so everybody a few thoughts on Captain Mouse by Ted Hughes um funnily enough for such a short poem you may find this poem uh one of the more difficult uh poems out of the selection of 15 I don't know about you but it's one of those poems that when I read it again I kind of wonder whether I've really got the point of what it's about um uh and I think when I get to the last three lines of this tiny little poem um I'm never quite sure what I make or what I understand of those last three lines and maybe that's the point of the poem that it sets us a little puzzle so my key takeaway from this little um video really is to say don't be scared with your study of poetry if you find something a poem that's a kind of a brain teaser that you know that you keep ruminating on and you're not quite sure what it means or maybe it means something different to you each time you have a look and very often uh good poetry will do that um will set us something to to ponder or reflect on or kind of sometimes almost to Trouble Over You Know wondering what's what's being said so don't let that worry you ambiguity if you like the possibility of different meanings or unclear meaning meanings um that's fine it's one of the things that poetry does and I think very very good poetry um will have a capacity for for lots of different meanings um which will be dependent on who's reading um when that person is reading when the the poet is write was writing um what the culture was like uh when the poem was published how that's different from the the culture maybe when the poem is read so you know great poetry will have ambiguity lots of possibilities for meaning whether or not you think this little poem by tus is a great poem or not um let's not go there uh because that's not really the the job of GCSE to to get you discussing whether you think a poem is great or not um I think history does that and and and in a sense it's not really an important question for us to consider but don't be scared of uh meaning which perhaps is slightly puzzling so let's have a let me share a few Thoughts with you about cat and mouse by tetus um I like the thing I like about this poem I suppose is is the way which it takes us again to Landscapes which I associate very much in my imagination with Ted Hughes I know that part of England where he was born brought up and where he returned as an adult um at various points in his life to to live um in West Yorkshire um the area in and around the cder valley um and I've explained in some of the other videos what the landscape um there is like and I hope you get an idea of of it you can go look on on on Google Earth of course uh but you can also have a look at the website where we have pictures of this sort of landscape so this is where we go in this poem um when tetu starts talking about the the Sheep cropped Summit I think that's a really nice phrase we're up on the top of the the Morland so not Mountains in in any sense of huge high mountains but you've got high hills uh in this part of England and they're very exposed because we have mland on the top of the mland is generally without trees and and historically the mland in in the summertime uh was used to to graze sheep so where youd send your sheep uh to to eat the grass um so sheep cropped Summit would mean that uh the sheep have been out eating the grass on the in this area on the top of on top of the merland but but um perhaps unusually um for this this our image of this timee this part of England perhaps unusually for for our imagination um of this area Hughes is taking us to a summer's day uh the sun shining um and it's it's hot sun at least hot for for West Yorkshire and um that sets the scene for this uh this meeting if you like or or some sort of tension moment of tension between a cat and a housee now uh in English um I think we we we you may have heard of a phrase you know cat and mouse situation um we associate the cat as the Predator the cat is instinctively inclined disposed towards um catching mice um and it goes after mice to to kill them um and uh I think you know very often um historically anyway cats ate mice they modern house cats tend not to but they do like getting them and killing them so Hughes is imagining a cat which come out of somebody's house maybe a farmhouse cat you know up there on the mland um in a situation of tension uh with the a mouse um and uh well the mouse is imagining let's say um the danger from the cat and that's what we've got in this um little poem um the mouse is crouching so tetu is is setting this in the past tense there um it's a story if you like we put things into the simple past in English we we then telling a story setting the scene uh the mouse crouched staring out the chance it dared not take so there's a simple idea there of the mouse being quite canny being aware instinctive ly of a predator predator in this case being a cat um and the mouse seems to be looking out over an expanse it wants to get across an area of grass and it doesn't dare to um in case the cat is waiting that seems to me to be what this this poem is describing um in the first three lines it's a very stereotypical situation Mouse is fearful uh it's aware of the presence somewhere of the cat out to get it so that's that's easy that bit um and then Hughes breaks the line so line three has a line break which in fact becomes line four um and Ted's there is giving I think a very beautiful um evocation of the the landscape here uh where we are so it's a hot day we're on this Morland with its sheep cropping you know the Sheep eating the grass um and it's a lovely lovely phrase time and a world too or old to alter um we've got a five mile prospects I think huses we sort of looking around as he's describing this uh this this place where the the mouses are too afraid to to run out um and uh he's describing this as a place where you can see for five miles so if you have a look up at the top of the web page on this P you'll see I've got a photo of a nice s panoramic view out over the hills and in the area that tetus knew very well and maybe this is where he's setting his poem um and we've got five mile prospects which you can see looking around on a clear day when the sun is shining Woods Villages Farms have a look in the picture you can see all of those there um and that's the scene I'd like you to imagine and and somehow this is this is it's a hot day so it's kind of humming you know you've got this this lovely sensation I think if you're up looking out over Countryside where you can see for five miles from a Hilltop on a hot day you can see the settlements you know the the The Villages towns Farms whatever you can see them there and they're kind of shimmering a little bit in the summer light you know that that that heat can distort uh what we see sometimes so things appear to be just kind of shimmering a little bit like a sort of warm fuzz on what you can