3.times fool

7/27/2019 3.Times Fool

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TIMES FOOLBY RUTH PITTER


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GET FLIRTY!!!

1. Focus on the form of the poem , looking at the structure, punctuation,line lengths and the arrangement of the poems stanzas. How do thesefeatures add interest and meaning to the poem? Also examine thearrangements of the words, phrases and sentences in the poem.

2. Examine the language used in the poem, looking at the meaning ofwords and whether they have negative or positive connotations.

3. Look at the techniques, imagery and poetic language that has been

used? How do these techniques bring out the main themes and ideas inthe poem?

4. How does the poet make use ofrhyme, repetition and rhythm? Whydoes he do this?

5. What are the poets main ideas that he brings out in the poem and howdoes he do this? Explain the feelings that the poet conveys throughout

the poem. Describe the poets attitude to his subject. Does this changeas the poem progresses? Carefully examine the tone throughout thepoem and find vocabulary to back up your discussion.

6. How do you react to this poem? Does it bring any particular thoughts tomind? Which poems would you compare this one with?

F

L

I

R

T

Y


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FLIRTYF3 stanzas / 6 lines per stanza, regular, conventional form.

Use of : (colon to divide a line up) and (hyphen) to compounddescriptions.

Lheart/ youth / heat kettle /candle / firepersonification roots

creeping and times fool shoots up / vine

Iyouth / things thrown away / things of use plants and animals /things which have outlived their usefulness negative connotations

-shoots up / vine

Rcomfort was ... dry branch

T

Y


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RUTH PITTER Her poetry wasrecognised by Philip

Larkin who included

her in his Oxford

Book of Modern

Verse, and by various

awards including the

Hawthornden Prize

and the William E

Heinemann Award.

In 1955 she became

the first woman to

receive the Queen's

Gold Medal for

Poetry. She wasmade a Companion

of Literature by the

Royal Society of

Literature in 1974

and was appointed

CBE in 1979.


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TIMES FOOL

Time's fool, but not heaven's: yet hope not for any return.The rabbit-eaten dry branch and the halfpenny candleAre lost with the other treasure: the sooty kettleThrown away, become redbreast's home in the hedge, where the nettleShoots up, and bad bindweed wreathes rust-fretted handle.Under that broken thing no more shall the dry branch burn.

Poor comfort all comfort: once what the mouse had sparedWas enough, was delight, there where the heart was at home:The hard cankered apple holed by the wasp and the bird,The damp bed, with the beetle's tap in the headboard heard,The dim bit of mirror, three inches of comb:Dear enough, when with youth and with fancy shared.

I knew that the roots were creeping under the floor,That the toad was safe in his hole, the poor cat by the fire,The starling snug in the roof, each slept in his place:The lily in splendour, the vine in her grace,The fox in the forest, all had their desire,As then I had mine, in the place that was happy and poor.


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Literal reading Stanza 1


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Stanza 2


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Stanza 3


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Background

Emma Thomas "Ruth" Pitter, (7 November 1897 - 29 February

1992) was a 20th century English poet.

Career

Pitter was born in Ilford (Essex). She worked in the War Office

from 1915 to 1917, later working as a painter at a furniture

company in Suffolk, Walberswick Peasant Pottery Co., where

she worked until 1930.In Suffolk, she befriended Richard and

Ida Blair, the parents of George Orwell, and later helpedOrwell find lodgings in London in 1927, taking a vague interest

in his writing, of which she was generally critical.


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BACKGROUND

Later, Pitter and her life-long good friend, Kathleen O'Hara,

operated Deane and Forester, a small firm that specialized in

decorative, painted furniture. The business closed when WWII

began. Pitter took work in a munitions factory. After the war,

she and O'Hara opened a small business painting trays. Pitterwas skillful at the flower-painting used in both furniture and

tray decorating.

From 1946 to 1972, she was often a guest on BBC radio

programs, and from 1956 to 1960, she appeared regularly on

the BBC's The Brains Trust, one of the first television talkprograms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brains_Trusthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brains_Trust


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Background

Pitter began writing poetry early in life under the influence of

her parents, George and Louisa (Murrell) Pitter, both primary

schoolteachers. In 1920, she published her first book ofpoetry

with the help ofHilaire Belloc. Despite her business and

factory work, Pitter managed to spend a few hours a daywriting poetry.

She went on to publish 18 volumes of new and collected verse

over a 70-year career as a published poet. Many of her

volumes met with some critical and financial success.

She received the Hawthornden Prize in 1937 forA Trophy of

Arms, published the previous year. In 1954 she won the

William E. Heinemann Award for her book, Ermine (1953).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry


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Background

Style and influences

Pitter was a traditionalist poetshe avoided most of the experimentations

of modern verse and preferred the meter and rhyme schemes of the 19th

century.

Poet

Pitter began writing poetry early in life under the influence of her parents,

George and Louisa (Murrell) Pitter, both primary schoolteachers. In 1920,

she published her first book ofpoetry with the help ofHilaire Belloc.

Despite her business and factory work, Pitter managed to spend a few hours

a day writing poetry.

She went on to publish 18 volumes of new and collected verse over a 70-year career as a published poet. Many of her volumes met with some

critical and financial success.

