Learning Through Literature

1. It's quite fitting to be teaching Shakespeare's ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to students in the month of February when Cupid lives not only in the lines of the world’s most famous play but also in the colourful paraphernalia in every shop and supermarket. Some of the students love reading about and visualising the blossoming romance of the young, star crossed lovers who fall for each other at first sight. Juliet is the bright angel to shed light in to the darkness in Romeo’s life, the sun of whom the moon is envious. Romeo is her first love begotten from the only family she is supposed to hate. The students were extremely unimpressed however when Juliet suggested they marry the next day after meeting. Many reckoned that the two of them, aged just fourteen are merely experiencing lust as they are too young to know what real love is. When I asked the class to define real love then, one student claimed that you needed to be “going” with someone for at least a year for it to be real. Another student argued that this figure was in fact three years. Another suggested that they only fell in love so quickly because they were bored. There was no wifi or Snapchat back then. “Yeah, you're right” agreed another, “Sure if Romeo had of had a tv, he would've turned on the music channels and fallen in love at first sight with Ariana Grande or all of Little Mix. He doesn't even know Juliet.”

2. February is the month of love for many but also the month where heartbreak holds a wrench to twist the arteries of those estranged from love. When I was a child, I presumed that my future husband would be like a life size Ken doll, tall and tanned with sandy brown hair. He'd obviously be rich, a DIY fanatic that could fix things at the drop of a hat. He'd own a house that hung off the cheek of a cliff in Killiney and a holiday home in the South of France. In secondary school, I experienced for the first time poetry that was more grown up and didn't revolve around caterpillars or bears or rhyme. Our teacher announced one day that we would study poems on the theme of love for a week. I was disappointed however when the theme turned to unrequited love quite rapidly. All of the so called love poems in our text book were drowning in despair. Hilda Moriarty was running away “so hurriedly” from Patrick Kavanagh on ‘Raglan Road’. W.B Yeats was scorning Maud Gonne in ‘When you are Old’ for not having chosen him. Many had loved her for her moments of “glad grace” or “beauty” but he was the only one who saw her “pilgrim soul”. I began to fear for the first time that if I did stumble upon a prince that maybe I too would be rejected like them, something which hadn't crossed my mind before. When teaching poetry to secondary school students now, I try to bear this in mind and include love poems that have a happy ending.

3. There is one poem without fail that students engage with the most however and that is Seamus Heaney’s ‘Mid Term Break’. In the poem, Heaney describes losing his little brother in a tragic car accident near his home. What is it about this poem that resonates so much with young people? Many of them have not lost loved ones. Many have not encountered car accidents. One student said that he liked it more than any other poem simply because “Heaney told a true story about something that was real and I could feel what he felt. Lots of poems are too hard to understand but this one I got,” he added. Perhaps Heaney had a skill to communicate what he felt so tangibly that everyone can relate regardless of their own personal experience. The subversion that he uses in the poem is particularly masterful. When students read the title, they assume that the poem is going to delve in to a wonderful tale of a mid term break spent playing Fifa on the x-box or going trick or treating. Heaney also subverts the common stereotype in literature where the mother cries and the father holds strong. Instead he describes how his mother cried out “angry, tearless sighs” whilst his father was crying in the porch. At the wake, the baby cooes and laughs, completely unaware of the surrounding sadness. Heaney’s poem is sure to be a favourite of students for many years to come for it’s moving sentimentality and honesty.

4. I discovered the poetry of Sylvia Plath in my twenties and soon became obsessed with learning everything about this woman who was so troubled yet so brilliant. It made me sad to think that she never recovered from her mental illness and I wonder if she was alive now, would she find the world’s attitude towards mental health different, better? Would she get more help? Would there be more places to go? Would people be more understanding? Or is it still an issue that most are ignorant to until it finds their doorstep? It saddened me that in her lifetime her poetry was never that well received or made her much money when now she is possibly one of the most revered female poets in history. I hope she knows this now as she looks down from above and I hope she can see the impact that her words created. It must have been difficult for her to watch her husband Ted Hugh’s words celebrated whilst her’s were often ignored or considered less literary, more chick litty, too fluffy. If she were to return now, would she find that attitudes towards female literature had changed? Cecilia Ahern stated in a recent interview that she felt there was still an association with women’s fiction as being less literary. She argued that there are many types of intelligence and emotional intelligence should be considered to weigh the same as every other type. A tonne of feathers weighs as much as a tonne of bricks. Perhaps we all need a reminder sometimes.

5. Secondary school students tend to get excited when presented with war poems. They laugh raucously at Siegfried Sassoon’s description of his superiors in the poem ‘Base Details’ where the majors are described as “guzzling and gulping at the best hotel” with “puffy petulant” faces. Meanwhile the young soldiers obeying them are sped “up the line to death”. It seems very easy for them too, to see past the tortured mind of Wilfred Owen, broken from the horrors he witnessed in his poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ to just enjoy the gore and violence of his words. The men “flound’ring….under a green sea” of gas causes mouths to drop open but still the war doesn't seem like it is real, more mythical. “If I was in the war I'd just lie down and pretend I was dead.” “If I was there I'd run back and grab a grenade and blow them all up.” “I'd get a machine gun and…” They read his words as though they are watching Fury or Saving Private Ryan or some other war movie on their television screens. Most play war computer games like Medal of Honour or Call of Duty on their play-stations. For them, war is glamorised, exhilarating, fun. The dying is detached from them as I am sure it is to many who sign up to a war effort until death arrives at their trench wearing a black cloak, clutching a scythe.