English Department
National 5 Specified Texts:
Norman MacCaig
Memorial
Name: ____________
Class: ____________
About this Unit
The Big Picture
During the course of this unit we will:
 Study a range of poems by the Scottish poet Norman MacCaig.
 Look at the poems in detail (both in your group and individually),
analyse the techniques used and their effectiveness.
 Complete a variety of textual analysis questions on the poems in
preparation for the Critical Reading exam.
 Compare and contrast the poems.
Learning Intentions
I will:
• Develop my understanding of MacCaig’s work by studying, in detail,
the techniques used by the poet and their effectiveness.
• Identify how the writer’s main theme or central concerns are revealed
and can recognise how they relate to my own and others’ experiences
• Identify and make a personal evaluation of the effect of aspects of the
writer’s style and other features appropriate to genre using some
relevant evidence and terminology.
Success Criteria
I can:
• Confidently discuss aspects of MacCaig’s work (such as language and
imagery) using supporting evidence with my group.
• Confidently answer a variety of questions on the work of Norman
MacCaig
• Confidently contribute my opinion and encourage others to express
themselves
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Memorial – Background
TASK 1. The title of the poem is “Memorial”. What words do you connect with
this title? Write them in the box below:
Listen carefully to Norman MacCaig introduce his poem “Memorial” and answer
the following questions.
2.What event, according to MacCaig changed ‘death’ from more than just a
concept?
(1)
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3. What examples does MacCaig use to show he has not really experienced death
or grief until later in life?
(2)
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4. Why do you think MacCaig has written this poem?
(1)
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Memorial
Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies.
No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain
but has her death in it.
The silence of her dying sounds through
the carousel of language. It’s a web
on which laughter stitches itself. How can my hand
clasp another’s when between them
is that thick death, that intolerable distance?
She grieves for my grief. Dying, she tells me
that bird dives from the sun, that fish
leaps into it. No crocus is carved more gently
than the way her dying
shapes my mind. – But I hear, too,
the other words,
black words that make the sound
of soundlessness, that name the nowhere
she is continuously going into.
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Ever since she died
she can’t stop dying. She makes me
her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece,
a true fiction
of the ugliness of death.
I am her sad music.
Norman MacCaig
New Words and Phrases
Carousel: A carousel or merry-go-round, is an amusement
ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for
riders.
Intolerable: Unable to be endured, unbearable.
Crocus: A flowering plant in the iris family (see cover)
Elegy: An elegy is a poem written for a funeral or to mark
the death of someone close.
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Now you have read the poem, answer the following questions to help you begin
to understand the poem further:
1. Look at lines 1-2 of the poem. How does the poet make sure this is an effective
opening?
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2. Look at lines 4-5. In your own words how does the speaker feel about
language and what effect has this death had on it?
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3. Look at lines 6-8. In your own words, what question is the poet asking?
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4. Look at lines 9-11. Compared to the last stanza, when does this stanza take
place?
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5. What does the poet compare her death to in lines 11-12? What does this
suggest about how he feels about it?
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6. Look at lines 13-17. The speaker now explains that her dying also involves a
great deal of pain and sadness. Quote any words you think show this sadness.
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7. Look at lines 18-23. In your own words what do you think the poet is trying to
say here?
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8. What examples of poetic techniques can you see being used in the poem?
Write down any you notice.
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Structure
Look at the structure of lines 1-3 of the poem.
1. In what two ways does the poet emphasise that she dies “everywhere” using
structure?
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2. Look at lines 6-8. The poet describes an “intolerable distance”. How does he
use structure to emphasise this distance?
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3. Look at the structure of lines 13-14. The poet introduces a change in tone
here. (i)How does the poet use structure to mark this change of tone?
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(ii) What do you think the commas used here suggest about how the speaker
feels?
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4.Look at the final line of the poem.
(i) How does the poet use structure to make this line stand out?
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(ii) Given the title of the poem, what ‘music’ is the poet likely to be referring to?
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5. Look at the structure of the poem overall. The poet uses free verse, with very
little pattern in line length. How does this reflect the poet’s mood considering
the theme of the poem?
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Imagery
1. Look at lines 4-6.
(i) In what way is language like a carousel?
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(ii) What, according to the poet, has her death caused to this carousel?
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2. Read lines 5-6.
(i)What is her death now compared to?
