Hello, I'm Dr Ayoush Lazikani. I teach Medieval English Literature at the University of Oxford. I'm especially based at Jesus and Oriel colleges.

Hello, my name is Dr Foteini Dimirouli and I'm Early Career Development Fellow and Outreach Fellow in English at Keble College, University of Oxford.

So in the interviews for English, we're looking to see your interest in and excitement about literature. The interviews aren't at all a quiz to find out how much you know...they're they're not kind of tests where you have to give answers that are either right or wrong, that's definitely not what the interview is. We're actually just interested in seeing how you think, how you engage with literature, how you respond to new ideas. So when it comes to the interview it's really important to remember that it's not an interrogation it's more a discussion or a debate and that entails asking your interviewers when it comes to anything that may be unfamiliar, a word you don't know, something you haven't quite caught in terms of a question, something you need repeated, anything that you would actually do in a real life debate where you would obviously take cues and ask for clarifications if something wasn't a hundred percent clear, is the same with the interview. I think conceptualizing in that way really sort of guarantees a good performance because it takes the burden of assessment off and it's realistically what tutors are looking for: see how you think, see how you deal with ideas and when it comes to close reading of texts understanding that the candidate... seeing that the candidate is able to engage with that material really thoughtful and deep...thoughtfully and deeply and that they can actually have a fruitful conversation on that material. With...with most colleges I believe you're likely to have at least two interviews. One will be based on a a poem or short prose extract that you're given some time to read in advance and the interview will be based around that poem or or short bit of prose and you'll discuss it in detail with your interviewers. The other interview will be more general based more around your general reading, particularly... we'll particularly use your personal statement, so it's it's really important to have actually read what's on your personal statement and not to say things you've read that you haven't...that can be a temptation to do that but you you are very likely to be asked about what's on your personal statement so be sure to have read it. Some colleges may also ask you in advance to write a list of books you've read over the last year, not all colleges do that, some do that, and you you you can be asked about material you've read that isn't on your personal statement as well, you know, or material you haven't mentioned on a list or anything, so we...an interviewer might ask you in the interview something you've read on a train recently, if you've been able to take a train or a bus, or you know something you read last week that interested you so don't feel too restricted by just what's on your personal statement, you you may be asked about what you've read beyond it as well. And just an additional point on the basis of what Ayoush has just said, you're not expected to know everything. When we ask you about other things you've read, or when we question you and your personal statement, we're mainly trying to gauge your general interest, assuming that you've read a span of things from which your interest in literature has emerged, so we're just trying to really tap into your own interests, it's not our own agenda that we're trying to see. We're not trying to see whether you reflect our own agenda, we're really trying to get to what really motivates you to want to study this particular course and assuming that in order to want to study this course you do have some exposure to different sort of readings that you have taken the time to do at home, outside the school curriculum, and we're just genuinely very interested in having that sort of discussion with you,

