Letter: Ode to Yosser
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Your support makes all the difference.George Walden removed his daughter from Godolphin and Latymer school because her English lessons involved studying Boys from the Blackstuff rather than the poetry of Keats ("A square peg on the right", 15 September). But Boys from the Blackstuff would make an excellent companion study to the poetry of Keats. Alan Bleasdale is a powerful English writer, working in a tradition encompassing the radicalism of Shelley, the exploitation of the vernacular for poetic effect as in Wordsworth, and the heightened visual imagery of Keats himself.
Since Bleasdale is a playwright, a more appropriate comparison is with Shakespeare, who also used popular dramatic forms to deal with political themes, and who also wrote towering roles for actors and great theatrical set pieces (even more noteworthy is Bleasdale's GBH).
Poor Ms Walden - subjected to a "superior education" in which she was not allowed to work out for herself that the radical creative traditions of English literature continue after the 19th century. Some basic cultural history would reveal to her, too, that there was a time when studying Romantic poetry would have been considered terribly shocking for well- brought-up young ladies.
Maire Davies
Chingford, Essex
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