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Assisi - notes

Assisi - notes. National 5 English Mrs Woods. Poem Structure. Verse 1 – The dwarf Verse 2 – The priest Verse 3 – The tourists – and back to the dwarf. The poem begins and ends with the dwarf. This is an example of an effective conclusion when an article goes full circle. Background.

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Assisi - notes

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  1. Assisi - notes National 5 English Mrs Woods

  2. Poem Structure • Verse 1 – The dwarf • Verse 2 – The priest • Verse 3 – The tourists – and back to the dwarf. • The poem begins and ends with the dwarf. • This is an example of an effective conclusion when an article goes full circle.

  3. Background • On a holiday to Assisi the poet Norman MacCaig goes on a guided tour of the church dedicated to St Francis of Assisi. • On that tour he is struck by the contrast between the beauty of the church building and the miserable situation of a dwarf who is begging from the tourists.

  4. Three tiers of churches

  5. Three tiers of churches

  6. The basilica of St Francis

  7. An example of a frescoe (wall painting)

  8. The poem’s main point • MacCaig wonders why the priest is looking after the needs of the tourists and is ignoring the needs of the dwarf. • He realises that the spirit of St Francis is not found inside the church, or in the priest but in the inner beauty of the dwarf.

  9. Themes • Hypocrisy • Religion • Man’s inner nature • Inward nature versus outward appearance

  10. Verse 1 – the dwarf The dwarf with his hands on backwards Sat, slumped like a half filled sack On tiny twisted legs from which sawdust might run

  11. Sat slumped like half filled sack • Alliteration of the letter s • Sounds like something deflating • Draws attention to the simile of the dwarf collapsed ‘like a half filled sack’ • The idea of collapsing is extended in the expression ‘from which sawdust might run.’

  12. Verse 2 – the priest

  13. Verse 2 – The Priest • Explaining to tourists how the artist Giotto told the story of the goodness of God through frescoes • “I understood the explanation and the cleverness”

  14. “cleverness” • Giotto was clever in the way he designed the frescoes • The priest was clever in his commercialisation of the church

  15. An extended metaphor • MacCaig uses the image of hens • “a rush of tourists clucking contentedly” (alliteration of letter c helps you to hear the noise they make) • “Fluttered” suggests they are lightweight, not thinking much • “scattered the grain of the word” – the grain is now for the tourist, not the poor as St Francis would have wanted

  16. The tourists

  17. Back to the dwarf • Outwardly revolting • “ruined temple” • “eyes wept pus” • “back higher than his head” • “lopside mouth”

  18. The dwarf • But inwardly beautiful • “Grazie in a voice as sweet as a child’s when she speaks to her mother or a bird’s when it spoke to St Francis” • The spirit of St Francis does not lie in the church building, or in the priest, but in the dwarf.

  19. St Francis “Grazie in a voice as sweet as a child’s when she speaks to her mother or a bird’s when it spoke to St Francis”

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