Tennyson's poetry

Dear Year 13 (as you now are)

Alas, I am unable to be with you on Thursday, which is really annoying as it is our first lesson. I am out at Warwick University. This term we shall be working on your unit 4 coursework, and tomorrow we shall discuss this in detail.

For the moment, all you need to know is that it will be due in on November 11th (put the date in your planners) and that before you complete it, you will have to write at least three other substantial essays in preparation.

For the first of these, we are going to look at two Tennyson Poems.

For Thursday's lesson, I would like you to read through both poems (you may have come across them before).

Then, using the computers in room 5 , research the following questions:

1) Find out some biographical information about Tennyson. When did he live, what were the important events in his personal life? What was going on in the world at the time? At what stage in his career as a poet did he write these poems?

2) Find out some information about women in Tennyson’s time. What were their rights? What were their social expectations? What were the differences between women of different classes, and how did this affect what they could or could not do?

3) Find out some information about the background to each poem. Try and discover what story each one was based on, and what inspired Tennyson to write them.

Present this information as a lavishly illustrated powerpoint presentation to be shown to the whole class and me) next lesson.