Hello Macy, welcome to your English interview. I trust you've had twenty minutes to look through a poem that we've assigned? We're going to talk about this today and my name is Foteini and I'm a Junior Fellow in English and my colleague is going to introduce herself too. Hello Macy, I'm Ayoush Lazikani, I teach Medieval Literature at the University of Oxford. I'm particularly based at Jesus and Oriel colleges, it's very nice to see you today. Hello, lovely to meet you both, hi. Hi, I believe my colleague Foteini will start off talking about the the poem that you've had a chance to look at Macy. Thank you, okay Macy, so 'Tulips'. Before we start with any specific questions, I'd like to ask you to sort of give me a more general impression of what...whether you found the poem interesting, whether you liked it, and what particular points in the poem sort of drew your attention...if you could take me at a place in the text that you found interesting. So what I did kind of think was quite in...intriguing about this poem is that I didn't think it was about tulips as we understand them at all. I didn't think that...I mean from the first impression in the title obviously I'm thinking aesthetically of a tulip that I would know and that we would know...a common tulip...and then when you start to read, the kind of the image that the poet gives this is like quite a...like a distorted kind of interpretation of what a tulip could be and I think that a tulip takes like quite a lot of forms in this poem, so it still like remains the subject and the poet keeps referring to 'the tulips', 'the tulip' so we keep being reminded of the fact that maybe they're supposed to exist within the poem and like tulips as a concept or something are meant to exist but really it doesn't seem to be about that at all, I don't think. How... when you say distorted...you say that it doesn't seem to be so much about tulips so there seems to be a distortion, where do you see that? Can you make that a bit more specific in terms of how you got to that impression? Yeah okay, so so the first line I think is pretty is is pretty reasonable, I mean, 'the tulips make me want to paint', well yeah that's like you know, imitating and nature imitating life through art, but then I think the way that they're quite quickly kind of...I think they're quite personified here where something about the way 'they', so using the pronoun towards a tulip like a human 'they drop their petals on the tabletop', I think that's a fabulous line because it kind of reminds me of like a life drawing or like or like...a body like dropping a discarding of clothes to be observed and to be drawn, to be objectified which is how I think perhaps the tulip is being represented in this poem. But then the fact that the poet uses 'drop' and then 'their petals' is still flower it's still the flower's anatomy it's not 'drop their clothes' obviously, it's the tulips clothing is being dropped, so I quite like the way that he's playing, oh, 'he' sorry, I presume that not he, the poet, could be anybody I don't know, is kind of merging the line between like human and botanical maybe, in the first stanza, I think. And since you're talking about the first stanza, before I pass on to my colleague, what do you think in...on the basis of what you're saying, and I find it very interesting that the the line between, you know, the flower and the human, what do you think of the final line of the first stanza 'and do not wilt so much as faint'.

How do you read that on the basis of what you've just said? Well the 'faint', 'faint' is is the human and it's...it's like a wilting and fainting are both like passive, so they're both out of the hands of the tulip or out of the hands of the person maybe so I think that's kind of maybe reinforcing that idea that the tulip has some kind of other life but it's like in the poet's hands not in the tulips hands perhaps. The tulip / humanoid kind of images is a passive subject in this poem and it is in that final line, I think. Thank you so much. Macy, that's really really interesting and I think you put it so nicely that that merging between the human and the botanical. What what can you tell us uh or what have you noticed about the form of the poem? It could be anything at all about the form of the poem, maybe the number of lines, anything about rhyming, anything at all. So I mean I'm actually not like that kind of confident with I'm not that kind of confident with poetic devices kind of the way that poetry works. That's fine, I should clarify we're not looking for specific terminology or anything like that, just anything that occurs to you about how the poem is organized or shaped. Ok so...I think that the repetition of 'something' is quite quite interesting formally because it's not really consistent but it's still existing there as a repeated kind of...it's almost like the poet's trying to grasp something maybe through repeating that 'something' because it's not really tangible. He keeps like...they keep trying to get to the point of of this 'something' and so are we when we keep hearing that ominous word perhaps randomly and and then I think when we get to the the bottom two stanzas I think are really interesting because we're getting a transformation of like perspective and then this bracket that's kind of like an enjambment, bracketed...kind of piece into the final stanza is weird because that's not... again that's like completely unabout tulips that's that's about the poet making a kind of...interjecting here. 'The backwards one who's in the mirror the one who can't tell left from right'. Now

