin where Kavanagh feels at one with nature, asking “Commemorate me thus beautifully”.

The final appeal of Kavanagh’s poetry I will examine is his use of “I”. The appeal of this characteristic for my fellow classmates is obvious. Using “I” includes the reader and he/ she can feel affinity with the poem knowing it means something to the poet, for they have placed themselves in the poem for a reason. My class-mates would thus realize the poem has some worth; not only for them, but for Kavanagh also. As said above, Kavanagh feels an affinity with nature in Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin. He says “O commemorate me where there is water,” and shows his new-found love of simplicity and nature, after his spell in hospital in the 1950’s. In Epic Kavanagh’s use of “I” is crucial to the poem as his being a poet is of relevance to the ghost of Homer, the famous epic-poet, visiting him. Homer tells him “I made the Iliad from such/ A local row. Gods make their own importance.” Elsewhere, the poet-Kavanagh is at the centre of Iniskeen Road: July Evening. Apart from him, only “Alexander Selkirk knew the plight/ of being king and government and nation.” There are no inhabitants for his “mile of kingdom” for all are dancing. Isolation affects Kavanagh in Shancoduff too. While he corrects the cattle-drovers about his “Alps”, Kavanagh remarks “I hear and is my heart not badly shaken.” He is content with his lot, but his being left-out is notable. Kavanagh’s presence in another poem, Advent, adds to another poem’s credibility again. Here self-inclusion validates the criticism that “We have tested and tasted too much”. He and others must repent and he tells his lover that “we’ll return to Doom/ The knowledge we stole but could not use.”

As shown, Kavanagh’s poetry contains many features which would appeal to my classmates. Through reading Kavanagh’s poetry, they are transported back to rural Irish life and given a taste of life not just for the poet, but the common inhabitant of the time. Devices of Kavanagh stretch from the celebration of the familiar world to the making the ordinary exceptional. Variance of mood and atmosphere circles the poetry, intruding when Kavanagh sees fit, creating wonderful poetry. He would appeal to any reader, including my classmates.

king lear tragic flaw

King Lear

King Lear Revision Guide

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Act and Scene summary

Act 1

1. Lear divides his kingdom

2. Gloucester believes Edmund about Edgar

3. Goneril shows her hatred of Lear

4. Lear curses Goneril

5. Lear rejects Goneril and fears madness

Act 2

1. Edgar flees. Gloucester’s heart cracks

2. Kent abuses Oswald and is put in the stocks

3. Edgar becomes Tom

4. Regan rejects Lear. Lear goes mad

Act 3

1. Kent looks for Lear

2. Lear wanders in the storm

3. Gloucester confides in Edmund

4. Lear confronts the disguised Edgar

5. Edmund betrays Gloucester

6. Lear tries his daughters

7. Gloucester is blinded

How to have a great introduction… King Lear

Shakespeare’s tragedies take us on a journey: They confront our greatest hopes and fears, our best and worst of actions. They probe the extremities of what it means to be human. They expose the suffering we inflict and the suffering we bear. Despite being written hundreds of years ago, the dilemmas of Shakespeare’s tragedies are dilemmas that still rule our public arena and our private lives; family relations, power struggles, obsessions and betrayals. What can we learn from seeing terrible events played and replayed? How can we uplifted by seeing tragedies on stage? Tragedy explores the human capacity for cruelty but also for endurance. Tragedy heals by showing us what we are capable of.

 

Romeo and Juliet Act 3 scene 1 Notes / Dramatic Scene

The hopeful tone of Act II changes dramatically at the beginning of Act III as Romeo becomes embroiled in the brutal conflict between the families. The searing heat, flaring tempers, and sudden violence of this scene contrast sharply with the romantic, peaceful previous night. The play reaches a dramatic crescendo as Romeo and Juliet’s private world clashes with the public feud with tragic consequences. Mercutio’s death is the catalyst for the tragic turn the play takes from this point onward.

True to character, the hot-headed Mercutio starts a quarrel the instant Tybalt requests a word with him, by responding, “make it a word and a blow.” Tybalt at first ignores Mercutio’s insults because, ironically again, he’s saving his blade for Romeo.

