FAQ - Gwen Harwood

[Without Wings]

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Gwen Harwood
Frequently Asked Questions


This FAQ is designed to help HSC students studying Gwen Harwood for Module B: Critical Study of Texts for Advanced English. I take no responsibility for the accuracy or validity of the statements below. All new questions about Gwen Harwood not already dealt with here should be posted below and will be added to the FAQ in due course. Any more threads asking questions about Gwen Harwood will be closed.


What are the Syllabus Outcomes For This Module?

This module requires students to explore and evaluate a specific text and its reception in a range of contexts. It develops students’ understanding of questions of textual integrity.

Each elective in this module requires close study of a single text to be chosen from a list of prescribed texts.

Students explore the ideas expressed in the text through analysing its construction, content and language. They examine how particular features of the text contribute to textual integrity. They research others’ perspectives of the text and test these against their own understanding and interpretations of the text. Students discuss and evaluate the ways in which the set work has been read, received and valued in historical and other contexts. They extrapolate from this study of a particular text to explore questions of textual integrity and significance.

Students develop a range of imaginative, interpretive and analytical compositions that relate to the study of their specific text. These compositions may be realised in a variety of forms and media. http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au...sh_adv_syl.doc


Which Poems Are Set For Study?

· Prize-Giving
· The Glass Jar
· The Violets
· At Mornington
· Father And Child (Parts I and II)
· Alter Ego


Who is Gwen Harwood?

Gwen Harwood (1920–95) was born in Brisbane, Queensland. Her father played the piano and violin, and Gwen took piano lessons, hoping to become a musician. She became a music teacher in Brisbane. She learned German and read widely in German poetry and philosophy, especially the philosophical writings of Wittgenstein. She married William Harwood in 1945 and moved to Tasmania, where she raised four children. She used the pseudonyms Walter Lehmann and Miriam Stone when she first began to publish poetry. Her first book was Poems (1963), and she published six more books of verse. She was awarded the Robert Frost award (1977) and the Patrick White (1978). Her fourth book Bone Scan (1989) won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize for poetry. She received Honorary Doctorates of Letters from the Universities of Queensland, Tasmania and La Trobe. [http://www.austlit.com/a/poe/harw/index.html]

What are the poems about?

Prize Giving

The first poem in the Professor Eisenbart sequence ‘Prize Giving’ explores antitheses between youth and age, masculinity and feminity, learning and artistry. The speakers sense of distance from the Professor is suggested both by his formal title of academic rank and the foreign sound of his name. He embodies an old fashioned concept of the European, aloof repository of arcane learning, with a difficult, unapproachable demeanour. ‘asked to attend’ the prize giving ‘as an honoured guest’ he ‘rudely declined’ his vanity, however is flattered by the persistence of the Headmistress and he condescends to ‘grace their humble platform’.

Harwood is satirising his pomposity, but also smiling at the schools desperation to acquire such a distinguished guest. As well, she captures and delights in – the excitement of the occasion which is animated by the advent of this imposing masculine figure amongst the all female company

When he appeared
the girls whirred with an insect nervousness

Even the Headmistress is dwarfed by his presence which is made even more grand by his academic gown and hood, of silk and fur, putting her less distinguished black in the shade. Her fussing around the professor is comical as she steers him

to the best seat beneath half-hearted blooms
tortured to form the schools elaborate crest

Harwood is mocking her own sex in these lines, the schools collective hysteria on the occasion and the hyper feminine floral decorations, even as she caricatures the Professors revulsion from it all.

Eisenbart scowled with violent distaste
Then recomposed his features to their best
Advantage

His affectations and vanity reach their culmination in his mimicking of the pose of ‘The Thinker’ in Rodins famous sculpture.

At the midpoint of the poem, the sharply (almost grotesquely) drawn antitheses between youth and ages, masculinity and feminity are disturbed as the professor surveys the audience of girlish heads and focuses on one “with titian hair”. Here is a girl who has not been cowed by his presence and mocks his pose by duplicating it.