referring back to what's been said previously where there's like a little rhyming couplet where they say, 'the tulips make me want to see', in italics, 'see', 'the tulips make the other me', so here's like a really kind of concise poetic joining of the tulip and how the poet sees themselves, but then that's really...that's kind of broken up or like it's kind of pushed aside by this bracket because I think that that's the poet adding another thought to hi-... to that se-...to that 'me', to that self, and I'm not really sure, I don't really see that much in poetry, I don't really see that kind of that that use of an extra added bracket bonus bit, I'm not really sure what to make of that? What do you make of the fact that it's broken also between stanzas, so you've got the bracket broken up between two stanzas. Is there any correlation you can draw between what is being said and that sort of, as you said, maybe slightly unfamiliar form. So the first part of the bracket that's in the stanza above, in the...in the fourth...at the end of the fourth stanza 'the backwards one who's in the mirror', so maybe I could associate that with 'see' and 'me' that's been introduced before but then 'the one who can't tell left from right', is that the same 'one'? 'One' seems quite ambiguous, I think, it's quite...even though it's rather precise, 'the one', it sounds like they're talking about, you know, 'the one' could even be a lover or somebody in sight but it doesn't seem to be the same because, even though it's in within the same bracket, 'the one who can't tell left from right' kind of has nothing to do with 'the backwards one', I mean what is the backwards one? It seems like it's strangely conjoined in this like...in punctuation really, it doesn't really have anything to do with each other and I think that's why the stanzas perhaps are broken up, to make...to differentiate between that...it's quite confusing. Yeah, I yeah I totally...I find it very confusing as well and you so you've and you talked very interestingly about you you called it a kind of couplet or coupling of rhymes, 'see' and 'me' that brings those concepts quite closely together. Do you have any other thoughts about the rhyming in the poem as a whole, how the rhymes work, have you noticed a pattern across the whole poem?

Yes so...you have to forgive me because I can't I can't remember the exact term and I can't remember if it's a like a blind rhyme or something, so so like 'twist' and 'missed', for example, are obviously not exact but the sound is echoed so you have the same echoing sounds in the first line and these four...and the fourth line so like an abba maybe? Great, great yeah yeah we're not looking for any specific you know terminology with that, don't worry about that at all and that's that's really well noticed that that the lack of fullness in the rhyme, but but there being that echo of sound and you've noticed that abba pattern. Is there anywhere else in the poem where you find that the rhymes aren't exactly full rhymes?

Um

Maybe not, I'm not sure could you direct me maybe to where I could look for that? Of course yeah of course I'm wondering about the the very last stanza.

I mean we could also talk about the the 'missed'...the 'missed' and 'twist' one that you did...you you you brought up and what what do you think is the effect of that of that lack of fullness in the rhyme? Well looking back to the form of that stanza, the third stanza, I think that 'twist' / 'missed' is very interesting because there's like a fifth line in this stanza like it's not...it's not consistent with the rest of the stanzas like...so that little straws is like another extra little kind of enjambment that doesn't fit with the rest of the form and then that's almost like that form...this is kind of maybe clutching quite literally at straws...but that the form maybe has been missed it's not quite aligned I'm not sure...it it's grasping at the poetic form and grasping at the rhyme but maybe not getting it right? That's that's very interesting and I don't know...I have questions but I'll pass over to Foteini I'm sure she has questions as well. Thank you. So Macy I'm going to take you back to content a bit. You said before...you mentioned before, the repetition of 'something' it seems that there's something that poet is getting at right, something about the tulips, and then you realised yourself that there is a bit of shift in perspective, as you said, the one...and we get to the one who's in the mirror who can't tell left from right, how did we get from the tulips to whatever's in the mirror? What is the binding element? Are the tulips trying to teach us something because you know you mentioned yourself that 'see' is in italics and then dash 'the tulips make me want to see', what is it? What what it...what do you think is happening here?

Maybe the third stanza would be helpful in this respect, 'something about the way they twist as if to catch the last applause' why is it the last applause?

Um

Well I'm not sure how I could relate this back but I did kind of...I did write down the 'see' part and I thought about how his...their...the poet's perspective on the tulips is kind of never quite precise, it's never quite finished or final there's like an added perception here that the poet's getting of this tulip where it keeps taking different forms, like something about the way they twist', well I've never seen a tulip twist so it's like he's almost like kind of philosophizing over whatever this image of the tulip is that that the poet is maybe trying to grasp or paint is quite an objective thing that they're trying to do but really they can't paint an accurate image of a tulip at all, so...but then the way they're somehow getting clearer through being obscured is quite interesting. But interestingly 'clearer' could be that they become more visible, clearer, but it could also be that they're withering because when flower petals become clear they're about to die. Ok so it could be it could be...sort of different meaning or double meaning. I think the actual final line of the poem is interesting. It's kind of like a little bit teleological it's like a little bit...it's got some kind of religious undertones. I feel like giving themselves up sounds like they're sacrificing, you know, they're being sacrificed or something and into 'the light' is quite a heavenly or divine kind of image and again I don't think that really has anything to do with the rest of the poem, it's quite ominous again. But that theme definitely when when you've pointed me towards that image of death through clearer...that isn't something that I didn't pick up on initially until you've just said that, but that consistent theme of death there with the human body and the life cycle of a tulip is something...is a tone that I think is in the poem but again not really tangible because I didn't pick up on it until looking back into the stanzas where you've just directed me, which kind of confuses and gives another dimension to the poem again.