Romeo, by contrast, is as passionate about love as Tybalt and Mercutio are about hostility. Romeo appears, cheerful and contented with having wed Juliet only hours before, and unaware that he’s even been challenged to a duel. Until Mercutio dies, Romeo remains emotionally distinct from the other characters in the scene. Romeo walks atop his euphoric cloud buoyed by blissful thoughts of marriage to Juliet, peace, unity, and harmony. In response to Tybalt’s attempts to initiate a fight, Romeo tells Tybalt that he loves “thee better than thou canst devise.” Ironically, Romeo’s refusal to duel with Tybalt brings about the very acceleration of violence he sought to prevent.

In Romeo’s mind, he has shed his identity as a Montague and has become one with Juliet, his wife. Romeo’s separation echoes the balcony scene where he said “Call me but love…Henceforth I never will be Romeo.” However, Tybalt seeks revenge against Romeo because a Montague appeared at a Capulet ball. While Romeo no longer labels himself Montague, Tybalt still sees Romeo as standing on the wrong side of a clear line that divides the families.

Ist Year bookclub

Buddy Nigel Hilton

n king learClothing Imagery in King Lear/ Clothing and the Humanity of the Superfluous

Through the motif of clothing, Shakespeare explores what it means to be human. 

When two of the king’s daughters, who plot to kill their father, attempt to take away the king’s entourage, they rhetorically ask him why he needs so many knights. Lear responds,  ”O reason no the need! Our basest beggars / Are in the poorest thing superfluous.” Lear sees that our humanity depends on superfluity; even a beggar, who owns and can afford little, will wear or carry something “superfluous,” a thing he or she does not “need.” Lear goes on to suggest that not acknowledging this fact leads one to view “[M]an’s life as cheap as beast’s.”

He tells one of his daughters: “Thou art a lady: / If only to go warm were gorgeous, / Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st, / Which scarcely keeps thee warm.” Lear points out that his daughter’s royal clothing, as unnecessary as his many knights, reflects her dignity as a lady.

Later, when the daughters shut the doors on their father, leaving him out in the storm to perish and go mad, the king begins to spout wisdom in the midst of his madness; he embraces a concept diametrically opposed to his earlier epiphany regarding clothing. An eighty year old king–flawed, driven out by his daughters, and standing on the heath amidst the rain and wind, thunder and lightning–cries out that an uncivilized and unclothed man is “the thing itself,” meaning: he is genuine and more authentic than the “sophisticated” man who dresses according to societal norms.  He proceeds to tear off his shirt. His attendants stop him from taking off his clothes, but he is realizing here that dignified dress does NOT necessarily reflect the integrity of a person–he learns this through a painful insight: he sees how his “noble” daughters, who dress in royal clothing, are actually ignoble inside; in fact, they are evil, plotting murder, treason, and torture.

Lear captures the hypocrisy of civilized dress with the following words: “Through tattered clothing small vices do appear / Robes and furred gowns hide all.” One notices or projects small misdeeds in a person poorly dressed, but royal or fancy clothing hides a person’s nature, and we tend to not see the truth behind the beautiful clothing, which distracts us from the person’s character.

This dichotomy–the tension between the dignity of clothing and the treachery of clothing–is resolved towards the end of the play when Cordelia, Lear’s third daughter (honest, loyal, loving), saves him from the storm and attempts to bring him back to health and sanity. What is the first thing Cordelia does to make sure her father is restored to health? She has the king dressed in royal clothing. This careful concern for dress and the proper clothing for her father resolves Lear’s earlier opposing ideas.

Ideally, dignity in dress does not necessarily represent hypocrisy; rather, our apparel grounds us in our identity and keeps us sane. One can marry the outer and the inner with integrity. The superfluity of clothing clarifies one’s identity. Without the superfluous, we are abandoned royalty: wronged, unprotected, and out in a storm, a storm that is blind to who is human and who is beast.

LEAR

 Lear describes his abdication of the throne, using the play’s first clothing image, as ‘divest[ing] us…of rule’ (I.i.49).

By the start of the first storm scene (III.ii), Lear is ‘bareheaded’.

On first meeting Poor Tom, he attempts to strip off his remaining clothes, which he calls mere ‘lendings’ (III.iv.106), to reveal the real man (‘the thing itself’) beneath. (There is clear irony here )

 Edgar, who is pretending, ‘a poor, bare, forked animal’ (105-106), is seen by Lear as the most accurate picture of the human condition on stage.

Is this a reflection of Lear’s muddle as he descends into madness, or a reflection of the play’s deeper truth?)

Even when Poor Tom is naked, Lear continues to be obsessed by the idea of his clothing (III.vi.76-78).

