A word on Birthday Letters
When thinking about “Conflicting Perspectives” it is worth remembering a few things:
- Hughes is in a position of power as he has the final say and can say what he likes without any chance of a rebuff or response.
- He has chosen to give the work the title “Birthday Letters”. ‘ Birthday’ has positive connotations and “letters” implies intimacy and an element of truth or objectivity.
- Think about the times when people write letters, think about purpose, audience and tone. Under what circumstances would letters be written and in what form/s ?
- Now consider why Hughes has written “Letters” in a chronological poetic form? What does the poetic verse bring to the subject matter in terms of ‘conflicting perspectives’ ?
- Does (and if so, then HOW) form influence representation of the situation, events and personalities?
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I am an English teacher with many years of experience. I love my job and enjoy helping students to reach their potential.
I am passionate about the teaching of English and hope to enthuse students to love language and to value it.
I am presently employed in Catholic Education as an English co-ordinator
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Great! I shall take these point into consideration when preparing for my HSC
hi.
i actually like this module. but ’sam’ confuses me. what is hughes saying about sylvia in this poem? other than shes out of control.
also is whiteness i remember by sylvia the best text to use this with?
another question! all my found texts are poems too. is that bad?
thanks.
I really like the first question that you have in this list of questions. I think the fact that SP can’t respond to his poems greatly influenced what he said of himself in this book. I’ve no doubt that she smashed the table, but I also don’t believe that he was an “innocent”, calmly standing by while she wreaked havok on their home and lives.
I think it’s quite possible that, by the time that some of these poem-letters were written, enough time had passed that only the strongest, brightest or darkest memories survived. The little things would have faded with the years.
Sure, she was difficult, childish, bipolar (?). She had her challenges, but I think he conveniently forgets a lot of his. All in all, though, I really enjoyed this book. In writing out this comment, I’ve realized that I have a lot to say about it, so I think I’ll eventually type something up on my blog. As I’ve only just finished reading it, the words are still fresh in my mind.