Assisi Flashcards
What is the poem about?
- The basilica was built in honour of St Francis of Assisi, a Catholic friar and preacher who decided to live a life of poverty after spending time with the poor.
- In the poem, MacCaig exposes the irony that this church, constructed to celebrate a man devoted to the poor, is now a symbol of hypocrisy.
- Instead of being a lasting monument to the original and noble philosophies of St Francis, it has become celebrated for its architectural merit and the priceless frescoes by the artist Giotto, which are housed within it.
Form and structure
first - ?
second- ?
third- ?
- The poem is separated into three distinct stanzas which describe different scenes.
- In the first, the speaker introduces us to the dwarf begging outside the basilica.
- The second focuses on the priest who is acting as a tour guide and the third examines the tourists’ reaction to the dwarf. The portrait of this pitiful figure, which opens and closes the poem, is the most abiding image for the reader.
- The poem is written in free verse using irregular stanzas to create a conversational, accessible style.
what type of language?
The language is deliberately unsophisticated and even at times monosyllabic. This again lends itself to the accessibility of the poem and is typical of MacCaig’s work.
“with his hands on backwards”
Imagery
The imagery is almost grotesque and emphasises the terrible condition of this man with his hands on backwards.
“sat, slumped like a half-filled sack”
sibilance of the simile - sat, slumped like a half-filled sack creates an incredibly vivid image suggesting that he can barely support his own frame. The sack metaphor continues in the description of his tiny twisted legs from which/sawdust might run.
“three tiers of churches”
Juxtaposes this pitiful, crooked, pathetic individual against the grand backdrop of the three tiers of churches that comprise the basilica.
What is being emphasised here is the incongruity that such an architecturally complex building was used to honour a priest with such simple, plain tastes and philosophies.
“brother/of the poor, talker with the birds.”
Contrast -“brother/of the poor, talker with the birds.”
The speaker reveals a fundamental disconnect between what St Francis represented and the way he is now honoured, not through acts of compassion and empathy but in the building of lavish, expensive constructions like the basilica.
“the dwarf had the advantage/of not being dead yet.”
Tone- The final lines of the first stanza create a bitter, caustic tone as the speaker wryly notes how, unlike St Francis, the dwarf had the advantage/of not being dead yet.
The effect of these lines is to suggest that being alive is the only thing the beggar has in his favour, yet what is really implied is that perhaps it would be better if he were dead, rather than being forced to endure this terrible existence.
“yet”
The final word yet has a sinister effect, suggesting that the beggar will not survive this pitiful way of life for much longer.
reveal to the illiterate the goodness/of God and the suffering/of His Son.
The mood changes from the pity elicited by the beggar to anger, as the speaker notes how the priest fawns over the cleverness of the artist Giotto. This heavy irony emphasises the hypocrisy of the priest, supposedly a man devoted to the teachings of the Bible yet who seems utterly unaffected by the sight of the beggar.
“goodness” and “suffering”
Hypocrisy - The priest references the goodness and the suffering captured in the priceless frescoes, but seems more impressed with the depiction of these teachings than in actually practicing them himself.
I understood/ the explanation and/the cleverness.
- The speaker succinctly dismisses the expertise of the priest with the short sentence.
- It’s clear the speaker is offended by the obvious intellectual pride the priest demonstrates when he discusses Giotto’s work.
- Again, the hypocrisy of the Church is revealed through the actions of the guide, since priests are supposed to be humble as well as compassionate.
This priest is neither and MacCaig implies that intelligence without kindness has no value.
“clucking contentedly”
Metaphor- Draws our attention turns to the tourists who seem impressed with their tour guide and the mood changes again as the speaker sardonically compares them to a flock of chickens with dumb, blind obedience as they fluttered after him.
This disparaging analogy reveals the contempt that the speaker holds for the tourists who, just like the priest, are oblivious to, and unaffected by, the plight of the poor dwarf.
“the grain of the Word.”
Metaphor
- of them as little more than farmyard poultry is extended as the priest is described as leading them by scattering the grain of the Word.
- This is a deliberately ironic allusion to the biblical Parable of the Sower in which Jesus uses the symbol of seeds to represent the word of God.
- While some of the seeds eventually take root and bear fruit, many are lost or ruined. This implies that, while the tourists listen to the priest’s words, their true meaning is lost on them and they defer to the priest unquestioningly just as the Church expects its members to defer to it.
“It was they who had passed/the ruined temple outside”.
- The tone becomes almost accusatory as the speaker once again focuses on the beggar as he considers the apathetic response of the other tourists to his presence.
- The syntax of these lines emphasises the word they simplying that the speaker feels no affinity with the others in the group, and that they have very different perspectives and attitudes towards the dwarf.
