Birthday Letters
Information on all 6 Poems.
Full Bright Scholars • This poem is about when he first saw Plath • Use of first person, draws us in. painstaking his own memory • "Where was it, in the strand? A display"- Questioning his memory. • "A picture of that year’s intake....."- Follows up with a series of statements. • "You" become the addressee • Very tightly Structured • Veronica Lake- actor • "Your Veronica Lake bang. Not what it hid"- Plath had a scar on her face • "It was the first fresh peach.....- returns to his own memory for the day. remembers an image • "It would appear blond. And your grin........"- change of tone • Events, feelings of memory are filtered by perspectives • "Was it then I bought a peach?"- England was coming out of the war, fruit was imported. • 1955- Plath arrived in England with a scholarship to Cambridge • She wanted everything to be perfect= writing.
*Last four lines are structured around Powerful, alliterative, central imagery.
The poem moves from uncertainly to certainly. • This poem is a formal address to Plath. eg Letter, Journal • Plath is the all American girl, capable, confident • Memory forms our perspective. memory is a partial truth • We only remember what is important. Therefore what memory we find is a partial truth • Photographs are also a perspective. They are often limited and distort. • In a photograph, it presents a mask, distorting the truth, perpetuating a perspective (happy and untroubled) • An essence, we don't really know what is hidden.
Language techniques • repetition of ‘it'- showing impersonal, ambigionious • repetition of 'arriving, arrived'- uncertainty • Allusion of Veronica Lake • "then I forgot'- short sentence enphate • 'the peach'- is symbolic • irony of double perspective • truth and perspective is limited by our knowledge
Sam
• This poem is allegory of their life
Full Bright Scholars • This poem is about when he first saw Plath • Use of first person, draws us in. painstaking his own memory • "Where was it, in the strand? A display"- Questioning his memory. • "A picture of that year’s intake....."- Follows up with a series of statements. • "You" become the addressee • Very tightly Structured • Veronica Lake- actor • "Your Veronica Lake bang. Not what it hid"- Plath had a scar on her face • "It was the first fresh peach.....- returns to his own memory for the day. remembers an image • "It would appear blond. And your grin........"- change of tone • Events, feelings of memory are filtered by perspectives • "Was it then I bought a peach?"- England was coming out of the war, fruit was imported. • 1955- Plath arrived in England with a scholarship to Cambridge • She wanted everything to be perfect= writing.
*Last four lines are structured around Powerful, alliterative, central imagery.
The poem moves from uncertainly to certainly. • This poem is a formal address to Plath. eg Letter, Journal • Plath is the all American girl, capable, confident • Memory forms our perspective. memory is a partial truth • We only remember what is important. Therefore what memory we find is a partial truth • Photographs are also a perspective. They are often limited and distort. • In a photograph, it presents a mask, distorting the truth, perpetuating a perspective (happy and untroubled) • An essence, we don't really know what is hidden.
Language techniques • repetition of ‘it'- showing impersonal, ambigionious • repetition of 'arriving, arrived'- uncertainty • Allusion of Veronica Lake • "then I forgot'- short sentence enphate • 'the peach'- is symbolic • irony of double perspective • truth and perspective is limited by our knowledge
Sam
• This poem is allegory of their life