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(ii) What does the word “stitched” suggest about laughter?
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3. Read lines 11-13.
(i)What does the poet compare her dying to here?
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(ii) What do you think these have in common?
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4. Read lines 16-17. Describe in your own words what image you see in your
mind while reading these lines.
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5. Look at the final lines of the poem (lines 19-23). The poet describes himself as
an “elegy” a “fiction”, and “her sad music”. A memorial is usually a focus to a
dead person such as a gravestone. Who or what is the “memorial“ referred to in
the title?
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Word Choice
1. Read lines 6-9.
(i) What is strange about the poet’s use of the word “thick”?
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(ii) What does this word suggest about how the poet feels about her death?
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2. In stanza 2 the poet says “she grieves for my grief”.
(i) What is strange about this statement?
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(ii) In your own words, what do you think the poet means here?
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3. Look at lines 15-16.
(i)What is “the sound of soundlessness” an example of?
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(ii) Why do you think the poet has chosen to use this phrase here?
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4. In stanza 3 the poet writes “since she died she can’t stop dying,” (lines 18-19).
In what way does the poet mean that she “can’t stop dying?”
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5. Look at the quotes from the poem in questions 2-4.
(i)What do they all have in common?
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(ii)What do you think these quotes tell us about how the poet feels about her
death?
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Theme / Main Ideas
Having now studied the poem closely, what do you think the
main message or theme of the poem is?
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Quotation
Analysis/Evaluation
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Quotation
Analysis/Evaluation
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Quotation
Analysis/Evaluation
Some Useful Definitions
Allegory
Alliteration
Ambiguity
Analogy
Assonance
Caesura
Cliché
Contrast
Enjambment
Free Verse
Hyperbole
Imagery
Juxtaposition
Mood
Onomatopoeia
Oxymoron
Paradox
Pun
Personification
Repetition
Rhyme
A story in verse or prose, with a double meaning,
which can be read and understood on two levels.
The use of the same initial letter in two or more words
in close proximity to create a particular effect,
usually intensifying the words. Sometimes the sound
of the repeated initial letter adds to the effect.
When a piece of language can be interpreted in
more than one way; often used for humorous effect.
An agreement in certain respects between things
which are otherwise different.
The repetition of similar vowel sounds, usually close
together, to create the effect of the sound of the
particular vowel used.
A break or pause in a line of poetry, often marked
by punctuation
An idiom or figure of speech (often a metaphor or
simile) which has lost its impact through being overused.
Bringing two objects together to show the difference
The continuation of a line of poetry without a break.
Poetry that does not have end rhymes or follow a set
rhythm.
Exaggeration to emphasise the sense of the words
Figurative or descriptive language, often, but not
necessarily metaphorical to give heightened
meaning, reveal feelings etc.
Bringing two ideas close together for literary effect,
usually contrast.
Feelings of poet/narrator and/or the way the poet
makes you feel when you read the poem.
A figure of speech in which the sound of the word
reflects the sound being described.
A figure of speech in which two words with opposite
meanings are brought together to form a new
phrase or statement.
An apparently contradictory statement
A play in words that are alike or nearly alike in sound
but different in meaning, often for comic effect.
The attribution of human qualities to inanimate
objects
When a word of phrase is repeated to create a
particular effect, usually to emphasis the idea
contained in the words being repeated.
When the sounds at the ends of lines agree with
each other.
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Rhythm
Stanza
Structure
Synecdoche
Symbolism
Synaesthesia
Theme
Tone
Verse
Word Choice
The pattern of sounds created by a poet’s choice
and arrangement of words.
A group of lines in a poem, forming a definite
pattern of rhyme and metre throughout the poem.
How the poem is laid out, with a beginning, middle
and an end.
A figure of speech in which a part is used to refer to
the whole.
A symbol is an object, animate or inanimate, which
represents something else, with which it has some
connection. A literary symbol has the effect of
combining an image with an idea.
The mixing of sensations; the appeal to more than
one sense at the same time, e.g. “a black look”.
The main subject(s) or message of a poem.
The poet’s or speaker’s attitude to his subject,
conveyed by the style of writing. Think of the tone o
voice you would use if you were saying the words
aloud.
A group of lines which forms a unit in Free Verse,
where there is no overall pattern of rhyme or metre.
The actual words chosen by the poet to create a
particular or striking effect.
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