“There’s no place like home”
Usually these words are spoken fondly, but-whether you love your home, loathe it, or just take it for granted- there’s still a certain truth to the saying. Make a collage with images that remind you of home (not photos of your real home). Don’t stop with your physical dwelling, though. INclude the neighborhood, the section of the city or countryside, the whole city or county -whatever flavors the physical sense of place and people that defines your life.
Underneath the collage, write the answer to this:
How do you feel about home? Are you dying to get away, or do you hope you never have to leave?
Whatever your answer, your feelings would probably be different, or sharper, if you were forced out of your homeland and locked up somewhere far away. How would they be affected if danger suddenly loomed, and common sense said “leave now”? (Think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and his two fragments Freedom to Breathe and The Bonfire and the Ants).
Even though The Destructors takes place half a century ago in London, the problem it examines is a timeless one. Explore what you know about the prevalence of random violence and vandalism in your own community using the 5W-How questions (Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?).
Images of hollowness -of rotting from within- pervade the story. In three paragraphs, cite these images, and discuss how they apply to the house, to Wormsley Common, and even to the story’s characters.
The other side of the story: In a letter, tell a friend what happened to your house. Include your feelings about the gang and its motives.
Robert Browning: Mad for love
Briefly summarize the emotions the speaker experiences during Porphyria’s Lover. For example, in the first ten lines his heart is breaking as he listens for Porphyria’s arrival, and then he relishes the warmth and cheer she creates.
How do the speaker’s emotions change as the poem progresses?
Why do you think the speaker murders his beloved?
Elizabeth Barret Browning: Love without limits
Use words, symbols, sketches, or images to create a collage that summarizes the content of Sonnet 43 and communicates the emotions presented in it.
Do you think that the emotions presented in this sonnet are universal? Why or why not?
The most famous line in Sonnet 43 is “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”. Why do you think this line is so popular?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Tears, Idle Tears
Read Tears, Idle Tears. List three adjectives that the speaker uses to describe the past and explain how the adjectives are different or similar. Briefly state the tone of the poem. What does the speaker believe is precious about the past?
Do you think the speaker had a joyous or miserable past? Why?
The Power of Nature
Both “The Eagle: A Fragment” and “Flower in the Crannied Wall” contain lessons or messages. Explain how each quotation reveals the message of the poem.
“Close to the sun in lonely lands” (From The Eagle: A Fragment)
“(If) I could understand what you are… I should know what God and man is” (From Flower in the Crannied Wall)
What is the speaker’s attitude toward nature in each poem?
In what ways are the two poems different?
Shattering Glass
After reading “The Lady of Shalott“, what associations do you have with the following words from the poem? Use words, symbols or images to communicate the ideas or emotions you associate with each of the following poem.
Cracked, mirror, curse, shadows.
Explain the meaning of the above words in the context of the poem.
Why do you think the Lady of Shalott becomes “half sick” of the shadows she sees in the mirror?
Remembering the past: do you find it sad or satisfying to look backward? You’re probably thinking, “Obviously, that depends on what’s being remembered -happy or sad times”. But is that the only view? Is there a way in which memory itself -the very FACT of the past- always shadows life in the present?
Read Tears, Idle Tears, by Lord Tennyson
After reading this poem, answer this: How caqn tears be “idle” -can you cry without knowing why?
What do you think the “divine despair” is in line 2? Could you relate it to Adam and Eve’s fall in Genesis -would that story explain the speaker’s existential sadness?
Does the contradiction in the phrase “Death in Life” (line 20) make sense to you? Explain. What is your response to this line? Have you ever felt this way?
The faces of nature range from pacifying to terrifying, all of which the Romantics explored. Yet what so often attracted them in nature was the aspects philosophers call the sublime: the wildness, inmensity, terror, and awesome grandeur of natural phenomena like the Alps or violent storms. To suddenly grasp nature’s power -whether just by seeing Niagara Falls or by living through a hurricane- is, while terrible, also exhilarating, even transporting.
When you read Ode to the West Wind, consider why people find such power (and fear) thrilling. What moves Percy Shelley so? Why would he shout to the wind, “Be thou me…!”
Free writing:
Have you ever experienced the sublime aspect of nature? When? Freewrite about the scene and your emotions.
All human beings, and all human beauty, must perish. But can’t great works -of art, of life- survive beyond the individual? We leave, but isn’t what we leave behind proff that the passage matters? Like the poets of another restless age, the Renaissance, the Romantic poets posed these questions. Shelley answers it with his poem Ozymandias.
Suppose you’re a creator. Among architecture, sculpture, music, and literature, which do you think offers the most promise of an enduring monument? Explain your answer.
Irony is the discrepancy between expectations and reality. Explain the fundamental irony in the sonnet.
Discuss what you think is the speaker’s message about pride -and whether it also applies to artists.
Could this poem apply to any contemporary figures who wield political power? Explain.
No matter how often we hear that beauty is only skin deep, we all know the mysterious attraction of a beautiful person. Beauty moves us. We want to believe that outer appearances express inner qualities.
In the poem She Walks in Beauty, by Lord Byron, what in the woman’s appearance does the speaker praise? what conclusions does he draw about her character and personality?
This poem has been criticized as sentimental and dependent on clichés. Tell me whether or not you agree and why.
Do you think that inward nature can be revealed by outward appearances? Explain.
Just for fun: Watch this video about 500 years of female portraits in Western Art, and see how the idea of beauty has changed through time. This was nominated as Most Creative Video by the 2007 YouTube Awards. If you were wondering, the music is Bach’s Sarabande from Suite for Solo Chello, No. 1 in G Major, performed by world renowned japanese cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
There was a time in American History (or Unitedstatesian, as you say) when almost every schoolchild could recite parts of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Find four stanzas that strike you as particularly quotable. What situations in contemporary life would you apply the lines to?
Coleridge once said that he would have preferred to write The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as a work of “pure imagination”. He believed that it had “too much” of a moral, and that the moral was stated too openly. Do you agree or disagree with Coleridge about the message in this poem? Why?
This ballad is famous for its use of vivid figurative language and memorable sound devices. Find examples of especially effective examples of simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, assonance and internal rhyme (one of each).
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