In effacing his identity as Edgar, Edgar removes all his clothes – anticipating Lear’s progressive stripping away of layers,

1.  first metaphorically (his titles),

2. then metonymically (his knights)

3. and finally literally (his clothing), at the end of which he arrives at a fuller sense of self.

 

Poetic – How to talk about an unseen poem

Click here for ms word sheet

Skellig Character Mind Map

Eavan Boland

Themes in Boland are

1. Her response to violence

2. Her sense of history

3. Life in the suburbs, her experiences as a women and relationships

4. Colonisation

5. Nature

• Her language is poised, sensual, evoactive, tender and incisive.

• The images are chosen delibretly and explored in great detail

 

Notes : THE WAR HORSE/ Love / The Shadow Doll

• Tends to use simile.
• Boland once said she found simile as an obvious form of comparison, metaphor more sophisticated and subtle.
• Horse represents spirit of war , unpredictability of history
• Criticism of our apathy
• Images tends to be quite heavy handed
• Tinkers horse – language of war , loss of war,
• End of poem more cryptic
• Shifts from Suburbia to Contemplation of History.

THE WAR HORSE
THEME	LANGUAGE & IMAGERY
Written in Dublin in 1975, this poem was written against a background of violence in Northern Ireland. Despite the tranquillity of the south, the threat of a spill-over always exists.Boland’s garden is invaded by a horse from a local traveller camp. Her plants are damaged, then the horse moves on. Nobody confronts it. Using language of shocking violence, Boland uses the horse as a metaphor to consider the bigger issues of the day: the danger hanging over Dublin; people’s hope that by keeping their heads down, it may not materialise; the random nature of violence; and the emotional legacy of our ancestors’ struggles.  Lines 1 – 4 Although there is nothing unusual about the night, a horse – described by the sounds it makes – ‘stamps death’ onto her garden plants. Lines 5 – 9 Boland looks out the window, and sees and hears the horse. Then he is gone, with no great harm done. Lines 10 – 16 Boland calmly reviews the damage. She feels distant from the carnage wrought by the horse. Lines 17 –  20 Boland explores this feeling. She broadens the ‘I’ to a ‘we’ and questions the attitudes of those who, like her, are so distant from conflict that its presence is a vague concern about the radicalism of those who live and die by violent acts: ‘our unformed fear/ Of fierce commitment’. It is easy to be calm about ‘crushed, mutilated’ corpses when they are ‘remote’. ‘why should we care’ she asks. Lines 21 – 25 Now, the horse is a symbol of the war. Neighbours hide behind curtains, pretending not to notice. Thankfully, the horse passes. Lines 26 – 30 For a moment the threat of the horse awakened feelings of violence in Boland, and reminded her of the struggles of Irish history: ‘burned countryside, illicit braid: / A cause ruined before, a world betrayed’. Violence is always present in Irish history, and here it connects a woman living in the suburbs in the late twentieth century, with the world of her ancestors in the Irish countryside.	A controlled and disciplined poem:Fifteen rhyming coupletsStorytelling: Opening word ‘This’  and clipped monosyllables of ‘This dry night’ sets the scene. Onomatopoeia and alliteration ‘clip, clop casual’ ‘his breath hissing’ ‘his snuffling head’. Punctuation suits movements of horse: Enjambment of ‘loosed from its daily tether/ In the tinker camp on the Enniskerry Road’ Short clauses of ‘his breath hissing, his snuffling head/ Down. He is gone. No great harm is done’ captures the abrupt movements. Later in the poem, repetition of ‘stumbles’ captures the random violence of the horse’s incursion. Use of military terms ‘maimed limb’ ‘expendable’ ‘a mere/ Line of defence’ ‘volunteer’ ‘head/ blown form growth’ ‘screamless dead’ Violence of language and imagery ‘stamps death’ ‘corpses, remote, crushed, mutilated’. ‘huge/ threatening’ ‘Blood is still/ With atavism’ ‘That rose he smashed frays/ Ribboned across our hedge’ ‘burned countryside’ ‘illicit braid’ (decoration on army uniforms: men like Robert Emmet loved elaborate uniforms) ‘ruined’ ‘betrayed’.
THE SHADOW DOLL
THEME	LANGUAGE & IMAGERY
Boland describes a shadow doll, sent to the bride in Victorian times to model her dress. The doll is delicate and perfectly formed in its glass case. Like the women of its time, it did not display human feelings. In contrast, Boland remembers the night before her own wedding night. It was a scene of organised chaos, but she was in control of her new beginning, symbolised by her firm action in shutting and locking the suitcase.Stanza OneA detailed and finely drawn description of the doll. Stanza Two Now, the porcelain bride still survives, albeit in a frozen, emotionless condition (‘airless glamour’). Stanza Three Boland sees the Victorian bride, like the doll, as imprisoned. She is not expected to have physical feelings or sexual desires; she must be ‘discreet about/ visits, fevers, quickenings and lusts’. Stanza Four Boland wonders what the Victorian bride thought as she looked at the doll. Did she see the doll’s inanimate perfection as a reflection of her own emotionless wedding, at which she would not feel ‘satin rise and fall with the vows’. Stanza Five Boland moves to herself, on the night before her own wedding night. It is a very different scene, with the symbols of marriage being the practical wedding gifts strewn around her: the coffee pots and the clocks. Stanza Six Despite having a traditional marriage with ‘gifts’ and ‘lace’, she will not be a lifeless doll. She puts wedding items in a battered case, then pushes down, and locks it all away.	Helplessness of bride: The unnamed ‘they’ ‘porcelain bride’ ‘airless glamour’ Elegance of doll Blooms stitched as a tiny hem Hoops to shape the dress ‘neatly sewn’ ‘seed pearls’ ‘rose petals’ Archaic language and materials portrays the doll’s belonging to a different age ‘ivory tulle’ ‘veil’ ‘hoops for the crinoline’ The Victorian bride was graceful but colourless: ‘ivory’ ‘oyster gleam’ ‘shell-tone’ ‘pearls’ However, hidden passions are hinted at in the colours of her face and flowers: ‘bisque features’ ‘rose petals’ Contrast with Boland’s life ‘ashtray’ ‘coffee pots and clocks’ ‘battered tan case’ Image of Boland as woman who will not be controlled by the accoutrements of marriage: ‘pressing down, then/ pressing down again. And then, locks’. With final monosyllables, we hear the lock clicking into place.

