( Please look under the A Level section too as there are detailed explorations of both texts)
‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’.
1) Consider the significance of the titles of the collections within which we find ‘Stafford Afternoons’ and ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’. How far is ‘The Other Country’ a place of emigration literally and metaphorically when we consider ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’? And how far is ‘Mean Time’ a clue to the message of ‘Stafford afternoons’? You might like to consider the ‘otherness’ of the past and the ways in which our sense of identity is transformed by recollection.
2) Examine the opening stanza of Mrs Tilscher. How are we as readers transported back into the world of primary education? Think about the use of language in terms of its sound, choice of image and the sensory ‘map’ of this now ‘dead’ world and its words. Is this world anchored to the past ?
3) Formulate a question that seems most resonant and important in terms of your reading of this poem. Consider how you know this is the question you want to ask.
4) Once again in ‘Stafford Afternoons’ we are exploring the changing location of the past and the way it may disorientate/orientate us. Consider the effectiveness of the opening stanza. How many echoing sounds can you hear? What are these ‘spaces’ of childhood conveying to the reader?
5) Is Duffy concerned with the past and indeed identity( sexuality) as a conflictual realm? Why should we want to accompany Duffy’s protagonists into this buried world with its ambiguous words? Is a poet( writer) an archaeologist too, excavating away at the lostness of memory?
TASK: For next week read both ‘Prayer’ and ‘Foreign’ and annotate both. Then chose ONE poem you wish to write an introductory paragraph about. This should be ready for the session next week when I will see students in small tutorial groups and discuss their writing.
Finally! Read this famous opening from Browning’s ‘My last Duchess’ and explore its power in terms of context, gesture and language. HOW DOES IT WORK?
Ferrara
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
