Considering 20in 20detail 20one 20poem
Mayce Al-Hroub
Considering in detail one poem, or a passage from a poem, discuss ways in which Harrison explores memories of difficult family relationships.
In the course of your answer:
Look closely at the effects of language, imagery and verse form;
Comment on how you think your chosen poem relates to others by Harrison.
‘I had a very loving upbringing…education and poetry came in to disrupt that… I’ve been trying to create new wholes out of that disruption ever since’ said Tony Harrison, an English poet whose works are particularly drawn up from the memories of his working-class childhood and the guilt held as a result of his alienation and rejection against his family’s traditional working –class culture. In Book Ends I and II, two Meredithian sonnets depicting the impactful death of Harrison’s mother, Harrison stylistically uses his usual poetic techniques when exploring memories portraying the difficulty of his family relationships. Exploring these memories is an issue widely communicated in his collection of poems: ‘School of Eloquence’, with poems such as Breaking the Chain and A Good Read supporting the idea that Harrison’s middle-class education and chosen life path distanced him from his community and family, thus creating hardship in their relationship.
A prominent memory that haunts Harrison’s work is that of distance, the continual distance that existed between himself and his father. This theme is particularly highlighted throughout sonnet I in Book Ends through Harrison’s word choices: ‘slowly, stare, silence, sullen’, all semantics of distance, providing the sonnet with a melancholy feel. ‘Book Ends’ itself acts as an extended metaphor displaying the opposite directions in which Harrison and his father faced, presenting the image that though, coming from the same family, the pair are apparently identical, they’re in reality far apart due to Harrison’s separating educational prowess. By using this metaphor in exploring the memory of this
Considering in detail one poem, or a passage from a poem, discuss ways in which Harrison explores memories of difficult family relationships.
In the course of your answer:
Look closely at the effects of language, imagery and verse form;
Comment on how you think your chosen poem relates to others by Harrison.
‘I had a very loving upbringing…education and poetry came in to disrupt that… I’ve been trying to create new wholes out of that disruption ever since’ said Tony Harrison, an English poet whose works are particularly drawn up from the memories of his working-class childhood and the guilt held as a result of his alienation and rejection against his family’s traditional working –class culture. In Book Ends I and II, two Meredithian sonnets depicting the impactful death of Harrison’s mother, Harrison stylistically uses his usual poetic techniques when exploring memories portraying the difficulty of his family relationships. Exploring these memories is an issue widely communicated in his collection of poems: ‘School of Eloquence’, with poems such as Breaking the Chain and A Good Read supporting the idea that Harrison’s middle-class education and chosen life path distanced him from his community and family, thus creating hardship in their relationship.
A prominent memory that haunts Harrison’s work is that of distance, the continual distance that existed between himself and his father. This theme is particularly highlighted throughout sonnet I in Book Ends through Harrison’s word choices: ‘slowly, stare, silence, sullen’, all semantics of distance, providing the sonnet with a melancholy feel. ‘Book Ends’ itself acts as an extended metaphor displaying the opposite directions in which Harrison and his father faced, presenting the image that though, coming from the same family, the pair are apparently identical, they’re in reality far apart due to Harrison’s separating educational prowess. By using this metaphor in exploring the memory of this