• Boland Notes – Love
  Theme = Love / Past
• Time of day are used to suggest atmosphere
• Tone is eager, passionate and longing.
• Viewpoint: The poem examines love as it is experienced and expressed through varying roles: lover, wife, mother.
• The poem opens at dusk and surprises us  with unsettling references to ‘hell’, and the near death of a child. Love, however, has ‘the feather and muscle of wings’. (bird metaphor)
• The male hero is both ‘heroic’ ((saving child) and a traitor as he walks away at the end
• The second part of the poem returns to the present which has ‘healed’, where love moves ‘across our day to day and ordinary distances’.
• The speaker, reflecting on her life, wonders will it ever regain the intensity of earlier years.
  Key Quotes
• myths collided
• Contrast in love past/present 

love had the feather and muscle of wings and had come to live with us, a brother of fire and air.

We love each other still. Across our day-to-day and ordinary distances we speak plainly. We hear each other clearly.

• - And yet I want to return to you
  on the bridge of the Iowa river as you were, 
• Will we ever live so intensely again?  
• You walk away and I cannot follow.

Lies of Silence Summary Chpt 7+8

SEVEN

Michael Dillon drives to his house to take his things for going to London. He takes clothes and the documents which he has set aside before. When he looks out of the window he sees a white car and gets nervous because he thinks he is being followed, but it is just any car driving down the street.

 Then he leaves the house and drives to Peg`s shop where he hopes to meet Moira. But when he arrives Peg says that she has just been on television to tell what hashappened the last night. Further more she says that she wants doesn’t want  Moira to work in the shop any more because it`s too dangerous with the IRA.

 When he gets back to the hotel he is told that there are many reporters who want to interview him, but he doesn`t want to say anything. Michael gets to know that Moira is at the BBC . He drives there to tell her that his transfer has come throw and that he will go to London soon. Michael is asked if he will join the interview with his wife but he declines the offer.

 As he arrives back at the hotel his father is there. They sit down in the bar and Michael tells about the bomb and that he is going to London, but he doesn`tmention his quarrel with Moira and his affair with Andrea. His father adises the lies of silence. A reporter  comes back and asks if it`s right that he has seen the face of one of the IRA men like Moira has metioed . Michael gets anxious and denies it.

Shortly after this he gets a call where someone warns him that he is talking a bit too much about what has happened. Michael meets moira to tell her about the phone call and ask why she has told the reporter that he have seen Kev`s face. Again they start to quarrel until Moira leaves the cafe.