What about the second stanza? I'm wondering if there's anything there that can build on what you've you've...the very interesting points you've just been making?

I love that...sorry...I love that third...I did pick up on that third line of the second stanza there 'wearing decay like diadems' is fabulous, I mean it's...the...I think that goes back to the first stanza with the wearing and the undressing and unrobing of the tulip it's kind of exposing. But then to wear decay is quite uncanny, it's a little bit...it doesn't really...it's not...a bit unsettling and perhaps it's...I think it's almost quite yeah exposing this kind of morbid part of the life cycle of a tulip or the life cycle of a human where, you know, like the tulip's almost like a living corpse in that line. And then 'parading' again is quite exhibitionist again, it's quite exposing where the poet is using the tulip for art but then the tulip is out of its control and the tulip has like a life cycle and a death of its own or something maybe? I don't know I'm maybe I'm going too much into into that but I like the phrase, I like the...I like the kind of the imagery that's been used in that in that second paragraph there, that second stanza. That...I know I...I very much agree I think it it's a a wonderful image, I think you've explained it very well and it's it's interesting that they're they're 'wearing decay like diadems', 'like diadems', using a simile there. Any thoughts about that? Why not just say wearing...wearing decay? Or wearing decay...being lit-...literally or actually diadems, why do we have the simile or the comparison there do you think?

Or what the...what might the effect be? Because we we have use of simile elsewhere in the poem as well.

What about...kind of...does that relate back maybe to the fact that the poem can't quite grasp an objective image of a flower? I mean they're still trying to imitate something, I feel like in the producing of the poem, in the producing of the art, it's imitation and so the 'like' is is the poet's impression, which is kind of the same as where 'the tulips make me want to see' that use of the simile perhaps is just merely interpretation, it's just an idea of a tulip like all of these stanzas are...they're not actually tulips as we know them they're all impressions of a tulip, I think. That's so interesting yeah, I think that's a really sensitive way of thinking about how the similes work. I'll...I'll pass over to my my colleague. Ok so I think we're probably running out of time in terms of your reading of the poem, thank you so much for reading the poem with us. It's been really interesting and thank you for your comments and I think we're gonna kind of finish off with a more general question and I would like to ask you whether there is anything when it comes to your...the reading you've done so far: the poem, novel, anything that you can draw a parallel with when it comes to this poem and something you've read, so something you can parallel to this poem, anything that reminds you of it?

I just have to have a second to think is that okay? Of course. It's a little bit like and now I haven't read lots of it but from what I remember it's a bit like Baudelaire and thinking about...and I haven't I haven't read lots of Baudelaire but I am aware of not...the name the name slips me...the corpse and you'll be able to direct me to this...the co- oh it's like the the flowering corpse or the more...I can't remember. There's a Baudelaire poem about kind of like flowers spawning from a corpse and it's actually quite disgusting and a bit decadent and a bit morbid. But I quite like that kind of romanticizing death which I think really this poem is doing here. That...the uncanniness of what we would see as a beautiful tulip or a lovely kind of blossoming flower that's meant to be an image of life is then kind of drawn back into that like dark reality of of kind of like death is quite cyclical. I don't think this poem is very negative though. I was about to say, do you think like this is as dark as Les fleurs du mal? Like it's probably not as...it doesn't have exact...it doesn't have the same atmosphere, right? Do you do you find this poem to be dark? You said not quite? No thank you for directing me to that name as well Les fleurs du mal, thank you. It's no, I think they're giving themselves up to the light, I think that's a very kind of almost epistemological kind of ending, it's it's quite a positive hopeful ending that the tulips almost have some like autonomy in that final part where they're like giving themselves up rather than being absorbed like a mold or a fungus or something, like they've kind of got a life of their own in this...in the final line, even though they're sacrificing themselves. I can't. I I can't like put my finger on that exactly but it's not really disgusting. It's a little bit morbid but it's not disgusting, it's quite pleasant, I think actually. Well thank you so much for that. Unless Ayoush has anything else to ask, I think I'm done. No not at all, thank you Macy, really interesting talking through this poem with you, lots of interest-...very interesting readings. Thank you very much for that, I really enjoyed it, thank you.