The prize for music is announced and that very girl approaches the dais to receive the ‘cup of silver decorated with curious harps’ That details matches the over ornamented floral crest. With Harwood’s high appreciation of music as the pinnacle of the arts and artistry, it is not surprising that it is the school’s most accomplished musician who is set apart from the others and has the attractiveness and confidence to disturb the Professor’s self assurance and to match (if not exceed) his attainments.

He took

Her hand and felt its voltage fling his hold
From his calm age and power

It is a charge both sexual and artistic. This meeting of Professor and musician is the violent conjunction of learning and artistry he was one we remember from the first stanza, who could be appealed to through the medium of ‘dry, scholastic jokes’ She is one who knows nothing of reason – her domain is the passion of music, and once she is seated at the piano, her schoolgirls being is transformed into that of a master.

The effect on Professor Eisenbart is devastating as her playin excited in his manhood a ‘rose-hot dream’ of love for her. In her interpretation of Mozart, the whole range of emotions is communicated, with accomplished talent.

He has been overcome by the experience that his self possession crumbles and he looks at music cup and sees his carefully constructed image upside down.

A sage fool trapped
By music in a copper net of hair

The oxymoron ‘sage fool’ dismisses him with a sneer, at the poems conclusion.

‘Prize giving’ gives the prize to art over learning, to passion over reason and at the end – to the beauty of feminine youth over pomposity of masculine age. But we should be careful to note that the girl with titian hair is exceptional. She stands for the artist. She is clearly differentiated (by her hair, as her musicianship) from the other girls around her, as she is from Professor Eisenbart.


The Glass Jar

“The Glass Jar” deals with the sometimes traumatic experience of growing up and the loss of childish innocence and faith. Religious imagery is used in order to convey the boy’s faith and belief system in the “pulse of light beside his bed”. The use of the word “pulse” is significant as it presents the “light” as a form of life. The boy’s faith is conveyed in the use of the words “bless” and “exorcise” which is the power the boy believes the light has to overcome the “monsters that ringed his bed” and create a “holy common place of field and flower”. The use of the oxymoron is significant as the boy attempts to make an ordinary children’s bedroom a sacred place where demons are unwelcome and where he will be safe.

The child’s confidence in his plan is also shown through the use of single sentences in the first two stanzas. However from this point onward the feeling of tension and desperation in the boy is shown through the use of enjambment. The holy and religious images of the first two stanzas contrast with the devilish images in the following stanzas. The monsters are described as having “pincer and claw, trident and vampire fang”. They are “fiends” of his own creation and are able to “pierce him in the thicket of his fear”, yet he is their victim. Interestingly this is the same child who was innocent enough to believe he could trap sunlight in a jar, is still capable of creating these evil images. It provokes the question: does evil lie subconsciously in all humans? [Lizzy]


The Violets

In this poem of reminiscence of her childhood, Harwood concentrates on violets, both as frail melancholy flowers and as symbolic of our fragile early memories, which we cherish and love to recall:

Faint scent of violets drifts in the air

This positive teaching of the poem, however, is delayed by the negative anecdote which opens it. This is in the adult present and the setting, at dusk, is cold. Once again, Harwood introduces her theme of the dissatisfaction of adult life, which is to be developed here in comparison with a celebration of childhood. Yet in the midst of her despair in the present, she finds the violets, struggling to emerge and survive: signs of new life and beauty rising from the ashes. To try to establish a connection with nature in order to revive her spirit, she whistles a bird-like trill but,

Our blackbird frets and strops his beak indifferent to Scarlattis song.

As before, Harwood is regretting the dissociation of humanity and nature’s creatures, and (like Keats) even sets her beloved music at a disadvantage in comparison with the unpremeditated art of birdsong.

So the setting is at best “ambiguous” with elements both of hope (the presence of the violets for example) and of despair.