 EIGHT

In the hotel Michael gets a visit from  Inspector Randall and Chief Inspector Norton, who  ask if he is still willing to testify against the IRA boy because they have an idea who it might be.

Dillon is willing to testiy  and says where they can call him in London the next time. When Michael sits in the hotel bar he sees Moira on the TV news. He is  relieved  that she doesn`t say something about seeing Kev`s face. Then he goes to Andrea and stays with her .

As he arrives in the hotel Moira phones him and says that she has already called a solicitor about a divorce. In the afternoon  the hotel staff have organised a party for Dillon’s departure. Michael is very happy to see that they all like him very much and gets a bit sad at his departure.

Lies of silence summary chpt 3

THREE

The third chapter deals with the events of the following morning.

One of the IRA man instructs Michael that he has to put on normal clothes as if going to work and then heshould drive to the hotel . He must park his car in the normal space and leave the hotel again to go into a shop. There he should buy some cigarettes or something else and after this a green taxi will take him back home

Moira is very anxious at being left alone and not knowing what they will do to her husband although Michael promised her that nothing will happen to him. Dillon goes of to the hotel followed by the white Ford for part of the way.

He arrives at the hotel and does like he was told. In the car park he sees Pottinger and suddenly he knows that he is the one the IRA is going to kill . He realizes that there will be no warning and faces a moral decision. Michael sees the many innocent people who are about to die.

As he goes to the shop, he gets very nervous and calls the police He then goes back to the hotel and gives a bomb alert. All people run out of the building and as the police arrive, the bomb explodes creating panic. Michael remembers Moira in their house. He borrows a car off and drives quickly to his house.

There he finds his spooked wife and Inspector Randall, who wants to know what has happened. Michael remarks that he has seen the face of one of the IRA boys. The Inspector advises them not to tell anybody about their role in this story, then he drives Moira to her parents and Dillon goes back to the hotel after promising he will come to Moira’s parents later on.

Kavangagh’s lesson for simple life- Irish Times Article

The cosmopolitan life has slipped away from many of us in these straitened times. But fear not – Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry provides pointers for making the most of meagre surroundings

THE COSMOPOLITAN life is nothing if not unoriginal. From city to city across the world, the modern elite of much-travelled professionals brand themselves identically: by their experiences (on holiday or in the ubiquitous “year out”); by what they own (Apple products or houses in “up-and-coming” districts); even by the kind of books they choose to let themselves be seen reading, and the kind of cafes in which they choose to read them. This is a life lived outwards. While not exactly shallow, it is extensive. The recession, of course, is an antidote to all that for many – and a harsh, unwelcome one. Yet this life is so tied up with our idea of being broad-minded and fulfilled that we scarcely countenance the alternative.

Denied his travel and his products, the cosmopolitan thinks life has stopped, when perhaps what is needed is to develop a talent for simplicity and for staying put, either out of necessity or because of a realisation that we have all “tasted and tested too much”. That quote is no accident – for Patrick Kavanagh could be the poet laureate of the post-Celtic Tiger age. It must be said that the forced poverty of Kavanagh’s life in meagre, squalid dwellings is something nobody should have to put up with. Nor should those robbed of security be asked to look on the bright side of bohemianism – Kavanagh would never have done so, and in fact dreamed all his life of a monthly pay cheque. But what he does have much to tell us about is the right kind of simplicity, and how to embrace it.

“IT’S NOT NEARLY AS BAD AS YOU’D IMAGINE / LIVING AMONG SMALL FARMERS IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND”

With the advent of carbon taxes and no alternative to fossil-fuelled air travel in sight, we might be approaching an era when, once more, we will have to put up with our immediate surroundings for far longer stretches. And while the 21st-century cosmopolitan might think that to stay put is to be bogged down, Kavanagh sees it a little differently.

He sees it as the opportunity for a life lived not outwards, extensively, but downwards, intensively. He makes the distinction between what he called the provincial and the parochial. The provincial has no mind of his own. He doesn’t trust his own eyes “until he has heard what the metropolis has to say on the subject”. The parochial, on the other hand, “never doubts the social and artistic validity” of his own place. “All great civilisations are based on parochialism,” says Kavanagh; the challenge is to try to make greatness wherever one finds oneself.

To be thus proud has its dangers, of course. The danger is one of Irish exceptionalism, something that was evident in the boom when, somehow, we were different. Somehow, our model was unique; somehow, we and we alone would have the soft landing. It is vital for those proud of the “parish” to be brave enough to have humility, to dispel the native bravado that thinks “the potato-patch is the ultimate”.

