Norman MacCaig“Memorial”

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The 'Poets' Pub' painting shows those writers known as the 'Big Seven' – arguably the most influential Scottish poets of the post-war era.

But of this group – Norman MacCaig, Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley Maclean, Iain Crichton Smith, George Mackay Brown, Edwin Morgan and Robert Garioch – it is the work of MacCaig and Morgan which remains the most popular in Scottish schools.

But what is it about his work which sees it endure from one generation of Scottish pupils to the next?

• According to literacy advisor and former English teacher, Bill Boyd, the biggest factor keeping MacCaig alive in the classrooms is the accessibility of MacCaig's work.:

"There's very little you read of his and think 'I don't really get that'. For instance, Basking shark is about an encounter with a basking shark.“

• Watch these clips where Seamus Heaney discusses the strengths of Norman MacCaig's poetry and Jackie Kay discusses his poetry's tendency to make you look at something simple in a different light:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/arts/the_enduring_appeal_of_norman_maccaig.shtml

“Memorial”• The life's work of MacCaig is, by any

standard, a hugely impressive legacy – one that speaks for itself. He skilfully produced many different types of poem and all are timeless in their own way.• Some may favour MacCaig's playfulness,

for others it might be how he evokes certain landscapes. For others, it's those poems MacCaig produced as he grew older and began to lose those close to him – work that is full of grief – that lingers most.

• Norman MacCaig on the effects of death on his work and reading ‘Notes on a Winter Journey’ and ‘Memorial’:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/arts/the_enduring_appeal_of_norman_maccaig.shtml

“Memorial”• Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies. • No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain • but has her death in it. • The silence of her dying sounds through • the carousel of language. It’s a web on which laughter stitches itself. How

can my hand • clasp another’s when between them • is that thick death, that intolerable distance?

• She grieves for my grief. Dying, she tells me • that bird dives from the sun, that fish • leaps into it. No crocus is carved more gently • than the way her dying shapes my mind. – But I hear,

too,• the other words, black words that make the sound • of soundlessness, that name the nowhere • she is continuously going into.

• Ever since she died she can't stop dying. • She makes me her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece, • a true fiction • of the ugliness of death.• I am her sad music.

Exposing the poem – Class discussion

•On a first reading, what do you think the poem is about?•What don’t you understand on first hearing?•Are there any lines or words which you find unusual, interesting or memorable?

Group Work• Listen to the poem being read aloud a second time. In your

groups, prepare detailed answers to these questions. Each person should take responsibility for feeding back to the class for each question.

1. What is the poem about on the surface?2 Who is speaking in the poem? Who are they speaking to?3.How does the poem use language to convey its message and what techniques can you identify?4.What are the themes or ideas behind it?5. What response does the poem elicit from the reader/ you?

Understanding Vocabulary•Highlight an unfamiliar/difficult words in the poem.•Try and work out what they mean from the context of the poem.•You may use a dictionary or your phone to look up definitions.•Write the definition in your jotter.

Imagery – Paired WorkUse a different coloured highlighter for each of the following:

1. Examples of imagery2. Sound techniques 3. Interesting word choice 4. Examples of repetition

Elegy • In literature, an elegy (from the Greek word for

“lament”) is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem , especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.

• "Elegy" (sometimes spelled elégie) may denote a type of musical work, usually of a sad or somber nature. A well-known example is the Élégie, Op. 10, by Jules Massenet:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezwvgug9neo (Piano)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXESZR0rfM

(Cello)

Elements of a traditional elegy

The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss:1. First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses grief

and sorrow.2. Then praise and admiration of the idealised dead. 3. Finally consolation and solace.

These three stages can be seen in W. H. Auden’s classic “In Memory of W.B.Yeats”, written for the Irish master:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-memory-of-w-b-yeats-2/

Why do you think this is relevant to the poem?• “She makes me her elegy. I am a walking

masterpiece, a true fiction of the ugliness of death. I am her sad music.”

• Think about the elements of a traditional elegy. How does “Memorial” follow this?• Why do you think MacCaig writes “I am her sad

music?”• What is his message about the function of Art (poetry,

art, music, literature).

MusicThe philosopher Plato wrote about banishing certain types of music which had harmonies expressive of sorrow as he believed it had the capacity to weaken his armies. (http://theoryofmusic.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/music-in-platos-republic/)

1.What type of music creates an emotional reaction in you?Comparehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5TqIdff_DQ - James Brown ‘I Feel Good’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwsaoLEvWbw - Adele ‘Someone Like You’

2.Can music create an emotional reaction in the listener?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds8ryWd5aFw - Opera en el MercadoWhy do you think the people in the clip react the way they do? Some with laughter, tears, wonder…

Opera en el Mercado• Why do you think the people in the clip react the way they do?

Your answers:

1. Music unites people /brings everyone together.2. The sound does something to the soul.3. The sound captures certain emotions.4. It brings the opera to the market. Democracy.5. People who are not used to listening to that type of music have a

chance to experience it.

Literature, Art, PoetryDiscuss

• Can they create an emotional reaction in the same way music does? Give examples.

• Is it possible to capture sadness in these forms or do you think this is difficult? ( But I hear, too, the other words, the black words that make the sound of soundlessness…”)

• Is it possible to create something beautiful out of despair?

MacCaig seizes the fleeting moment in his verse in order to transform it, or to reveal it, in an affirmative act of praise and endless celebration. The celebration is endless because the poet’s art lives on, long after what inspired it has changed or passed away.” ( Scotnotes, ‘The Poetry of Norman MacCaig’,p.40)

She makes me her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece, a true fiction of the ugliness of death. I am her sad music.

• Why does the narrator become her masterpiece?

• What is MacCaig implying about the permanence of art and, in turn, the memory of the woman?

• Dutch author Hans Christian Andersen once said: "Where words fail, music speaks.” Why do you think this is relevant to the ending of the poem?