13. Pluto

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we read through the twelfth poem in the collection, 'Pluto', focusing in particular on: (i) the implications of the title of the poem; (ii) the idea of the "brown coins of age" on the speaker's face, and the contrast between birth and old age; (iii) the discovery of Pluto in 1930, and the analogy between a world that is far away in space (Pluto) and a 'world' that is far away in time (the past).

Course

In this course, Professor John McRae (University of Nottingham) explores Carol Ann Duffy’s 1993 collection, ‘Mean Time'. After an introductory module in which we think about the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy in general and the collection as a whole – and especially the implications of its title – the course continues with a reading and analysis of each of the thirty-nine poems in the collection, one by one.

Lecturer

John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies and Teaching Associate in the School of English at Nottingham University, and holds Visiting Professorships in China, Malaysia, Spain and the USA. He is co-author of The Routledge History of Literature in English with Ron Carter, and also wrote The Language of Poetry, Literature with a Small 'l' and the first critical edition of Teleny by Oscar Wilde and others.