Assisi

[hollis]

HEY 3RD YEAR!

Post any Assisi questions up here. We're making good progress through MacCaig's anger. Here's today's notes -


Essay Question 27/4

Examine the techniques that MacCaig uses in ‘Assisi’ in order to imply his feelings of anger and pity at the scene created in the poem.

‘three tiers’ – contrasts appearance of the beggar even further. The church is ‘too’ complete. He is incomplete.

‘over whom[…]not being dead yet.’ – enjambment. Creates irony. Beggar has nothing at all in his life worth living for.

Stanza 2 – shifts inside church.

‘A priest explained / how clever’ – enjambment. Priest is acting more like a tour guide, emphasises his performance.
‘clever / cleverness’ – repetition for irony. Speaker realises the priest doesn’t understand the message of St. Francis. Speaker sees ‘the joke’.

Stanza 3 – shifts to tourists.

‘clucking contentedly’ – alliteration – focuses our attention on ‘contentedly’ – the tourists aren’t taking in the seriousness / deeper message. Also creates sound of chickens clucking. (metaphor – chickens have no real thoughts of their own, follow the pack.)

‘he scattered the grain of the word.’- metaphor, contrasting what the priest practices vs. what he preaches.
The priest does not ‘eat’ the word of God – not following his message.

‘they who had passed the ruined temple outside.’ – ‘ruined temple’ metaphor, relates to body / soul. Although his body is destroyed, his soul is intact.
Also, this is where the tourists SHOULD be paying attention, not church.

[hollis]

Introduction basics –

YOU NEED –
CONCERNS PATRON SAINT
TITLE
‘Assisi’
AUTHOR
Norman MacCaig
GENRE
poem
THEMES
Ignorance, Church’s ignorance of the message of St. Francis, and the irony of their excess.
QUICK SUMMARY OF TEXT
- beggar sitting outside a church dedicated to St. F. Priest and tourists talking about St. F, but ignoring beggar.
QUESTION
MacCaig using different techniques to show his anger and pity.









‘Ruined temple’ onwards – tone changes from angry to pitiful.

‘Voice as sweet as a child’s when she speaks to her mother’ – simile
Similarities – idea of beggar genuinely meaning what he says. We associate the trust with child / mother to how much beggar means it. Also shows innocence / goodness of beggar.

‘a bird’s when it spoke / To St. Francis’ – Use of enjambment to reinforce speaker’s point. St. Francis WOULD have paid attention / taken pity on beggar. St. Francis, who could ‘hear’ birds, would have heard beggar’s plight.

[hollis]

3rd years - I'll be out of class on Thursday.

Your task is to finish the first section (on the initial impression of the beggar) with 2 different techniques, before moving on to your second section which is the juxtaposition of the beggar with the church / St Francis. You should make an attempt at this using the notes and plan I have left you, but if you need any help, please be sure to ask on here.

[hollis]

Here's today's stuff - super awesome extra credit paragraph up presumptively!

In the second stanza, MacCaig shifts his focus from the beggar and the church to the tourists and priest entering the church.
- What is MacCaig’s attitude towards the tourists?
- What two techniques does he use to show this?


EVIDENCE ‘clucking contentedly.’

The onomatopoeiac use of ‘clucking’ suggests

1. They all talk
2. Not making sense
3. Following like chickens
4. Mindless?
5. Not taking in info?




Use of alliteration –
1. Stands out
2. Humorous representation of tourists
3. Word choice of ‘contentedly’ suggests?
hypocritical
The poet sees the priest as…
MacCaig uses a…
‘he scattered / The grain of the word.’

1. What is ‘the word’?
2. What does scatter suggest?
3. The priest isn’t ‘eating’ – what does that tell us about him?

[hollis]

Super awesome tough final paragraph.
You will be discussing MacCaig's cynical (mistrusting) attitude at the end of stanza 2.



Point - MacCaig then mentions the frescoes inside the church with a cynical attitude, once more using enjambment.
- BRIEFLY STATE WHAT THE FRESCOES WERE DESIGNED FOR

Evidence -
'I understood
the explanation and
the cleverness'


Evaluation -
- USE OF ENJAMBMENT HIGHLIGHTS WORDS ' EXPLANATION AND 'CLEVERNESS'
- WHAT IS THE PRIEST SAYING ABOUT THE FRESCOES? WHY ARE THEY SO SPECIAL?
- WHY DOES THE PRIEST THINK THEY'RE 'CLEVER'?
- MACCAIG REALISES THAT THE PRIEST IS USING THESE AS PROPAGANDA - THE CHURCH WON'T ALLOW THE PEOPLE INTO THE CHURCH WHO SHOULD BE SEEING THEM. WHAT'S THEN 'CLEVER' ABOUT THIS? (Think about the priest being a hypocrite.)