“GODS MAKE THEIR OWN IMPORTANCE”

While the busy life might seem important, we usually will concede, at a distance, it is less important than it appears. Faced with a quieter, more private existence, the challenge is to do the opposite: to make seem important something that does not have status conferred by society. We should all, like Kavanagh, be able to say “I have lived in important places, times/ When great events were decided”, while talking “only” about “who owned/ That half a rood of rock”.

All our lives are epics, even if they seem small. Kavanagh’s Epic is, after all, a sonnet. We can be Homers without Troy or Achilles. He tells us to “create an epic” out of: Girls in red blouses, / Steps up to houses, / Sunlight round gables. / Gossip’s young fables / The life of the street.

“Material itself has no special value” for Kavanagh, but “it is what our imagination and our love do to it” that counts. After all, “Even Cabra can surprise”.

“WALLOW IN THE HABITUAL, THE BANAL”

If Cabra is to surprise us, we have to know how to look at it. Wishing it were the Marais or Williamsburg will not cut it. For a long time, Kavanagh’s Dublin was as Wordsworth’s city, the “endless stream of moving men and moving things! . . . the quick dance/ Of colours, lights, and forms”.

To truly see, Wordsworth needed to step back. So too did Kavanagh, who, after years of messianic engagement with the urban scene, finally figured out how to be an “un-angry enumerator”.

He stepped outside the city’s “quick dance” and began noticing and naming: Canal Bank Walk , though set in the city, is a list of individual, noticed objects: “a branch in the water”; “The bright stick trapped”; “an old seat”; “a beech”; “a lock”; “a barge”. The poem affirms the inexhaustible variety of every place, ironically by ignoring the city’s very blur, its mass of symbols and people, and instead selecting from it so that things in themselves can truly be seen. With such a formula, exotic is truly in the eye of the beholder.

“WHY DO PEOPLE ENGAGE IN SUCH MADNESS?”

For Kavanagh, the “bohemian jungle” lies on “the perimeter of Commerce”, and his entire Dublin life is a lesson in how to get the working life wrong. On the one hand, he suffered near destitution at times; on the other, he allowed work to embitter him. Getting caught up in his satires and excoriating journalism, he had “no repose”. Economic disaster has caused many of us to reassess our relationship with work. Kavanagh’s own disaster, lung cancer, and his convalescence, afforded him a similar chance for a new outlook. His real self he had lost to the “unfruitful prayer” of satire.

Kavanagh’s trick to finding “the right simplicity” was to tell himself in poetry that he would not miss what he did not have, divorcing the true self from worldly desire: “Luxury would ruin your sublime/ Imagination in no time”.

He reneges on the half-secret ambition for “A car, a big suburban house” and deems it far more important that he is one “capable of an intense love that is experience”. He cajoles himself to wake up and “compromise/ On the non-essential sides”. The message is simple: be happy with what you’ve got.

“SOMEWHERE TO STAY DOESN’T MATTER”

While it’s all very well to look forward to the next rush, the next trip, we often overlook the importance of what we bring with us when we go places, or what we should be able to bring. Because all poetry is elegy, there is nothing all that remarkable about the beginning of Kerr’s Ass : “We borrowed the loan of Kerr’s big ass/ To go to Dundalk with butter”. Kavanagh continues the poem with his usual noticing: “The straw-stuffed straddle, the broken breeching,/ With bits of bull-wire tied;/ The winkers that had no choke-band,/ The collar and the reins . . . ”

What happens next is what arrests the reader: “In Ealing Broadway, London Town, I name their several names/ Until a world comes to life.”

Kavanagh, the poet in the metropolis, knows the value of being an individual, the sum of his own unique experiences and memories. This ability to imagine ourselves out of a situation implies an inner fortification against the vagaries that can be presented by any particular set of circumstances – absurd luck or failure in the present are beyond our control. But if you are as interesting and important internally as your surroundings, this does not matter so much.