The violets have set her memory in motion and she recalls a similar late afternoon in her early childhood. Confused by an afternoon nap, she had woken up looking for breakfast. Sobbing, when she realised her mistake, she asked “Where’s morning gone?” The child’s plaintive question addressed to her mother, is also the poet’s disturbing address to the reader: our childhood and its innocence and beauty will quickly pass, like a morning gone. Yet, we may retain its lovely moments in our adult memory.

To comfort her daughter, her mother:
carried me downstairs to see
spring violets in the loamy bed.

That her father arrives with a whistle (onomatopoeia giving his arrival an aural immediacy) connects the experience with her adult whistling of t he first stanza. On one of its levels, this poem is a celebration of her love for and indebtedness to her parents and the family life they created, the examples of behaviour which she has perpetuated. Nonetheless, although surrounded by this care and affection, she bitterly laments the lost morning that cannot be recovered. However, the teaching of the poem – soon to be disclosed – is that domain of purity and hope is always recoverable, by the imagination and the memory.

Nothing that her subsequent life has know, not even death itself of her parents, for example – can “distort those lamplit presences!” They have an eternal quality. And Harwood’s language and imagery is of a religious and spiritual kind in these closing lines, as she refers (for example) to entering “my father’s house” (a biblical phrase), to “the lamp” and develops the symbolism of light to its beautiful climax in the sheen of her mother’s “goldbrown hair”. Kedron Brook flowed near Harwood’s childhood home in the outer suburbs of Brisbane.

The violets in the present have served the purpose of stirring these memories from the past and, in their fragility and beauty, the flowers are emblems of those memories.

“The violets” is also a social document and commentary, revealing a kind of family life antique by today’s standards. The lamplight and the wood stove, the “child with milk and story book”, the parents with time for their child and for each other, the mother at home to attend to her child’s needs and the appreciation of the beauty of nature close at hand.

My father, bending to inhale
the gathered flowers, with tenderness
stroking my mother’s goldbrown hair

Could be dismissed as an idealisin romanticisation of the past. Or, it could simply be an insight into a better world.

At Mornington

This poem was inspired by a visit to a very dear friend, Thomas Riddell. The poet went to his garden first, then to the Mornington Cemetary where his parents are buried.

The poem begins with the childhood memory in which the poet recalls her first visit to the sea as a child. Believing she could walk on water, she jumped in and had to be rescued by her father. After saving her he was ‘half comforting, half angry’.

Just as she thought she could defy gravity and walk on water, so the pumpkins in her friends’ garden ‘in airy defiance of nature’ symbolised for her the way in which she has been nourished by the fruits of the Earth and is moving through life to ‘the fastness of light’ and the ‘ultimate death’.

She is reminded of death as ‘two friends of middle age’. She and Thomas Riddell, stand by his parents grave ‘among avenues of the dead’. She is aware that these have ‘come to that time of life’ when their bones begin to age and form their body into the final shape it will assume in death just as the ‘drying face of land rose out of earths seamless waters’.

The poet recalls the peace and serenity she enjoyed with her long-time friend in a dream set in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens where they share a pitcher of cool, refreshing water. So their visit to the cemetary, the security she experienced in her fathers arms (when confronted for the first time by a Halloween pumpkin) and the serenity shared in the Botanic Gardens – all these will comfort and shield her at the time of her death, when she is ‘seized at last’ and borne away on the face of the waters forever.

Father and Child


TONE, DICTION AND POINT OF VIEW:

The tone, or voice of Nightfall is not dissimilar to that of its companion poem Barn Owl. Both are, first person narratives but here we sense that one, much closer to the poet herself perhaps. The diction of this poem is even more loftier and more formal than that of the previous poem. The subject matter is weighty; the impending death of a parent, and the diction is correspondingly serious. The sustained allusion to King Lear is an effective one. The notion of the aged father being an old king is a persuasive one that lends him considerable dignity, a sense of decayed greatness and faltering authority.


IMAGERY:

The extended metaphor of life as a journey is the predominant image in this poem. Images of Genesis, of the father as God, are called up. Another consistent image is that of the father as an old king, Since this is a poem about loss, grief and sadness, tears are also important.


