Aunt Julia By Norman MacCaig

AUNT JULIA By Norman MacCaig Apart from being a distinguished Scottish poet Norman MacCaig ( ) taught in school and universities during his long career. Although he was brought up in Edinburgh, it was his mother’s Gaelic heritage, experienced during visits to her family in the Highlands of Scotland, which had an enduring influence on him Contrast between urban & rural

Peat Decayed vegetation, compressed which is dug up from the peat bogs and used as fuel. Peatscrapes Scars in the bog where the peat has been removed Lazybeds The correct name for large beds of earth after the peat has been removed. Gaelic Any one of a number of Celtic languages spoken throughout the British Isles Threepenny bit A coin worth 3 old pence (Just over 1p in modern value) Useful Vocabulary

AUNT JULIA Aunt Julia spoke in Gaelic very loud and very fast. I could not answer her - I could not understand her. Repetition of the name and emphasis, as if it is a trigger of the memories that follow. Repetitions suggest that the poet is piecing the memories together bit by bit. It also reinforces the idea.

AUNT JULIA

She wore men’s boots when she wore any. - I can see her strong foot, stained with peat, paddling with the treadle of the spinning wheel while her right hand drew yarn marvellously out of the air. Contrast between her stained, boot-wearing feet associated with manual labour and her hands which are capable of fine and delicate work. It is clear that Aunt Julia was versatile & that she had to fend for herself. SIBILANCE

Hers was the only house where I’ve lain at night in the absolute darkness of a box bed, listening to crickets being friendly. Contrast between the unfriendly / potentially menacing dark which was absolute”, and the “friendly” crickets. ALLITERATION

She was buckets and water flouncing into them. She was winds pouring wetly Round house-ends. She was brown eggs, black skirts and a keeper of threepennybits in a teapot. The short, jerky lines in the early part of the poem suggested that the poet’s memories were returning in an unstructured and random way. A succession of metaphors. The poet’s aunt wasn’t literally any of these things. These are the images that occur to him as he casts his mind back. What techniques are used in this verse? The shortage of punctuation and the irregular verse lengths added to this muddled impression. The memories are coming thick and fast. List of three Alliteration

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic very loud and very fast. By the time I had learned a little, she lay silenced in the absolute black of a sandy grave at Luskentyre. The repetition of the first two lines suggests that the poet is back where he started. The Gaelic language has left the most indelible imprint. It reinforces the cultural distance between elderly aunt and young nephew. Alliteration creates a softening impression as the poet recalls her death. The use of a romantic-sounding place name strengthens the idea that there was something precious about Aunt Julia. She has now become part of the environment that she knew so well. The sibilance of “she”, “silenced” and “sandy” has the same hushing effect. The reader senses that he remembers his aunt with fondness and affection.

But I hear her still, welcoming me with a seagull’s voice across a hundred yards of peatscrapes and lazybeds and getting angry, getting angry with so many questions unanswered. The poet imagines that he can hear her “voice” when he returns to her remote part of Scotland. To him her voice is part of the landscape. Just as the poet cannot answer his aunt’s “voice” now, so he cannot enquire about her lonely-sounding life in this faraway corner of Scotland. The reader gets the idea that a special cultural heritage has died with her. Repetition

There now follows some detailed analysis that would score a high grade at GCSE…

Introduction “Aunt Julia” is an autobiographical poem in which the author looks back at his childhood days with Aunt Julia affectionately and now speaks regretfully that, following her death, he has lost the ability to converse with her in the Gaelic language. Meaning The fact that MacCaig repeats the word “angry” towards the end of the poem implies that there is something more than mere autobiography about the poem. He is passionate about his Scottish roots, and, maybe, Aunt Julia represents something more than a single person: she seems to stand for a way of life, a culture and a language which are fast disappearing in the modern world. Like Aunt Julia, once it is gone, it is gone for ever. Structure The poem is written in free verse, with five irregular stanzas. This style suits the poem because it reflects the random nature of human thought, as the poet reflects upon his past, and then becomes more passionate toward the end.

Analysis STANZA 1 The first stanza uses simple language and relies upon repetition to enhance the rhythm; this is appropriate for the idea of a poet musing upon his childhood. We are introduced to the slightly eccentric personality of his aunt with her loud, fast and incomprehensible speech. The use of the dash at the end of the third line suggest that the poet has adapted the thought in line 3 to make line 4 stronger.

