Work for today's lesson

I hope that you are enjoying reading through 'To His Coy Mistress'. What I would like you to do is to compare this with the reading that we did yesterday of Donne's 'Elegy on His Mistris Going to Bed'. You might want to compare, for instance, some of the mercantile imagery used--of possessions, jewels and so on-- and you might also want to consider the different audiences for each poem.

For background on Donne, the best site is Luminarium, which has a wealth of information about his life and works.. You can find some especially interesting essays here.

Marvell is also well represented on Luminarium, and you can find some interesting background reading and critical essays here. You might find it especially helpful to consider the biographical background to each poem--how relevant is it--and how much is it a construct? In other words, are these poems written for real women in real situations, or are they in effect rhetorical showpieces, whose primary purpose is to entertain and demonstrate the ability and wit of the poet?

At a minimum, you should carefully read and annotate 'To His Coy Mistress' and be prepared for a blazing discussion on the comparison next lesson.

Find out, for instance, why Vegetable love would be slow, and what is the relevance of 'antediluvian' to the poem...

Happy researching!

COVER FOR MISS DAVIES

With reference to the Gothic concepts discussed in the lesson yesterday, continue to explore the following scenes in Macbeth in preparation for the forthcoming essay on female characters in the play:




Act 1, Scene 5 – Lady Macbeth’s first appearance

Act 1 ,Scene 7 – Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Act 2, Scene 2 – Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Act 5, Scene 1 – the sleepwalking scene



Aim to annotate these scenes in as *much detail as possible* and remember you are focusing on:



How the female characters talk

Who they talk to

What they say

Any gothic concepts that are useful in analysing the way the female characters are presented

Tennyson's Women

"But what is time given us for," asked Laura, "except to enjoy ourselves? I mean a lady's time. Gentlemen and poor people are different." — Laura Courtenay in Elizabeth Missing Sewell's Gertrude (1845)

The Lady of Shalott by J W Waterhouse (1888)

It was good to see ytou in class today, and thank you for those last essays. Hopefully the next ones will be a little easier to write after today's lesson. Remember that if you look at the assessment objectives, it will make it much easier to see where there might be gaps in your work.

The following links you might find helpful when researching ideas. Most important is The Victorian Web, which is a site which has a huge amount of solid, reputable information about Victorian literature and culture on it. Though you can wander around it as you please, I shall give you some signposts to save you time, for instance for some interesting information on Tennyson, you can go to the central Tennyson index  while for broader matters of gender, you can find plenty of information here. Those of you who were asking about the details of the pictures we looked at can find them--and many more in this section on the illustrations to 'The Lady of Shallot'. If you are wondering where to start when connecting 'The Lady of Shallot' to 'Mariana', then this short essay might give you some ideas of where to start. Similarly there is an extract from the excellent essay by Elizabeth Nelson  "Tennyson and the Ladies of Shalott," from Ladies of Shalott: A Victorian Masterpiece and its Contexts, Ed. George P. Landow, Brown U.: 1979.

Another interesting part of the site is the questions area, where it suggests some ideas for exploring texts. If you look at the Reading and Discussion questions for Tennyson's Poems, you'll find a whole section on 'The Lady of Shalott' and Mariana' which will perhaps start you tihinking about new ideas to explore.

If you're being more adventurous, here, also, is the list of articles I mentioned in the lesson. You might be able to find them in JSTOR or in the county library:

• Jeffers, Thomas L. “Nice Threads: Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott as Artist.” Yale Review 89 (2001): 54-68.
• Showalter, Elaine . “Victorian Women and Menstruation.” Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972. 38-44.
• Vicinus, Martha, ed. Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972.
• Wright, Jane Cooke. “A reflection on fiction and art in ‘The Lady of Shalott’.” Victorian Poetry (2003): 54-68.

Happy writing!

Tennyson's Women

OK, I just created the longest post ever on this topic, and lost it by accident, so I am feeling very negative about the whole blogging thing now. I shall try again.

J W Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888

The most useful resource that I can point you to with regard to your homework task is The Victorian Web, which is a conucopia of information about Victorian literature and culture orginally created by Brown University in America, and now hosted by the University Scholars Program. It is quite vast, so I shall give you a few navigation points to steady you.

The main Tennyson Index is your first point of call, and there are many sub-sections which you can investigate usefully. One of these deals with Visual Art, and discusses the many painterly responses to the poems that we have been discussing.

Many scholars are also very generous about their contributions to this website, and they are well worth citing. For instance, Elizabeth Nelson gives a simpler version of her article  "Tennyson and the Ladies of Shalott," from Ladies of Shalott: A Victorian Masterpiece and its Contexts, Ed. George P. Landow, Brown U.: 1979, and the whole text of her article on 'The Embowered Woman'

Should you get stuck when thinking about the poems, there is a useful list of Tennyson's poems, reading and discussion questions which you can refer to. Read through these short essays and the questions they suggest, to loosen up your ideas.

Those of you who asked for the references to the paintings can find them all here, with paintings of 'Mariana' here.

The useful articles I suggested are these, which you might be able to find at the central library, or on JSTOR, but there might be enough on the Victorian web to keep you busy.

