Not My best side

 You have had the basic legend of St George and the Dragon read to you.
Now write down the basic story of St George and the Dragon. This is the literary / mythological context of the poem.
 Aesthetic and cultural context – The poem animates a painting by Uccello
Paolo. Listen to the ideas and description of the paining and then write down four key aesthetic principles or ideas of the painting.

 What U.A. Fanthorpe does in response to Uccello’s painting is to turn her focus on the three living creatures of the dragon, maiden and knight. She gives them individual monologues that are indicated by Roman numerals.
Each voice is not only markedly different but also an ironic distortion of
traditional stereotypes of stock characters. As the title implies, they offer less than glowing impressions, their obvious personality flaws subverting
(undermining) expectations of good and evil and courage and honour.
Fanthorpe fuses past and present, using explicit references to the painting itself but using monologues couched in contemporary language.
 ACTIVITY – 1. What do you think the expectation of a maiden is? What do you think the stereotypical or conventional expecations are of the dragon?
What do you think are the stereotypical or conventional expecations?

Satirically negative connotations replace legendary figures with modern day archetypes. Her cariacatures are an excellent example of the deliberate subversion of original intention and substance that is often bound up in
Ekphrasis poetry. What is Ekphrasis poetry? Ekphrasis is a term given for writing that directly comments upon another art form, such as painting, a novel or a film. An example is “Ode on a Grecian Urn” from John Keats.
Fanthorpe’s derivative text ends up being very different in style to the original depiction of a damsel being rescued from a fire-breathing dragon by a knight in shining armour. This fairy tale motif has become a clichéd motif, reimagined in different forms across cultures. Her dramatic monologu4es break with the legendary conventions offered by Uccello. Each of the three nineteen line stanzas challenge long stsanding perceptions of evil dragons, passive owmen and heroic knights. This is achieved through what she called “Desperado” poetry or post-modern approaches to exploring discrepant views retole from the personal persepctives of her caricatured characters.

 Her characteristics use of blunt truncated statements, flow on lines
(enjambement) and conversational tone is embedded into the three monologues
 Her purpose is also clearly shown by the knight’s confused query of the girl’s reluctance to “carry out the roles that sociology and myth have created for you.” Her dragon is a disgruntled critic of everyone else including the painter, her damsel something who fancies the dragon over the obnoxiously pompous boy knight. Each condemns themselves by what they say and think; the innate selfishness they show not being a normal part of a legend. There is also a veiled criticism form all, including the poet, that the painting itself did not in fact show the “best side” of any of the figure due to Uccello’s obsession with his own artistic concerns.