STANZA 2 In stanza 2, he reinforces his aunt’s eccentricity, with his references to her footwear, but there is an extra dimension of hardiness, which is reinforced with the word “strong”. Again, he has made use of the dash to give the impression of an afterthought. He describes her as being in unity with the land because she is “stained with peat”, just as she is in unity with the task of turning a natural product, wool, into clothing. The use of the word “marvellously” gives her skill an impressive, almost magical quality. Although the author claimed he could not “understand” her, this refers only to her language, because his descriptions of her reveal that he has a very clear “understanding” of who she is, and what she stands for.

STANZA 3 Stanza 3 has no endstops creating a sense of pace and excitement. The child is alone, at night, in a comparatively strange bed – of sorts. This is often a recipe for fear, but not in this case. Again, there is the concept of harmony with nature because of the “crickets being friendly”. Despite the poverty, there is a different kind of wealth associated with this existence, a spiritual wealth and harmony.

STANZA 4 Stanza 4 bombards the senses with a list of three statements, all starting the same way (“She was…”) for emphasis. The same idea of unity with her life is contained within that idea that she “was” each of the tasks she performed, rather than a more familiar “she did”. Use of the word “was” reminds us that all of the tasks she performed were part of her existence – again establishing a sense of harmony in everything she did. The sense of touch is used with the water and the wind and “wetly”. The word “flouncing” carries an idea of sound, and the two colours in the same line create a picture for the eye, with the sense of taste hinted at with the eggs and the teapot. His aunt, despite her poverty, had a sense of pride and dignity about her, in her dedication to her work, her unity with the natural elements, even to the point of saving small amounts of money so that she could remain self-sufficient.

STANZA 5 The final stanza begins with the same two lines as at the beginning of the poem; this provides a kind of refrain and brings the poem neatly to a rounded end. There is an element of sadness in the fact that he is desperate to communicate with his aunt in her own language and learns enough – just too late - as she dies just at the time he feels ready. His anger is suggested by the finality of the vocabulary “silenced”, “absolute” and “black”. The slightly romantic-sounding “Luskentyre” adds to the feel that this woman belongs to another world. The irony at the end is the fact that he has been desperate to communicate with her during her lifetime and felt that he could not, but after her death there is a kind of communication between them, perhaps showing that the spiritual bond between them was always there and did not really need the mechanics of language. The final three lines give vent to his anger – the loss of something very precious both as a person and the symbol of his Scottish heritage.

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic very loud and very fast. I could not answer her — I could not understand her. She wore men's boots when she wore any. — I can see her strong foot, stained with peat, paddling with the treadle of the spinning wheel while her right hand drew yarn marvellously out of the air. Hers was the only house where I've lain at night in a box bed, listening to crickets being friendly. She was buckets and water flouncing into them. She was winds pouring wetly round house-ends. She was brown eggs, black skirts and a keeper of threepennybits in a teapot. Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic very loud and very fast. By the time I had learned a little, she lay silenced in the absolute black of a sandy grave at Luskentyre. But I hear her still, welcoming me with a seagull's voice across a hundred yards of peatscrapes and lazybeds and getting angry, getting angry with so many questions unanswered. AUNT JULIA Norman MacCaig

Questions on “Aunt Julia” by Norman MacCaig SPEAKING & LISTENING 1.What is Gaelic? Can you suggest a reason why Aunt Julia spoke it “very loud”? 2.What is striking about the first two lines of the second verse? 3.What is peat? Why has Aunt Julia got it on her feet? 4.Why does Aunt Julia have a spinning wheel? 5.What are crickets? What sound do they make? 6. Can you suggest a reason why the water is described as “flouncing” in verse four? 7.Can you offer two reasons why the poet learned some Gaelic? 8.What are “lazybeds”? Why has the poet used this unusual word?

WRITING 1.Using bullet points list six facts about Aunt Julia’s life in the Highlands. 2.Give some examples of repetitions in this poem. In your own words explain why you think several words and phrases are repeated during the course of the poem 3.Identify one phrase of three or four words which you consider to be particularly effective. Explain your choice of phrase. 4.How has Norman MacCaig used language to make his thoughts about Aunt Julia more memorable?