Hello everybody and welcome to another video in this series on what to do in
the first five minutes with an English Literature anthology poetry question.
Let’s imagine your name poem is ‘Tissue’, and this is the question:
Compare how poets present ideas about power and control in ‘Tissue’ and one other poem.
OK, so the first thing to do is re-read or scan through the named poem, pen in hand,
and to annotate anything you can think of that might be relevant to this question.
The title itself is the first thing that I’d look at – what is ‘tissue’? Well, firstly, it's very
thin paper. But it's also the material that we as humans are made up of, human tissue. And both are
referred to in this poem. So the two meanings help us bring together the metaphor that human
power and control is fragile like tissue paper. And this is an idea explored throughout the poem,
but exemplified very simply in the title. Now, in the rest of the poem, there are
numerous references to things which hold power, and control people - things that are
made by humans – buildings, maps, receipts. We as humans give these things power. The ‘capitals and
monoliths’, represent governments and buildings used to control, the ‘maps’ control through
segregating the natural world; the ‘receipts’ represent the control of money and commerce.
All of these things are made by humans. So the symbolism of the image that receipts can ‘fly
our lives’ suggests that money dominates us; it controls us; it has power over us.
BUT look at the rest of the quotation: receipts can ‘fly our lives like paper
kites’ – the simile suggests that these things which control our lives are fragile
and easily destroyed. The message here, then, is that human power and control is fragile.
And the way the poem in written in free verse, with no rhyme or regular rhythm,
along with no consistency of syllables per line, could be significant. As much as
humanity tries to order, arrange and control, the poet’s structural choices undermine this
and suggest that the efforts are futile. And if human power and control is fragile,
what has true power? The answer is nature. When we read about the paper maps the sun,
a symbol of nature, overpowers the paper. It ‘shines through’ it. And this symbolism is further
explored with the suggestion that ‘daylight breaks through capitals and monoliths’. So ‘daylight’,
being a symbol of nature, shows how nature has greater power than the things made by humans.
So that re-reading of the named poem will give me my concept:
In ‘Tissue’, humans try to control and exert power, but ultimately it
is nature that is truly powerful. Now with THAT in mind, I will then
flick back to the list of poems and browse through each title one by one, considering which
poem to compare with that line of argument. And let me just point out. It’s not that I
will now think ‘OK is there another poem that uses a title with a double meaning,
symbolism, and similes?’ No, what I want to do is think about my second poem in terms of
the idea – that human control and power is fragile, and nature is truly powerful. The
June 2019 exam report pointed out that: ‘students who led their analysis through ideas in the poem,
rather than methods, tended to do much better.’ So that’s why I want to follow this approach.
So I’ll look through the poems, and what will I choose? There are actually a wide
variety of poems that would work, but I think all things considered I would go with ‘Extract from,
The Prelude’, a poem where the speaker initially thinks they are powerful, stealing a boat they
proudly describe as an ‘elfin pinnace’. The grandiose language, reflects the grandeur the
speaker feels – they think they are in control of the situation and possess supreme power. But
all of this falls away when the speaker sees the mountain, realising their own weakness and
the power of nature. They describe it as (and this again is from the power and conflict poetry rap):
‘a huge peak, black and huge’. The ambitious vocabulary of ‘elfin pinnace’ is gone, as the
speaker’s wide vocabulary has eluded them to the point of repetition with the simple word ‘huge’.
And now I have my thesis statement, which can also function as an introduction:
In both ‘Tissue’ and ‘Extract from, The Prelude’,
humans try to control and exert power, but ultimately it is nature that is truly powerful.
This is a two part line of argument. And I’m going to perhaps spend the first half
of my answer looking at the sense of human power and control, and the second half looking at how
nature is truly powerful. Everything in my answer then becomes part of the theory I am exploring.
Now of course, I’m not saying this is how you would HAVE to do it if a question came up about
‘Tissue’ and power and control. All I’m trying to do is show you the sort of process you might go
through for that first five minutes. If you have a different idea, put it in the comments section.