STRUCTURE:

The poem has a nature, conversational feel, due to its given structure.


CONTRAST:

Nightfall is a poem about maturity, while Barn Owl is a poem about immaturity. In Barn Owl we witness a young child coming to knowledge in a terrible way through death, while in Nightfall we see a middle age person come to the knowledge in a natural way, through thinking of the death of her father. All death is change, and both poems examine the changing states of an individual at important times in her life.

Alter Ego

SUMMARY:
In this poem the speaker acknowledges and explores her inner self, or alter ego. She describes the alter ego as a part of herself that has intimate and complete knowledge of her yet acknowledges that her conscious mind does not have a complete and full understanding of this ‘other self’. The speaker expresses a longing for ‘wholeness’ suggesting that to know herself fully there needs to be a resolution between her ego and alter ego.

ANALYSIS:
In the opening stanza of Alter ego, the persona queries both the identity of her alter ego and its extensive knowledge of her:

‘Who stands beside me still,
nameless, indifferent
to any lost or ill
motion of mind or will,’

From the outset there is an evident longing for a sense of wholeness.

In the second stanza a connection between Mozart and his genius is made with the persona and her alter ego (allusion).

Harwood uses the simile:

“dry crickets call like birds”.

to compare the sound of crickets with birds. Because she associates the sound with her first love it becomes musical. A blown flame is used for a metaphor for this love. In the final stanza of the poem a metaphor of life as a journey is presented.

The tone of the poem is one of thoughtfulness and the speaker is comforted by music and memories.


What are the various types of readings?

Psychoanalytic/Freudian Reading
It will focus on how the emotions and thoughts of the persona/character in the text emerge out of their past experiences that have been repressed.

At Mornington - would focus on how the persona shifts between the past and the present and dreams and reality throughout the poem in order to come to fully appreciate the present and comes to terms with her future and the inevitability of death

Glass Jar - focuses on the incident depicted in the poem as a reflection of the composers need or desire to resolve issues within their own paternal relationships.
* The rivalry between the boy and his father, and how this influences his image of his mother is significant
"...his comforter
lay in his rival's...
... violence done to her"
this alludes to the oedipus complex, a concept central to the psychoanlytics theory that explains the unconscious desire of a child for a sexual relationship with the parent of the opposite sex and the rivalry with the same sex parent ensues from that. [WW]

Also linking to the oedipus theory is the fact boys grew out of this phase due to the fear of being punished by their fathers

"his father held fiddle and bow, and scraped assent to the malignant ballet"

it is clear that the boy is getting punished through a violent dream involving his father and therefore closely links to the oedipus theory,

Also significant to a Freudian reading is how the monsters he views at night are "envenomed with his secret hate" and use this knowledge to harass him. These monsters are merely a creation of his mind and therefore suggest that he has potential for evil thoughts and desires. [Tennille]

Alter ego - will focus on the lack of resolution between the ego and alter ego. The metaphor of life as a journey suggests that regardless that it seems that the person and alter ego are in the process of becoming unified, they never actually do. [Tennille]

Dominant Reading - reflects the stereotypes dominant within the society to which it belongs. It favours the most dominant members of a culture, reflecting the values and attitudes of the figures of authority within it-for instance the media....etc

Feminist Reading - will focus on how women are represented in it, as well as the relationship between men and women.

Prize-Giving - "It is significant that the prof has been invited as an honoured guest to a 'GIRLs school speech night'. The suggestion is that his achievements as a successful MAN will "lend distinction...to the occasion"

In addition, the prof's disdain for the occasion, having rudely declined the intial invitation and the achievements of the young women who hands "He shook/indifferently" he sees them as a collective group rather than individuals.

*Interaction between the prof and the Headmistres is significant to a feminist readoing. The fact that he is "supurb in silk and fur' and she is dressed 'humbler in black' suggest that there is an imbalance in power between the genders.

