My Last Duchess

Just like the majority of Browning's other poems, 'My Last Duchess' is written as a dramatic monologue; it is from the point of view of a man who has paid someone to kill his 'Last Duchess' and after reading through the poem more, you begin to realize why. 

From the title 'My Last Duchess', you straight away get the impression that the man is quite possessive of his Duchess, and from lines such as: 

'That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive...'

we are told that the man treats her as a possession, to be shown off and not treated like a human being.  Later in the poem, a curtain (which covers the painting) is mentioned, which has been drawn for the first time in a long time.  This detail gives the idea that even in death, the man is trying to control who she sees, and who sees her.  The fact that he has paid someone to kill her is not surprising given the level of control he likes to keep over her.

However what is surprising is that he seems to be showing a slight amount of regret about it.  The fact that there is one continuous stanza seems as if it is a constant outpouring of emotion, that the man is looking at the painting, and can't hold back the emotions he feels towards her any longer.  Moreover, throughout the poem he accuses her of flirting, yet never gives any proof.  This may be because he regrets what he did, and is trying to persuade himself that he acted correctly.

Spoken Word

One of my favourite things about Literature is it's variety. It can come in so many forms, yet each one of them is powerful and beautiful in it's own right, particularly spoken word poetry.  I have two poets that I can't get enough of:

• Sarah Kay
• George Watsky

Now I don't have a huge amount to say about why I love them so much, only that they've both inspired me in very different ways, and reduced me to a crying wreck on more than one occasion.  Any style of Literature that can do that to a person must be pretty powerful!

So I leave you with these:

Sarah Kay - Ted Talks

George Watsky - Letter to My 16 Year Old Self

I performed Sarah Kay's poem 'B' at my secondary school's verse speaking competition, and although I didn't win, I still enjoyed it because I believed so much in the words I was saying.  I also had the pleasure of seeing Watsky perform this poem live in London earlier this summer, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Not only is he an amazing performer, but the way he involved the crowd in his performance was just phenomenal. He is truly inspiring.

Porphyria's Lover

One of the poems we will be studying this year for AS English Literature is Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning, which shows an interesting take on the storytelling and narrative. 

The main way in which the story is told in this poem is through the perception of power.  Initially it is insinuated that Porphyria has the power in the relationship from both the title (Porphyria's lover, as if he belongs to her) and from the way she presents her shoulder to him:

'Made her smooth white shoulder bare
And all her yellow hair displayed
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there.'

We are also given the impression that her lover (our own narrator) is not happy about this dynamic, from the lines:

'From pride, and vainer ties dissever
And give herself to me forever.

This may be due to the expectations of society during that time; that the man had the power over the woman in any relationship. This explains his course of action:

'In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around
And strangled her. No pain felt she;'

Earlier in the poem, it is mentioned that the man loves Porphyria so much that he wants to be with her eternally.  This may be one of the reasons why he takes the option of killing her, so that he can have the power in their relationship, without losing his love altogether.

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

If a book can make me think past what is written on the page in front of me, then it immediately wins my heart; but I don't think that a book has ever made me contemplate life just as much as The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. In our English Lesson last week, we were asked to bring in a piece of interesting narrative, which straight away made me think of this:

'When the coughing stopped, there was nothing but the nothingness of life moving on with a shuffle, or a near silent twitch.  A suddenness found its way onto his lips then, which were a corroded brown colour and peeling, like old paint. In desperate need of redoing.

Their mother was asleep.

I entered the train.

My feet stepped through the cluttered aisle and my palm was over his mouth in an instant.

No one noticed.

The train galloped on.

Except the girl.'

Written from the point of view of Death, this book offers an interesting perspective into life during WW2 Germany, and the story of Liesel Meminger.  Due to it's unusual narrative viewpoint, the book offers a unique and sometimes confusing descriptive style, yet it seems to fit perfectly with the content and storyline.  It leaves such a lot of questions, too many to be pondered in a short blog post; however I'll leave you with this quote (another of my favourites, this time from the blurb of the novel):

'It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.'

When I Woke Up The Knife Was Still There

I'd never realised before that a sentence could make up a complete short story.  The genre 'short story' isn't very specific about how long/short the story has to be so I guess it makes sense, but this story made me see the genre in a whole new light:

'When I woke up the knife was still there.'

What I found most interesting, was that the full story and description is there, it's just not r imagination.  A story such as this encourages the reader to make the story their own, to create whatever they want it to be. It's personal. It's meaningful. To me, that's where you expect it to be. Instead of being on the paper, it's in yous what makes it so brilliant.  One other thing that struck me when I first read it, was how quickly myself and my classmates jumped to conclusions, and assumed things that were never actually given to us.  For example:

    All of us immediately saw the character 'I', as a male, who was not the victim himself.  After further thought we realized that the person could be a female, who has been victim to a stabbing and is drifting in and out of consciousness.

    Moreover, we straight away got a sense of danger and tension, however this was only insinuated from the story.  Nothing was ever said about what had taken place, where it was, or the time at which it had taken place, so how do we know for certain that the danger is there?

After roughly 30 minutes of discussion (I also find it amazing how so many ideas and thoughts were provoked in us from so few words) we then began to get onto the subject of metaphors.  What if 'the knife' was a metaphor for something/someone. What if 'the knife' was a nickname for a person? Again, we don't know, we can only guess.

Personally, the first thing that popped into my head was a dark, rainy night on a London street.  The victim, whatever gender they may be, has fallen victim to a stabbing due to gang violence.  No one else had the same idea as me, and that's what I find so amazing about it. Thousands of different ideas have come from these 9 words, yet each of them are so different from each other, and so unique in their own right. All of these assumptions and ideas are all plausible, yet only one of them is right. The 'right' answer is whatever you want it to be.