IGCSE With Mrs C

Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening by Charlotte Smith (1749 – 1806) Date of poem: 1798-1800 Charlotte Smith , born Turner (born May 4, 1749,  London , England and died Oct. 28, 1806, Tilford, Surrey, England), English novelist and poet, highly praised by the novelist  Sir Walter Scott . Her poetic attitude toward nature was reminiscent of  William Cowper’s   in celebrating the “ordinary” pleasures of the English countryside. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlotte-Smith Biographical Detail:   « Charlotte Smith wrote  Elegiac Sonnets in 1783 while she was in debtor’s prison with her husband and children. William Wordsworth identified her as an important influence on the Romantic movement. She published several longer works that celebrated the individual while deploring social injustice and the British class system. » https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charlotte-smith The Romantic Movement: The most notable featu...

Elizabeth Jennings (18 July 1926- 26 October 2001) Born in the United Kingdom in Boston, Lincolnshire, she moved to Oxford when she was 6 years old and stayed there for the rest of her life. She attended Oxford University as a student in St Anne's College, and started publishing her poetry in local periodicals like Oxford Poetry and British journals such as The Spectator and New English Weekly. She became a librarian at the Oxford City library. At the age of 27, she published her first book, Poems (1953). The next year, her second book was published, A Way of Looking (1954), which won the Somerset Maugham prize and set off her public recognition as a poet. With the prize money, she lived for several months in Rome, which inspired her greatly. She was a Roman Catholic with religious beliefs and imagination, and although she suffered from mental illness at one point in her life, her poetry is recognized for its simplicity of form and its traditionalism, and she was inspired by suc...

Hello everyone, We will be discussing the following questions on   'Ode to Melancholy' John Keats (1819) today. I have uploaded  this handout   (by Mrs Purcell, I'll be honest ;-) which covers many of the main ideas, but - rather than have you just listen to me warble on and read the handout to you - I'd like you to work through the poem in pairs. So, this is your task for the next 25 minutes: In pairs, I would like you to phone each other and  respond to the following questions. Be ready to write your answers into the chat of our online classroom. 1. What is melancholy in the context of this poem? 2. What advice does Keats give to the sufferer? 3. Pick out language that appeals to each of the senses and say what effect the words have. 4. Pick out the imperative words that Keats uses in Stanza 1 and 2. What kind of tone does this create? 5. Structure The ode  could be considered an argument: Map out the plan. I. Exposition o...

I'll be honest, this is a handout that Mrs P. created for Keats' poem: Ode on Melancholy John Keats (1795-1821) No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist         Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d         By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;                 Make not your rosary of yew-berries,         Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be                 Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;         For shade to shade will come too drowsily,                 And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. But when the melancholy fit shall fall         Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,       ...

Okay, here goes ! I’m scheduling our first IGCSE online class for this Monday 6 April from 14h-15h. We will discuss Hopkins’ poem and so I NEED you to read the appropriate blog post. We will then begin work on Keats’ poem. If I haven't sent you the link to join, send me an email or a text (so I can then help you join our WHATSAPP group). I will be taking register... Honestly, I’m looking forward to seeing you all ‘there’! Kind regards  Mrs C

Hello everyone, I haven't been in contact since last week because I've been busy grading papers for all my various classes. I haven't at all forgotten about you though (how could I?). No, I needed to think through how we should do our remaining poems. I think the answer is through an online class this coming Monday from 14h-15h. I will give you more details tomorrow morning, but wanted to let you know in advance. We'll begin with a class on the last poem, Keats' Skylark ! Kind regards, Mrs C

“The Caged Skylark” by Gerald Manley Hopkins As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,      Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —      That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;  This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.  Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage      Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,      Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells  Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.  Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —  Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,      But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.  Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,  But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed      For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen. Gerald Manyley...