If you have any questions or want to post what you've written so far for this, GO AHEAD!

Go 3rd Year Go Go Go!

[hollis]

Today's work - If you have any questions, ASK!

In the final stanza, MacCaig shifts his attention back from the tourists to the beggar.
- Explain how the speaker’s emotions have changed towards the beggar.
- Firstly, MacCaig uses a …

‘It was they who had passed / The ruined temple outside’

- explain why he’s ‘ruined’ – structure of beggar.
- ‘temple’ has several connotations.
- Compare ‘temple’ as a place of worship to what the tourists are doing, to what St. Francis’ message is.
- Secondly, ‘temple’ relates to the speaker’s changing attitude.
- Body as ‘temple for the soul’
- Beggar has a soul
- Human underneath appearance.
POINT
- Finally, the speaker relates the beggar to a child at the end of the poem.
- What 2 characteristics do the beggar and a child share?

‘said grazie in a voice as sweet / as a childs’

- This simile shows the final feelings of the speaker towards the beggar.
- Firstly – genuine person
- How do we know this?

[hollis]

Someone asked me after class if the 'ruined temple' was God.

Something to think about...............................

[bonny]

i have done most of the first section but i think theres a bit i have missed out ..
i have explained the quote 'with his hands on backwards' then i've explained the quote 'sat slumped like a half filled sack' then 'three tiers or churches' is there anything that comes after that or does it just go on to the second stanza after ..?

[bonny]

oh and after the section on clucking contentedly i have started writing
the poet sees the priest as a hypocrit. MacCaig uses a metaphor to describe the message of st francis and contrasts what the priest practises versus what he preaches..
what the metaphor that goes with that paragraph?

[hollis]

May 20, 2009 12:21:30 GMT @bonny said:

i have done most of the first section but i think theres a bit i have missed out ..
i have explained the quote 'with his hands on backwards' then i've explained the quote 'sat slumped like a half filled sack' then 'three tiers or churches' is there anything that comes after that or does it just go on to the second stanza after ..?

Okay - First thing, when you move onto the church, you must mention at the start of the new section that MacCaig juxtaposes the body of the beggar with the body of the church. After that, then you can go on to the word choice of 'tiers'.
After that, you then look at the irony of 'over whom he had the advantage / of not being dead yet' and also examine the enjambment which creates a blackly humorous punchline.

[hollis]

May 20, 2009 12:31:56 GMT @bonny said:

oh and after the section on clucking contentedly i have started writing
the poet sees the priest as a hypocrit. MacCaig uses a metaphor to describe the message of st francis and contrasts what the priest practises versus what he preaches..
what the metaphor that goes with that paragraph?

The metaphor is 'scattering the grain of the Word'. You examine the religious imagery behind 'the Word' - it relates to the message of St. Francis'. It is compared to scattering grain as the priest is roughly throwing around comments without any real consideration for their message. The 'chickens', who are the tourists, are rushing around and eating up anything the priest says. There is also the hypocrisy of the priest in that he is throwing the 'grain', but he is not 'eating' it himself - in effect, he is not taking the message of St. Francis in himself.

LOTS TO SAY!


Hope that helps.

[guess]

I don't know if im doing the right thing. I am doing that end paragraph when you describe the frescoes etc. Is that the para that u wanted us to try? And if so I don't have the poem but i don't get the evaluation bit. Could you explain the evaluation part because i can't see the poem so I'm not sure when MacCaig breaks onto a new line??

[hollis]

The extra paragraph was about the irony of 'the cleverness'

The lines are structured like this -

'I understood /
the explanation and /
the cleverness' /

And the enjambment emphasises the words ' the explanation' and 'the cleverness', obviously.
'The explanation' - well, this was a series of paintings to tell the poor the story of Jesus' Crucifixion. So it's for the poor. Think about who is actually looking and admiring it.

'The cleverness' - the tourists don't understand that they're missing the 'cleverness' of these paintings. The speaker sees 'the cleverness' as the irony that they have become propaganda for the church - ways to 'sell' the church. They should be to preach to the illiterate (the beggar), but they're not being used for that way.
So 'the cleverness' has two meanings.
1) The cleverness of the idea of using frescoes rather than words for the poor.
2) The cleverness of the Church 'selling' the beauty of the Church on these paintings, rather than using them for their proper purpose.

LOADS to write about, but I'm going to talk to you tomorrow morning about it.

[confused]

mr hollis wherr is the help u said u would put up on thursday since some of us weren't there

[cheng]

i have done all the paragraph but except the last paragraph(the one that using the quote 'over whom he had the advantage / of not being dead yet' ) that we have to explain the enjambment/irony in the first section. but i don't know how/what we need to explain.