Scottish Texts: The Poetry of Edwin Morgan (National 5)

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Course: English

Scottish Texts: The Poetry of Edwin Morgan

Level: National 5

August 2013

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

34ENGLISH (NATIONAL 5)

Crown copyright 2013

This advice and guidance has been produced for teachers and other staff who provide learning, teaching and support as learners work towards qualifications. These materials have been designed to assist teachers and others with the delivery of programmes of learning within the new qualifications framework.

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Acknowledgement

Crown copyright 2013. You may re-use this information (excluding logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/ or e-mail: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk.

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Contents

Introduction 4

A guide to this resource4

Pre-reading task4

Text list5

The poetry of Edwin Morgan

In the Snack Bar7

Good Friday14

Trio17

Winter23

Slate25

Hyena27

Thematic mapping28

Technique mapping29

Textual analysis30

Mini-essay approach33

Suggested further reading35

INTRODUCTION

ENGLISH (NATIONAL 5)35

Crown copyright 2013

Introduction

A guide to this resource

These materials aim to support both practitioners and learners. Learners will apply skills they build in English: Analysis and Evaluation (N5) and which are sampled by the course assessment: Section 2 Critical Reading Part 2. To achieve this, learners are encouraged to work collaboratively and actively at the outset of tasks while working towards independent learning as the activities progress.

Pre-reading task

One of the skills that will be demanded on the course is the ability to work independently. To help with this, try the taster homework activity below.

Use the resources below to write a 10-line paragraph about Edwin Morgan. This will be a piece of biographical research. The purpose of this is to give you (and your readers) information about the man and his poetry.

Pictures of Old Glasgow

http://urbanglasgow.co.uk/archive/o_t__t_1654__start_0__index.html

Video of Edwin Morgan

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/video/e/edwinmorgan.asp has an interview with Morgan by Liz Lochhead.

Online resources

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mr8yj/profiles/edwin-morgan provides a useful survey of Morgans works.

www.EdwinMorgan.com has a helpful biography for learners.

The Edwin Morgan Archive at the Scottish Poetry Library contains a timeline of his life.

http://edwinmorgan.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/english/poetry/morgan/revision/1/ contains a useful audio feature allowing you to listen to the material. The booknotes section also contains notes on In the Snack bar and is helpful for revision.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ab/B106-Higher/poetry-king-billy/ has notes on King Billy.

Pair and share task

Now that you have completed the taster, identify three key facts about Morgan the poet and share these with your partner.

Text list

There are six poems in this collection. Morgans poems here deal with people, places and animals.

People

In the Snack Bar deals with the theme of the isolation in society of the disabled and centres on an old man who struggles to do even the most basic things in the most ordinary of settings, a cafe in Glasgow.

Good Friday has a range of themes centring on alcoholism and religion. This is shown through the reflections of a man on a bus, again in the centre of Glasgow.

Trios themes also focus on religion, and also on another aspect of Glasgow life friendship and taking pleasure in the simplest of things.

Places

Winter is set in Glasgow and deals with the theme of change centred on an observation by the narrator of a scene at Binghams pond near Great Western Road.

Slate sees a shift in setting in both time and place, but still deals with the theme of change and nature. This time the setting is not Glasgow, but the creation of another part of Scotland the Isle of Lewis.

Animals

Hyena is the only poem in the collection to deal with an animal the hyena of the title. Morgan sees value in even a hated scavenger such as a hyena and challenges us to see it in a new light. The themes are basic: death, life and survival. The setting for the poem is certainly far from Glasgow Africa.

INTRODUCTION

The poetry of Edwin Morgan

In the Snack Bar

Exploding a text

This method of annotating a text really helps you to decode what is going on in it. Here, the opening lines are exploded for you to allow you to see how they work.

Read the opening section of the poem and the comment boxes.

A cup capsizes along the formica,Comment by Author: Alliteration on the letter c amplifies the sound and the onomatopoeia on clatter conveys the idea of an annoying, resonating, high-pitched sound.

slithering with a dull clatter.Comment by Author: The onomatopoeic slithering suggests the cups snake-like movement along the bar and the present participle slows the action.Comment by Author: Clatter is onomatopoeic. High pitched. Irritating. Would draw attention.

A few heads turn in the crowded evening snack bar.Comment by Author: Despite the clamour, no real attention is drawn. A few suggests some people do notice it even in the crowded evening snack bar. The old man is isolated.

An old man is trying to get to his feetComment by Author: Use of the indefinite form an suggests the narrator has no relationship with him.Comment by Author: Present participle slows down time and examines the process of him trying to get up. It is happening very slowly.Comment by Author: In lines 1-3 we have the explanation for the fallen cup. Dropped by an old man who is struggling to regain his footing.

from the low round stool fixed to the floor .

In pairs, fill in the blanks for lines 711. Use the technique, quotation, effect (TQE) technique to help. Line 6 has been done for you.

Technique

Quotation

Effect

Line 6

Thematic variation

Slowly

Stretching out the action by placing it at the start of the sentence

Line 7

Transferred epithet

Dismal hump

Line 8

Present participle

Slows down time

Line 9

Stands stained

Sounds like sigh

Line 10

Simile

Line 11

Alliteration

Sways slightly

Now you try to do the same, in pairs, with the next nine lines of the poem, from Even on his feet ... to I want to go to the toilet.

Tip!

Use the TQE technique to help and remember that many of the techniques might have been used already.

Guide to annotation

If you are using a computer, follow the guide below to annotate small sections of the text (anything larger might infringe copyright) as you have seen in the exploded section at the opening. This can be a very helpful way of generating, sharing and debating issues in the text.

1. Open a Word document.

2. Go to the tab at top of page which reads Review.

3. Highlight the part of the text on which you wish to comment.

4. Click New comment on the toolbar at the top of the page.

5. Add your comments to the comment box to the right of the poem.

Expert commentary

The next section of the poem adds to the pathos of the old man as we discover that not only is he hunch-backed, he is also blind and half-paralysed. The unnamed narrator, through whose eyes we are allowed to observe the events in the cafe, responds to the mans request to go to the toilet.

The next sequence describes, in intricate detail, their joint journey to the toilet and it reminds us of the stranger who helped Jesus bear his cross on the road to Calvary, although this reads more like a journey of descent into Hell rather than an ascent into Heaven.

It is difficult for the narrator to communicate with the man as his physical disability is mirrored in his inability to communicate fluently. They both, however, make it to the toilet, where the narrator dutifully waits for the man. The man depends fully on others. This is one effect of his disability. He requires support even for the most basic and simple of things, like washing his hands.

The reverse journey reminds us of the myth of Sisyphus: a sinner condemned in Tartarus (a Hell-like place in Greek mythology) to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it rol