Notably the head fusses and fawns over the professor, she is presented as subservient to him

Interaction between eisenbart and the redhead girl. From the outset the relationship between them is a power struggle. The prof first notices her as she mocks and mimics him.
"One girl sat grimming at him, her hand bent,
under her chin in mockery of his own"
however as the girl accepts her award the girl established immediate power over the prof.

The provocative connotations of the girls actions as she "hitched at her stocking" and "winked" prior to accepting the award are particularly significant. The implication that the girl gains power over the prof thru virtue of her sexuality.

The prof's loss of power and autonomy as she draws "his stare with her to the piano" contributes to the construction of an image of a woman with power who should be feared by men. The titian-haired girl is ascribed with the qualities of a seductress, whist her musical talents and the achievement of the music award is marginalised. [Simmey]

Post Modern Reading - focuses on how meaning is constructed through the connections between texts (intertextuality). therefore post modern challenges the idea that meaning is a reflection of values.

Marxist Reading - concerned with the potential of a text to influence and control people through the values and beliefs it represents.

Prize- Giving - A marxist reading of prize giving would be critical of the view of society presented in the poem and analyse the power relationships between the various characters and how these are influenced by various factors, such as gender, age, education and rank.
It is significant that the poem presents a distorted view of society, in that the school is clearly a middle class institution. The Head, as the leading representitive of the school, values pomp and ceremony, having gone to great lengths to create an atmosphere of importance, added to by the attendance of professor Eisenbart 'an honoured guest'.

It is significant that the poem does engage in light - hearted ridicule of the speech-night tradition and the Head's illusions of superiority.

Prof Eisenbart is clearly a member of the privileged class. His academic superiority is evident through academic gowns. As a member of the upper-class he distinguished himself from the masses.

It is significant that the girl is presented as an insubordinate member of the masses, inferior to the Prof in education, age, gender and yet presenting a challenge to him. This could be interpreted as symbolic of her challenging the middle-class, patriarchial beliefs and the values that both the prof and the school represent. Through the actions of the titian-haired girl, the prof is exposed to as a 'sage fool'. He and the element of society that he represents is ridiculed and trivialised" [Simmey]

New Criticism - theory that was extremely influential in the mid-twentieth century-- it basically revolved around the idea that context and composer's identity has nothing to do with a text, and texts should thus be analysed completely as a separate identity [Clerisy]



How Many Different Readings For Each Poem Do I Need?

Usually two is a good idea.


Do I need Supplementary Texts For This Module?

No, just different critical readings.


Do I need to know about ALL of Harwood’s Poems?

Yes, because they can ask you to refer to a specific poem of hers. It is more likely that they will ask you to refer to ones of your choosing, but in a previous HSC they have asked to refer to a specific poem, so know them all.

What are some possible questions I could get asked for this module?

[tamorapierce13]
2004 HSC Question 7 - Poetry
"Interpretations of texts can shift and change with time and place."

Considering your time and place, reflect on the ways in which context has shaped your critical interpretation of the prescribed text.

In your response, refer to TWO poems you have studied.


2005 HSC Question 7 - Poetry
Your class has been exploring the question, "What will continue to make Harwood’s poetry worthy of critical study?"

Your personal response has been challenged by another student. Defend your response through a critical evaluation of Harwood’s poetry, analysing the construction, content and language of the text.

In your response, refer to THREE poems you have studied.


2006 Trials Question 5 - Poetry
"For each of us, every poet has a crucial poem which defines their central ideas."

Write the transcript of a discussion between two people who disagree about what is the most important poem. The discussion should include why it is the crucial poem.

[lexonfire]
2006 HSC
To what extent has your personal response to the poetry been shaped by the enduring power of Harwood's poetic treatment of age and youth?

Others:
- Much of the appeal of Harwood's work lies in the distinctive qualities of each poem and the ways they lend themselves to different readings to imply different values, according to individual responses.

- Timeless texts are valued at different times in different contexts. How have you valued the poems of Gwen Harwood? Focus on 2 different readings of at least 2 poems, substantiated by critics' responses that either support or challenge your personal ideas.