see and I think that's that's very powerfully evoked by tus in this this poem and then we get well what happens to the cat and a mouse we know all this Tom and Jerry you know the the dynamic the tension between the nasty cat the mouse we've learned about the mouse but we haven't had the cat described yet no description of where the cat is the mouse is afraid to take a jump so it's just sort of weighing up its chances we then get a description of the landscape and then we come back if you like uh to The Chance the mouse dares not take and Hughes then goes on to this rather abstract statement about uh well uh chances I think and prayers um the nature of prayer now prayer is a really really important phenomenon in the history of of humanity in our culture uh wherever we look as human beings if human beings are in trouble they sense danger if we're in a situation of peril many people instinctively pray according to their cultural tradition so they if they've been brought up in a religious tradition which worships a particular deity or God then people will instinctively pray to that God for protection in the face of danger um throughout history human beings have done that and continue to do so so H is is taking us to the idea of a prayer um whether to two feet or four how are prayers contracted whether in God's eye or the eye of a cat not the cat in this this pone but a cat the eyes of a cat um so what might we be praying about what could the mouse be praying about or the cat be praying about maybe the mouse is looking at the next two feet ahead on the the ground is it safe to jump out should the mouse pray if it was possible capable of doing that could the mouse pray for escape for safe jump across this bit of grass without getting pounced on by a cat I think Hughes is is is looking at that sort of encouraging us to look at that sort of situation make us think about that s situation where perhaps there are instinctive um desires to to pray for for for something to go well you know are we going to make that jump are we going to have a safe journey are we going to um well are we going to be successful in an exam many many people uh you know feel drawn to to to look to some sort of higher power to pray to a higher power depending on the religious Traditions um and maybe this is what Hughes is referring to in this third third of the poem but it is an enma I think um is is she suggesting that mice prey is he suggesting that the cats pre um what might he be observing about human capacity to to pray um whether two feet or four how are prayers contracted it's not a question it's got an exclamation mark at the end so Hugh is saying um prayers can be shortened depending on the context um how are prayers contracted doesn't mean in what way are they but it means look how much they're contracted um whether we're looking down from the point of view of God or the point of view of the cat so maybe hugely suggesting the cat is is is is almost like a sort of Godlike presence in the mind of the mouse okay the mouse wants to make the jump isn't sure whether it's safe to do so maybe the Mouse has a kind of mini prayer um and is the cats going to take any notice of the mini prayer I don't think so the cat will act on Instinct and maybe that's the key to the poem um Hugh is in particularly in the early poems Hugh his real interest in the way that nature operates according to Instinct and to systems and processes it doesn't act perhaps in the way that some human beings do where we take into account you know feelings and other people's wishes and those sorts of things we might make decisions for a number of reasons the natural world I think Hughes is often showing us is a place which is governed according to processes um so if you imagine the mouse praying that the little mouse is going to have a safe passage across the grass without getting Zapped by the cat is the cat going to listen no um with the be aware of a prayer I don't think so um maybe that's what the PO maybe that's what this poem is is is showing to us really and maybe it's it's making a also an inference you know what place might our prayers have so traditional religion has taught people that prayer is a good thing to do and the prayers will be answered if they're said in the right way to the right in the right context um but how are prayers uh contracted says Hughes how they become shortened whether in God's eye or the eye of a cat so maybe this is a poem about perspectives really uh Mouse is very small the country mouse not the one that you might find in a you know in a warehouse or something like that the country mouse is a really tiny little creature very very very vulnerable and maybe that's what we're being shown here this idea of changing perspectives you can see is a human being five miles around this place up on the mland somewhere but the mouse is the mouse's perspective is is very small um so maybe that is is what Hughes is is asking us to to reflect upon um and maybe some Reflections on the nature of prayer and then that sort of dynamic between the cat and the mouse would the mouse care about soorry would the cat care about the mouse or not so plenty to think about I think in that one how successful all of that is um I'm not sure I quite get this poem um if so does that make it a problem is it a good poem If I'm left trying to puzzle it out is it a wonderful poem because I'm puzzling things um that's for you to to take a view on really but I would encourage you as always um to go down to the uh the bottom of the web page and have a look at the other poems about mice which I picked out for you to read some very very famous ones I do uh encourage you to look um probably the most famous one is is the poem to a mouse by Robert Burns he's the national poet of Scotland um don't be put off by the the Scottish uh language in the poem so it's a dialect of English but it's called Scots it's literary Scottish uh poetic language of the the time of Robert Burns a very very famous poem about the mouse being found in the corn by by somebody working on Farmer um really really famous beautiful poem um and there's also another one by another wonderful poet this time from England so easier to understand um but that's also about about a man finding a m a mouse a mouse's Nest you know where the the mouse had its its its Offspring um they're both very beautiful poems because they look look at the the mouse as uh a symbol of you know vulnerability so so a creature that is open to to being harmed by other things and maybe that's what where Ted Hughes is coming from here as well um but we've got a cat in the picture here and the cat's presence and an action and so is not entirely made clear to us and maybe that's the point so keep thinking about that if you've got any ideas about the poem and your responses to it do share them with us um and uh enjoy your study of this particular poem