Where was the popcorn?

Today we watched the first act of the rather – very – ancient, scratchy film of “A View from the Bridge”. As you will remember, it started very differently from the play but soon morphed into a fairly accurate, word-for-word version of it. If any of you can bring yourselves to comment, I’d be interested to know whether you want to watch the second half at any point. Failing that, you could just tell me, of course, or email.

Should you be enthusiastic enough to want your own copy, you could get it from http://stores.blowoutdvd1.com/-strse-23/A-View-From-The/Detail.bok

(I was quite sad to think of the actress who played Catherine – I imagine that she thought this was her big break and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in anything else. However, I’m not much of a film buff so maybe she had a starry career that I’m just not aware of.)

Then we looked at the rather unpleasant “A Study of Reading Habits” by Philip Larkin, in case a question came up on two poems by the same poet. We considered the similarities with “Poetry of Departures” (eg colloquial language, use of rhyme/rhythm, cynical attitude, change of attitude between beginning and end, references to reading) and the differences (eg different “voices”, PD features an adult while SRH features the change from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, SRH much more colloquial, dated language).

SRH could also, of course, be used by itself, as a poem expressing dissatisfaction, unpleasant emotions, a personality…. etc

Then we read “You’re” by Sylvia Plath, a much more positive poem about a mother’s love for her unborn baby. It’s structured as a list of images describing the baby, all very sweet and loving and a bit unusual- comical at times. It could be used for a question on a poem which is happy/positive/image-filled/requiring thought/featuring a relationship – etc. Or it could be used to contrast with a gloomy/negative poem such as “Anthem for Doomed Youth” or SRH.

Homework – 2007 Close Reading, passage 1, about Glasgow University library.

Next week: Personal Study. One hour (plus extra time if relevant); bring in text and up to 2 A4 sides of notes, but not whole essay. Notes to be submitted with essay. For those who have the unit, class starts at 7.30 pm.