- The poetry of Gwen Harwood is unique because it deals with strong but diverse themes. Respond in a personal response using 3 poems.

- Harwood articulates a variety of themes in her poems. The dominance of that theme will depend on the responder's perspective. (At least 2 perspectives; refer to 3 poems)


Where can I find Resources For Gwen Harwood that other people have submitted to bos?

http://www.boredofstudies.org/view.php?course=6


Where can I find a copy of all of Gwen Harwood's Poems that are set for study?

Attached is a document which contains a copy of the poems.


REMEMBER at the end of the day YOU are the one that has to make the effort to read the text, learn the quotes, write the practice essays and remember your texts. No one else can do this for you. Ultimately, YOU remain responsible for YOUR own learning.

Very best of luck to you all.

[zahid]

let me be the first to say "THANKYOU" soooooooooooooooooooooo much.

[PhraseMuffin]

i agree - THANK YOU MUCHLY KIND PERSON

[Boo_]

thx, but wondering, what about a reading for the violets. i got a speech to do, and doing a feminsit reading, but having some problems coming up with some ideas

[Without Wings]

you can use any of the readings for the violets, just apply the knowledge and analyse, teh ones above are just examples

[Jago]

can you please list a few themes for each of the poems? ie for prize giving: youth, masculinity vs femineity, etc etc

ta

[Boo_]

could some1 put readings for each poem with a few links to the poem???

[melsc]

thanks so much

[tasha88]

Hee! Thanks much dude, this is awesome!

[Boo_]

i still hate this module, but thanks, help alot

[Robbo_m8]

bit dangerous saying "this is what the poems about." just coz she did write it because of some of those reasons, thats really only her reading. It can be helpful to be pointed in directions - but i would advise everyone making up their own opinions

[Boo_]

yeah, but sometimes its easier for some one to give a few of their ideas.

[Without Wings]

Originally Posted by Robbo_m8

bit dangerous saying "this is what the poems about." just coz she did write it because of some of those reasons, thats really only her reading. It can be helpful to be pointed in directions - but i would advise everyone making up their own opinions

its clearly stated that you dont have to take this view and its one persons opinion...its just to help out people completely stuck...if you have your own ideas then good for you

[nwatts]

Originally Posted by Boo_

i still hate this module, but thanks, help alot

Quite like the module, hate Harwood. I've read In the Skin of a Lion, which was utterly brilliant, and I was very sorry to hear we wouldn't be studying it.

I wanted to ask a question, that may/may not be added to the FAQ.

I've pretty much learnt the material; gone through each poem, working through different readings, making a few connections between poems (in terms of styles of reading and repeated thematic material)... but i'm a little bit stuck on how to then move all this into an essay.

We're slightly behind in the course, and have a trial coming up featuring a module B essay, but I haven't yet written one! And, there's not time between then and now me to write one to be marked.

I guess I'd just like some tips on how others structure their essays. Do you focus on concepts (memory, the arts, value of friendship, etc.) or focus on a style of reading (postmodernist, psychoanalyitical, thematic, etc.)? Do I have a similar thread as I do in module A/C essays? I'm a little lost!

I had a look at some of the material on the BOS sample pages, but it didn't really help me. If anyone can point me in the direction of finding the Board of Studies published 'superb' answers, i'd be very appreciative!

[elefdee]

I know this is a lil late but i thought you might like it anyway.

First start off with your intro making sure you name the poems you are refering to( normally 2 or 3) and the critical approach you are taking for each of these poems ( normally two different approaches keeping the 2 approaches the same for all poems).

Next you move on to your first poem: the critical approach your taking, the technique used, a quote supporting this from the poem and then a quote from a critic.
your next paragraph should be on the same poem but a different approach following the same formula.
A linking paragraph and then your next poem.

i only know this because i have had it drilled into me by our crazy english teacher. She also said that during marking, the top responses made their own opinion clear, they used a critic but it was used only to support their view so try to make this one a little personal and they willl love you.
hope that helps.