So I think as all of you might have been able to see, Macy was a very sensitive reader of literature, she paid a lot of attention to the poem. She did a very good job when it comes to identifying...core ideas in the poem, such as the personification of the tulips, the agency the tulips have, what she kept referring to as a tulip's all....own life cycle, so that was something very important about the poem that she picked up straight away. She...she was also very flexible so as soon as I directed her to a specific point in the poem that she hadn't quite realized, sort of like double meaning at play, she modified her reading to sort of encompass this direction so that showed somebody who is able to listen to the interviewers, modify their opinion, what we call 'flexibility of thought' so that's quite a positive thing for an interviewee. What...another thing that is very important is that...and I was obviously...I was making notes on what Macy was saying throughout so it's important to know that the interviewers do keep notes on what the candidates say, I really like the fact that when I asked her to draw my attention somewhere in the poem she she went more general but then when I asked her to go a bit more specific she did start from the beginning of the poem. It's quite nice to sort of see somebody...proceeding to sort of...have some sort of linearity to their reading, so I found that was quite nice that she started from the very beginning and then moved down the poem, that was good. And I would say overall it's very important as a candidate and as an interviewee, is extremely important to strike the right balance between content and form and and general impressions and attention to detail. I would say that Macy was perhaps a bit more perceptive when it comes to content and general impression. Maybe she would need a bit more work when it comes to formal details and attention to detail more generally, so I would have to say, even though I thought this was an excellent interview, if there was one thing to improve would be sort of being a bit more a bit more focused on the micro element of the poem would be great and connecting that to the macro element of the poem, but I think overall this worked well for me and especially the fact that Macy was so...able to sort of be directed and come up with really sort of imaginative responses and she also looked very passionate and enthusiastic which is always a good thing.

I will very much echo what has been said already. Macy was clearly a very sensitive reader of the poem and she when prompted she gave interesting attention to detail, so I was struck that early on she noted the use of pronouns and the definite article 'their' and there...it's it's very interesting when candidates can really zoom in on those little details. I think it's always a very positive and as has been said Macy was very good at listening to the interviewer and building on on what she had said, based on the interviewer's questions, for example, when my colleague asked about the use of of the verb 'faint', Macy was very responsive and was able to build on her her previous comments. I noticed that Macy seemed to become quite nervous when I mentioned form and this is actually very common that candidates do often panic a little when when their interviewers ask about form. It's very important to remember your interviewers aren't looking for specific technical knowledge and terminology, we're really interested just to see if you've picked up on details as to how the poem is arranged, shaped. It could be the number of lines in a stanza, it could be the length of lines, it could be the rhymes that are used...because you'll notice that Macy actually had...did have very interesting points about form to make, so for example she noticed that break across the last two stanzas with the brackets and how that that creates a division between the lines and the the concepts and she noticed the italics of the...italicization of 'see' in the stanza before last, so she clearly did have very interesting things about form to say, I think she just panicked a little when asked about it, so that's something to be aware of. Do not not...what...not panic if someone asks you about form, but just to think about about how the poem is is organized and and shaped and don't feel that you're being asked for lots of technical knowledge or terminology or anything like that.

Another very final comment. When we asked Macy to think about something she's read before and draw a correspondence with the poem, she did ask us for a second or two to think and it's important to remember that this is certainly the right thing to do. We don't expect somebody to come up with something genius right off the bat, so asking for some time to reflect is perfectly ok and Macy was very good when it comes to taking that space for herself.