Think about Briggflatts as an autobiography. What sort of personal history does Bunting depict? In what ways is the form of the poem suited to this?
Think about Briggflatts as an autobiography. What sort of personal history does Bunting depict? In what ways is the form of the poem suited to this?
- The poem is certainly personal in the sense that it is informed and influenced by his personal travels and experiences of other cultures.
- We identified one of the central aspects of the poem as belonging. The earth and the natural world is a constant. The depiction of the natural word is exactly that, earthy. Grounded. The relationship between the human and natural world is symbiotic and natural imagery merges with the human. This could be influenced by his Quaker upbringing and the notion of pantheism, finding God in everything.
- Bunting seems self conscious about his role as artist, the character of the Mason recurring in the poem shows Bunting exploring his role in the creation of the text, just as we felt V. represented the metamorphosis of the speaker into an artist.
- Bunting uses the objective correlative to evoke emotions and images through a sensory experience. The act of writing as an organic process and uses natural imagery to describe the process, he talks about ‘laying the tune on the air’ and a tortoise ‘punctuating the page.’ Musicality and rhythm are also inextricably linked to the text, however loose the free verse form may seem to suggest it is
- Identified one of the major themes of the poem as reinvention of a place. - Briggflatts the place is not in Northumberland, rather it is in Cumbria. This is somewhat ironic in that the text which seems so rooted in place and an exploration of the history of that place. Bunting challenges both linear notions of time and place as a clearly defined space. Again the natural world is a constant but boundaries imposed by man on that world are somewhat more fluid and less clearly defined. Place is defined by personal experience, what is familiar is not the physical place. Temporality is fluid as elements and figures of history, myth and legend
- The poem is certainly personal in the sense that it is informed and influenced by his personal travels and experiences of other cultures.
- We identified one of the central aspects of the poem as belonging. The earth and the natural world is a constant. The depiction of the natural word is exactly that, earthy. Grounded. The relationship between the human and natural world is symbiotic and natural imagery merges with the human. This could be influenced by his Quaker upbringing and the notion of pantheism, finding God in everything.
- Bunting seems self conscious about his role as artist, the character of the Mason recurring in the poem shows Bunting exploring his role in the creation of the text, just as we felt V. represented the metamorphosis of the speaker into an artist.
- Bunting uses the objective correlative to evoke emotions and images through a sensory experience. The act of writing as an organic process and uses natural imagery to describe the process, he talks about ‘laying the tune on the air’ and a tortoise ‘punctuating the page.’ Musicality and rhythm are also inextricably linked to the text, however loose the free verse form may seem to suggest it is
- Identified one of the major themes of the poem as reinvention of a place. - Briggflatts the place is not in Northumberland, rather it is in Cumbria. This is somewhat ironic in that the text which seems so rooted in place and an exploration of the history of that place. Bunting challenges both linear notions of time and place as a clearly defined space. Again the natural world is a constant but boundaries imposed by man on that world are somewhat more fluid and less clearly defined. Place is defined by personal experience, what is familiar is not the physical place. Temporality is fluid as elements and figures of history, myth and legend