She received the Hawthornden Prize in 1937 forA Trophy of Arms,

published the previous year. In 1954 she won the William E. Heinemann

Award for her book, Ermine (1953).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter_(poetry)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhymehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthornden_Prizehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilaire_Bellochttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhymehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter_(poetry)


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Background

Pitter, in contrast to T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and W. H. Auden, is

a traditional poet in the line ofGeorge Herbert, Thomas

Traherne, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, W. B. Yeats, and

Philip Larkin. Unlike the modernists, she rarely experiments

with meter or verse form, nor does she explore modernistthemes or offer critiques of modern English society. Instead,

she works with familiar meters and verse forms, and her

reluctance to alter her voice to follow in the modernist line

explains in part why critics have overlooked her poetry. She is

not trendy, avant-garde, nor, thankfully, impenetrable. DonKing, "The religious poetry of Ruth Pitter," Christianity and

Literature, June 22, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliothttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Poundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Audenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herberthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Trahernehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Trahernehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._Housmanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeatshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Larkinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Larkinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeatshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._Housmanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Trahernehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Trahernehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herberthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Audenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Poundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot


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Background

Because of this, Pitter was frequently overlooked by critics of her

day, and has only in recent years been seen as important: her

reputation was helped by Larkin's respect for her poetry (he

included four of her poems in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century

English Verse).

She was a good friend ofC. S. Lewis, who admired her poetry and

once said, according to his friend and biographer George Sayer, that

if he was the kind of man who got married, he would have wanted

to marry Ruth Pitter. In correspondence between the two, Lewis

often critiqued her work and made suggestions.[3] Pitter is

considered by many Lewis scholars to have had an effect on hiswriting in the 1940s and 1950s.

W. B. Yeats, Robin Skelton and Thom Gunn also appreciated Pitter's

work and praised her poetry. Lord David Cecil once remarked that

Pitter was one of the most original and moving poets then living.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oxford_Book_of_Twentieth_Century_English_Versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oxford_Book_of_Twentieth_Century_English_Versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Skeltonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Gunnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_David_Cecilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_David_Cecilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Gunnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Skeltonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oxford_Book_of_Twentieth_Century_English_Versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oxford_Book_of_Twentieth_Century_English_Verse


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Pitters Christian FaithChristian faith influences

Pitter described her spiritual debt to C. S. Lewis: As to my faith, I owe it to C. S. Lewis. For much of my life I lived more or less

as a Bohemian, but when the second war broke out, Lewis broadcast severaltimes, and also published some little books (notably "The ScrewtapeLetters"), and I was fairly hooked. I came to know him personally, and hecame here several times. Lewis's stories, so very entertaining but alwaysabout the war between good and evil, became a permanent part of mymental and spiritual equipment.

Letter, Ruth Pitter to Andrew Nye, dated May 18, 1985.

Did I tell you I'd taken to Christianity? Yes, I went & got confirmed a yearago or more. I was driven to it by the pull of C. S. Lewis and the push ofmisery. Straight prayer book Anglican, nothing fancy [...] I realize what atremendous thing it is to take on, but I can't imagine turning back. It cancels

a great many of one's miseries at once, of course: but it brings greatliabilities, too.

Letter, Ruth Pitter to Nettle Palmer, dated Jan. 1,1948.

(Cited in The anatomy of a friendship: the correspondence of Ruth Pitter andC.S. Lewis, 1946-1962, Don W. King Bibliography of works, 1945).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian


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Questions for analysis

The poem resembles an elegy. Show evidence to support this idea.

Consider the unattractiveness of much of the descriptionthe hard

cankered apple, the damp bed and dim bit of mirror.

Nevertheless, these were Dear enough.

What do these descriptions suggest about youth and fancy? (arethey resilient, blind or self-deceiving?). Explain and support.

What imagery is constructed in the first stanza and how does this

establish the tone of the poem? Support your answer.

How is the narrators existence described in stanza 2?

How does the final stanza contrast the narrator with plants andanimals? Consider the final line.

To whom is the poem addressed? Who is times fool?

Does the poem lament the loss of youth, a simpler former time, or a

person with whom that time was shared?


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Analysis

This gently elegiac poem recreates a time past, a time of

simplicity. Just as the rhymes work from the outer lines to the

centre, the description of this past time comes in the central

stanza, the heart of the poem. Consider the unattractiveness

of much of the descriptionthe hard cankered apple, thedamp bed and dim bit of mirror. Nevertheless, these were

Dear enough. Does this suggest that youth and fancy are

resilient, blind or self-deceiving?


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More analysis

The first stanza considers the present and its imagery of

neglect establishes the tone of the poem, with emphasis on

lost, Thrown away and no more. The final stanza contrasts

the narrator with animals and plants, each of which have their

place and are safe, snug, in splendour. The final lineconnects them with the narrators existence described in the

second stanza, happy and poor. The reader might consider

how convincing this comparison is, and to whom the poem is

addressed. Who is times fool? Does the poem lament the loss

of youth, a simpler former time, or a person with whom thattime was shared?


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Compare Times Fool to.

Elegy for My Fathers Father

One Art

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Cold in the Earth

A Dream

A Quoi Bon Dire


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Further Reading

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poe

tId=7081


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Essay Question

COMMENT CLOSELY ON THE FOLLOWING POEM, DISCUSSING WAYS ITPRESENTS THE EFFECTS OF THE PASSING OF TIME.

= How does Pitter present the effects of the passing of time? What are the effects of the passing of time? What techniques are PRESENT?

Implicit in this question is this question.

What is the purpose and relevance of this poem to:i) The poet

ii) The society in which she lived

iii) Me, and / or the society in which I live

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