How Does The Selfish Giant By Amy Carne Gier Relate To Belonging

Presenter: Welcome to the show, I’m George Caster and I’ll be your host. For today I’m being joined with special guests Christina Lee and Stephan David. Welcome and thanks for joining me. Our poetess for today has been praised by many, including well known author of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and ‘The Selfish Giant’, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). Born in London in 1861, Amy Levy was an independent and talented woman. Each of us today has found one of Levy’s poems to discuss. Ladies first, Christina.
Christina: Thank you. Firstly, I feel that it is appropriate to mention that most of Levy’s poems are based on very similar themes, to which my poem is no exception. Typically, Levy wrote pieces with very dark and melancholy themes to them, likely

She says quite clearly that death is something that frightens, not intrigues, her. “Shrouding mantle” sounds more like she doesn’t understand the nature or identity of death, which links to your point of it being a reference to the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper doesn’t have any true identity and can be portrayed in many different fashions. I understand the depression that is laced amongst this poem but nothing much more than that and only because she was battling those things whilst writing her poems. It’s very hard to write without including any aspects of your personality and experiences in. The line that you pointed out George, ‘Alternately she swings from grief to grief,’ could just be her being constantly plagued by both ideas but in a sense, they balance each other out. Fearing both makes resolving one impossible. But, the poem, as George said, does show, and very well, that Levy, during her life time, struggled with battles that it’s unlikely she voiced in any other way than her

The interesting thing about ‘A Farewell’ (Levy) is the bitter sweetness about it. The stanza that begins ‘O fairest of all fair places’ has a rather different feel than the rest of the poem. Take that stanza out of context and you might see it as a poem with a romanticized view on a setting. Put it back into the poem and we, as readers, can see that it’s not the case. It appears that Levy is showing the difference in how other people are and see things compared to how she does. The ‘fairest of all fair’ and the ‘sweetest of all sweet’ contrasts heavily to the overuse of the word ‘sad’. The first two are very positive whilst ‘sad’ is plain but obviously