• Jeffers, Thomas L. “Nice Threads: Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott as Artist.” Yale Review 89 (2001): 54-68.
• Showalter, Elaine . “Victorian Women and Menstruation.” Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972. 38-44.
• Vicinus, Martha, ed. Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972.
• Wright, Jane Cooke. “A reflection on fiction and art in ‘The Lady of Shalott’.” Victorian Poetry (2003): 54-68.

 Happy essay writing!

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.

Lamia and La Belle Dame

Lamia

 Think about the start of the poem, and the ways in which Keats places it in the past through his mention of magic and fairies. He is employing a similar technique to that used by Chaucer in The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Again, there are echoes of Shakespeare, here with A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

 The meaning of the word ‘Lamia’ is a monster, often thought to suck blood, especially of children—in other words, Keats is romanticising a demon here. How does he create sympathy for Lamia at the start of the story, so that the reader becomes engaged by her? One of the main critical debates about the poem is whether the reader is supposed to sympathise with Lamia, and if so, to what extent.

 Look closely at the language used about Lamia by Lycius—he calls her ‘goddess’ and ‘naiad’ and ‘Pleiad’ (a star). What do all these terms imply about her? Why does she then ‘play’ a woman instead?

 The poem’s opening creates what is in effect a frame-narrative, as we find out Lamia’s origin, something unknown to Lycius. How does this gentle introduction contrast with the ending?

 What about the authorial intrusions into the narrative (most noticeable at the start of part 2). Why does Keats include these, and how do they affect the way the story is told?

 Keats uses heroic couplets (rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter) for this poem. What might this imply about the nature and authority of the story? How is it different from the ballad form of ‘La Belle Dame’ or the Spenserian stanzas of ‘The Eve of St Agnes’?

 What about the division of the story into two parts? How does this affect the narrative? Is there a lacuna between the parts—the equivalent of an authorly ellipsis that passes delicately over the lovemaking implied?

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

 Another framed narrative—though here it is a single-ended frame narrative, as although we hear the first speaker’s question answered (and repeated) by the knight at the end of the poem, we do not actually hear the voice of this first speaker again.

 It is striking how the poem creates a space for the voice of the knight, by leaving the three first stanzas unanswered. Sometimes readers do not notice the shift of speaker here—be sure that you do!

 The form of the poem is a ballad, and it has the typical features of this genre in terms of the four-line stanza, the ABCB rhyme, the archaic language, the simplicity of character and construction, the inverted syntax—what about it is not typical of a ballad?

 The structure of the poem is circular—the final stanza repeats (in part) the first. How does this repetition cause the reader to reflect upon the knight’s experience?

 The metre consists of three lines of iambic tetrameter, with a final line of varying syllabic length containing three strong stresses. How does this final line, and the strong stresses, affect the poem? How does it slow down the reader, and make us reflect on the words in that final line?

 Notice how the characters in the poem are in part stereotypical—the knight is never named, the lady’s name is a description rather than a personal name. How does this affect the message of the poem? Is Keats making more general statements about the relationships between men and women, and the ways that they view each other?

 Notice the semantic repetition as well as the lexical repetition—for instance ‘haggard’ echoes ‘starved’.

The Poetry of John Keats

Remember that all three Keats poems comprise one text—so you should be careful to mention all three, even if you concentrate more on one or two. Remember that you can do this through cross-reference and comparison, e.g. ‘The ballad form that Keats uses for “La Belle Dame” means that his narrative is far more pared down and bare in terms of imagery than in ‘Lamia” where his imagery is deliberately sensual’

The Eve of St Agnes

 Remember that again this is a narrative told in an archaic fashion—Keats uses (for instance) the 3rd-person singular archaic ‘-eth’ form, and this immediately places the narrative in a particular context—which for Keats meant everything that was romantic and interesting…

 Consider the ways in which Keats is creating a mood by the opening of the story—the frame (though it is not quite a frame in the same way as a proper frame narrative) of the old bedesman and Angela which acts as a contrast to the youth of the lovers. Remember that for Keats details like the rosary and praying to the virgin would have seemed exotic (they were specifically Catholic) and would have located the narrative in the distant past.

 Don’t forget the links to Romeo and Juliet and how this ties into the admiration Keats had for Shakespeare. Is he, in some ways, rewriting a tragedy as a comedy (i.e. a story which ends in marriage), and if so, why would he want to do this?

 How far do you think the narrative is structured like a play? Look at the way that the scene is set in Madeleine’s bedroom—almost like a stage set—by Porphyro.

 Consider also the changes of scene in the poem, and how these produce a structural pattern—from the chapel, to the hall, to the corridors, to the bedroom, back to the corridors, back to the hall, back to the chapel (with the mention of the bedesman) while the lovers escape just before the end.


 Remember that you should discuss the use of the Spenserian stanza form. What would this mean to Keats in terms of his admiration of Spenser? What does this stanza form, with its long final line, allow the poet to do that a ballad does not?

 Notice how Keats uses chiasmus (antimetabole) between the title and the first line: ‘The Eve of St Agnes/St Agnes’ Eve’ the reversal highlighting the shift from the formal title into the colloquial voice of the narrator. The colloquialism is emphasised by non-fluency features such as ‘Ah!’ which suggest the power of memory and set the poem in the past.

 Notice also the frequent shifts from past to present tense in the poem (Porphyro is often associated with the more active present tense) and the shift of tense at the end that brings the poem back to the ‘present day’ of the narrator.


Tomorrow I'll post on Lamia