Free English Language Dissertations - Here Tony Harrison Presents A Stereotypic Vision Of A Teacher Who Does Not
Here Tony Harrison presents a stereotypic vision of a teacher who does not believe that a boy (little Harrison) from a working-class family is able to understand the language of such a great poet as Keats. The teacher regards the boy as a barbarian due to his dialect and Harrison seems to challenge this view in Them & [uz]. However, Rowland (2001) maintains the notion that Harrison’s poetry is barbaric in that it is the product of an agonized humanist who struggles to celebrate moments of positivity in a world that lacks affirmative mood (p.1). In the poem The Loiners Harrison (1970) presents the following limerick: There was a young man of Leeds / Who swallowed a packet of seeds. / A pure white rose grew out of his nose / And his arse was covered in weeds (1-4). According to Martin Crucefix (1997), without losing sight of the essential comedy of this snatch, it can be seen as suggestive of aspects of Harrison’s career (p.161). In particular, Harrison’s description of the boy who swallows seeds uncovers his ironic representation of the traditional grammar school in Leeds, in which he studied. The image of a white rose demonstrates the rise of poetry that emerges as a result of the received education. Thus, the poet manages to combine rather contradictory images in several lines, revealing his rejection of any conventional ways of expression and stereotypes in regard to language. In general, the form and structure of The Loiners reveal certain allusions to earlier poetic texts, but Harrison’s slang and colloquial language intensify the difference between early classical poetry and his own poems. As Sandie Byrne (1997) claims in regard to Harrison’s style of writing, idiosyncratic sound qualities are as deftly reproduced as the conventions of generic form, but his poems are never just glib imitation or pastiche (p.57).
Describing some events from his life through his poems, Tony Harrison points at the fact that poetry should address the hardest things in life, and the most powerful weapon it brings to the fray is its own form (Winder, 1995, p.3). As the poet pays much attention to language, he uncovers his emotions and feelings through his usage of particular words and phrases. For instance, one of Harrison’s most famous poetic works is the poem V that is created in the period of the miners’ workout (1984-1985) and that portrays the poet’s journey to a cemetery in Leeds, where his parents are buried. In the preface the poet utilises the words of Arthur Scargill, the head of the National Union of Mineworkers: My father still reads the dictionary every day / He says your life depends on your power to master words (Harrison, 1991), pointing at the fact that words possess great power and are able to inspire class struggle. The poem V was further adapted to a film produced by Richard Eyre; both the poem and the film reveal the controversy between a conventional verse structure and the raised social issues.
