British Literature: British Literature Class Notes -- Week 11 (April 9)

Greetings!

This week in our British Literature class we discussed Victorian poetry. The week before we went over poetry from the previous literary period, the Romantic period.

Poetry can be a bit challenging to understand. Students sometimes initially have a hard time, but when we go over a piece of poetry line by line, the themes and symbols emerge more clearly.

This week we thoroughly read Lord Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" and Browning's "My Last Duchess." Both poems deal a little bit with the role of the artist. In Tennyson's poem, the Lady in the tower weaves a tapestry from the reflection in a mirror, rather than looking directly at life. Browning's poem is a piece of poetry about a painting with a statue thrown in at the end.

I gave the class their next book, Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. This is the book from which My Fair Lady was taken. The students were give a couple handouts to use for introduction and background information.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read Acts I, II, and III

-- Write 3 Discussion Questions

This week's links:

Class Notes

Introduction to Pygmalion

Pygmalion Analysis

Robert Browning & "My Last Duchess"

"The Lady of Shalott" blog post

Analysis of "My Last Duchess"

Analysis of "Lady of Shalott"

Have a beautiful weekend!