RUDE AWAKENING THE HOSPITAL YEARS

Though during his convalescence from cancer in 1955 Kavanagh turned his lyric impulse towards extolling the virtues of a carefree, comic aesthetic, he was growing more cantankerous than ever. The gap between the boorish man and the sensitive poet was never wider. Stories of his rudeness abound, but neither was he able to take his own advice about savouring the simple things. In The Hospital he wrote beautifully on his new theme: “A year ago I fell in love with the functional ward/ Of a chest hospital: square cubicles in a row/ Plain concrete, wash basins – an art lover’s woe/ Not counting how the fellow in the next bed snored/ But nothing whatever is by love debarred”. And yet, when discharged from this very hospital, he turned down the offer from his friend and publisher John Ryan of a month in the expensive Merrion nursing home. Instead, he succeeded in getting Ryan to foot the bill for a week’s luxury in the Royal Hibernian Hotel.

1st Year Literary Toolbox Terms

1styear poetic terms

Bitesize English Help

Bitesize english

Knowlege Notes – Cultural Context

Cultural Context knowlege notes

comparative Text powerpoint

Comparative Text lies of silence

Michael Longley Sample Essay

Sample  Response
Michael Longley is a poet of keen observation with a great sensitivity to the world around him, both human and natural. The poems on the Leaving Certificate Course reflect some of the major themes in his work, dealing with such subjects as the interplay between humans and the natural world, father-son relationships, and the violent realities and consequences of war.

He is aware that the relationship between humans and nature is not always harmonious. He offers a stark contrast in Badger between the nocturnal creature, silently managing “the earth with his paws”, and the man-made diggers that plough the land and leave destruction in their wake. There is an  overt conflict between nature and man. The badger does not destroy the  stone circles and cromlechs.  It is a poem that deals with an environmental theme and Longley’s message is critical of human intervention as it brings only violence, destruction and disequilibrium to the natural balance of the world .This is symbolized by the functions of the badger’s digestive tract and its contents. This poem highlights human destructive influence on nature.

Michael Longley said of self heal that this is poetry as plain as it gets yet it too has a destructive violent element. Essentially, it is a poem about the violence which lurks under the apparently peaceful surface of our civilization .In this poem Longley assumes the voice of an unhappy and disturbed inhabitant of the countryside in Mayo. In this monologue the speaker is a young female teacher who is upset, although not frightened, by the awkward attention of a retarded boy whom she is trying, unsuccessfully, to teach. The word “gently” is of vital significance in the poem. The young boy’s sexual advances are not presented as threatening and the narrator’s response causes a far from gentle punishment. The title is ironic and evocative. None of the characters in the poem heal, nor do they heal themselves. This is so, despite any intentions in that direction. The question, “Could I love someone so gone in the head?” haunts the poem. The narrator, like the poet, tries to convey the beauty of flowers. But she, unlike the poet, fails. The result is entrapment, violence and extreme pain. The humanity represented, at the beginning of the poem, by education and inspiration is replaced, at the end of the poem, by primitive violence and by animal sexuality.

Longley is no stranger to violence and he treats of it in many of his poems with particular reference to the Troubles in the north. In Wounds, he explores the grim realities and the far-reaching consequences of war. Whether it is in the trenches of the First World War where his father fought, or in the streets and homes of Belfast, war is always violent and undignified. Like the diggers in Badger, war is another human machine that wreaks havoc and destruction.

A son of a World War 1 veteran, Longley has written prolifically about his relationship with his father. In Wounds, Longley records the occasion on which his father revealed his experiences of war. This was done as his father was approaching death, as such, we are led to believe that they did not share a typical relationship, nor an entirely open one. The poem itself juxtaposes World War 1 with the Troubles of 1970s Belfast. Longley depicts the battlefields as being “a landscape of dead buttocks”, which along with the picture of the cynical “London-Scottish padre, resettling kilts with his swagger stick and a prayer”, amplifies the simple facelessness, impersonalised picture we already hold of WW1.

In contrast, the Troubles are portrayed as an entirely personal debacle; Longley writes of a man, a husband, a father “tidying away the supper dishes” before being brutally shot down in front of his family by a “shivering boy.” Each character is described, and as such, each character is humanised. The victim is conveyed as innocent, it is implied that the act is utterly unjust, but the boy – described as “shivering” – is perhaps a victim too, a naïve, unknowing, albeit living victim. The idea that the boy didn’t really understand why and what he was doing is echoed in the wry humoured concluding line, “I think ‘Sorry Missus’ was all he said.” Some might call Longley an apologist; some might mark him as forgiving and compassionate. Regardless, the idea of innocent through ignorance is illustrated throughout, whether it be in Northern Ireland, “I bury beside him three teenage soldiers,” or on the battlefields of the Somme, “the Ulster Division going over the top with ‘Fuck the Pope!’” At the end of this verse about World War 1, Longley finally gives the war a face: his father’s; in soporific fashion, Longley poignantly croons “I touched his head, his thin hand I touched.”

