Harrison's Poem example essay topic

Tony Harrison is one of Britain's leading film and theatre poets. He has written for the National Theatre in London, the New York Metropolitan Opera and for the BBC and Channel 4 television. He was born in Leeds, in 1937 and was educated at Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University, where he read Classics and took a diploma in linguistics. Harrison's most vengeful and acclaimed poem 'V' was broadcast on channel 4 television in 1987 2 years after its original publication. 'V' is an extremely long poem in rhyming quatrains deliberately echoing Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard.

Displaying many similarities to early 19th century poetry with each stanza presented on only 3 lines and is written in the traditional manner of poetry using iambic pentameter consisting of 10 syllables and 5 accents or stresses per line. Giving Harrison's poem "V" a distinct feeling that we get when reading aspects of sonnets and plays by William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlow consider, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" and "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? " When read aloud the style of writing creates a sense of a beat. Although Harrison's "V" is in certain aspects similar to the works of 19th century poetry and is written in iambic pentameter like most of English literature's greatest sonnets and plays. The poem does how ever contain irregularities within the language and also in the setting of the poem. Typical 19th century poetry is usually set within a rural surrounding discussing or outlining non-political issues and focuses its attention more toward the beauty, fragility and brilliance of a rural setting.

Harrison's poem "V" is set within an urban community and in a contemporary context outlining political and social issues. Harrison chose to assert the "skin's" use of expletives displaying to the reader the social distancing in education and in language. The uses of expletives within a poem were the percentage of language is presented in an immaculate and articulate manner promotes this poem into a contemporary linguistic piece of genius. Its ability to create a similarity between itself and the works of William Shakespeare and then also to shock it readers with its use of a taboo subject all in the same stanza creates an element of shock and surprise. That is in a sense refreshing and successful in its aims to promote issues of social unrest Within the content of 'V' Harrison successfully captures a moment in English life when Leeds traditional and most prominent industries such as mining collapsed under the height of thatcher ism undermining a whole way of life by identifying a delinquents unrest through his language and surroundings.

The Poem is depicted within a graveyard in Leeds where Harrison's mother and father are buried, Harrison describes the desecration of his parent graves and the surrounding graves through acts of vandalism by as Harrison describes "skins" a colloquial term for delinquents. Harrison puts the resultant nihilism into the mouth of a lager-swilling "skin" who due to the present social unrest have taken to acts of vandalism in order to suppress the feelings of bitterness, discontent and shear idleness. Caused by unemployment and a general dissatisfaction felt towards the extremely right wing conservative government by the northern working class. These feelings of bitterness, discontent and shear idleness are not presented within the vandalism in terms of a distinct and articulate act upon the government or the resentment at industry closures and unemployment they are in instead four letter expletives.

Subconscious acts that define their social unrest but are written in terms of an alcoholic rage after a failed football match. Despite being educated at a Leeds grammar school and then progressing on to gain a degree at Leeds University, Harrison does not class himself as a member of the middle class educated elite. He instead still views himself very much as a working class citizen choosing never to denounce his working class background in relation to his education. Much of this working class attitude is reflected within "V" with aspects such as Harrison admittance that for all his berating of the youth culture and shear despair at the desecration of his parents graves, he is in a sense understanding towards the delinquent activities of the "skins".