h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dylan and Poe seem to fall into this category when it comes to teaching about them. I read my students "A Child's Christmas in
Wales," just before the Winter break. They really liked it. They wanted to know more about him. Without it becoming a morality play, what do you say? "Well, he partied hard and drank himself to death"? With older students you could have a discussion about drinking and writing. But with 12 year olds, I find it somewhat difficult. He had a fabulously interesting life with alcohol, but a damn boring one without it. Sad really. Certainly you don't want your students to hear, "If you are going to be a good writer, you've got to drink, do, drugs or be really depressed." Still, it does seem to help. Where can I get a crack pipe?

I thought that the fact that he died young would be a warning for anyone.

But seriously if you didn't want to dwell on Dylan's relationship with booze, then what i suggest to provide infomation Dyaln by using exracts from his prose. His prose is rich in detail above his early life [ up until about 20 ] and in particular his chilhood years. The portrait of an artist as a young dog, is a collection of shorts which would provide a lot of info without refering to his death at all.

As a lecturer in literature to 18 and 19 year olds , I found my greatest pleasure in dealing with * a Refusal to Mourn the Death by Fire of a Child in London * .

No matter how many times I dealt with it , either I or the students found a new layer of meaning , and its exegesis would now take me many pages .

It is a brilliant and very positive poem.

Of course , I first came across his work through * Under Milkwood * , another piece of brilliant writing , with its first sequence the very best piece of verbal * dollying -in * ever written