Like in Wounds, Longley’s Wreaths again deals with the Troubles, only this time, more exclusively. The poems is divided in three sections – the Civil Servant, the Greengrocer and the Linen Workers – which would probably stand alone as fine poems, but together, form a collectively excellent poem. The Civil Servant was killed as “he was preparing an Ulster Fry” by a bullet which clinically “entered his mouth and pierced his skull.” The extremely ordinary action of preparing an Ulster Fry is contrasted with the surreal reaction of widow who, “took a hammer and chisel and removed the black keys from the piano.” In an example of Longley’s sublime mastery of poetic technique, he dehumanises the Civil Servant gradually; first he “lay in his dressing gown”, then his garden is surrounded by “notebooks” and “cameras”, before finally, he is “rolled up like red carpet.” The verses are factual and seemingly emotionless, but – following the expression, “the finest fury is most controlled” – it is perhaps the very factualness of the stanzas that convey Longley’s great outrage at the murder.

The second section of Wreaths is littered with colloquialisms, The Greengrocer, contains such phrases as “ran of good shop.” This expression conveys a sense of locality, and portrays the greengrocer through his attitude towards work. It is ironic then, that the “death-dealers” would come in the form of customers. The Greengrocer is set at Christmas time, “dates and chestnuts and tangerines”; firstly this enforces the tragedy of the atrocity, but its poignancy later gives way to satiric takes on the Christmas story, “three wise men,” for example.

The final section, The Linen Workers, contains surreal religious symbols such as “Christ’s teeth descend,” which are used, again, to express how unreal the murder by the IRA of innocent, Protestant linen-workers is. Originally, the phrase “I am blinded by the blaze of his [Christ’s] smile”, confused me, but I now believe that Longley aimed to deplore the murders which were committed in the name of religion by those whose faith was blind. Finally, Longley mentions his father. He writes “I must polish the spectacles, balance them upon his nose,” which is surely a statement of solidarity with the families of the linen workers, who will indeed have to do so before burying their loved ones. The tone of the collective poem is unresolvedly poised between pity, satire and benediction, which is perhaps deliberate in order to suggest the sense of despair present at that time. 

 

A hopeful chord is struck, however, when Longley writes sixteen years later, in Ceasefire, of the possibility of some kind of peace. Ceasefire,” was composed on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Irish Republican Army ceasefire. Like much of his work, it recasts the Irish woes as a Greek tragedy. It begins as Achilles and Priam gaze on the corpse of Priam’s son Hector, whom Achilles has just killed. In this free translation of an episode from Homer’s Iliad, old enemies Achilles and Priam achieve at least an uneasy reconciliation. For both of them this means compromise. Priam must swallow his pride, “kiss Achilles’ hand” and beg for his son’s body. And Achilles must allow himself to be affected by Priam’s grief. A ceasefire in Ireland, Longley seems to say, will demand similar compromise from both communities and a recognition of one another’s grief”

Longley is a peace activist who has tried to persuade his countrymen and women of the virtues of cultural diversity. The poet has written that it “would be inhuman if (a poet) did not respond to tragic events in his own community, and a poor artist if he did not seek to endorse that response imaginatively.”   

 

Leaving Certificate English Examination 2006

“Writing to Michael Longley.”Write a letter to Michael Longley telling him about your experience of studying his poetry. In your letter you should refer to his themes and the way he expresses them. Support the points you make by reference to the poetry on your course.

Leaving Certificate English Examination 2002

Imagine you have invited Michael Longley to give a reading of his poems to your class or group. What poems would you ask him to read and why do you think they would appeal to your fellow students

Leaving Certificate English Examination 2001

What impact did the poetry of Michael Longley make on you as a reader? In shaping your answer you might consider some of the following: Your overall sense of the personality or outlook of the poet The poet’s use of language and imagery Your favourite poem or poems.

Department of Education – Question on Sample Paper 1

“Michael Longley is a keen observer of the natural world, but his poetry also shows a fascination with the ordinary lives of common people.”Discuss this statement in relation to the poems by Longley that you studied for this course.

Leaving Certificate English – Sample Question

Write an essay in which you outline your reasons for liking and/or not liking the poetry of Michael Longley. Support your points by reference to the poetry of Longley that you have studied.