*Sonnets

STUDY QUESTIONS:

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH – THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WIH US

1. What emotions does the poem raise?
2. What is really important according to the speaker?
3. What does Wordsworth think is wrong with the modern world?
4. What type of narration is used? Notice the shift in the second part of the poem. Does the speaker include himself in the ‘we’?
5. What images are used in the poem? Do they correspond with its subject matters?
6. Find as many elements of figurative language as possible? Explain their meaning within the sonnet.
7. Do you see any relation between the poem and the romantic movement as far as its subject matters are concerned?
8. Explain the symbolical meaning of the Greek gods mentioned in the sonnet.
9. Formulate the theme of the sonnet.
10. What is the form of the sonnet (type of sonnet, rhyme scheme, content arrangement)?
11. What makes the poem relevant even today?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE – SONNET 18

1. What emotions does the poem raise?
2. What are the two main objects of the poem and what is their relation?
3. Comment on the significance of the first line in relation to the rest of the sonnet.
4. What is the form of the sonnet (type of sonnet, rhyme scheme, content arrangement)?
5. Formulate the theme of the sonnet.
6. What images are used in the poem? Do they correspond with its subject matters?
7. To whom, in your opinion, is this sonnet dedicated? Who do you think is the person described in the poem?

JOHN MILTON – ON HIS BLINDNESS

1. What is the form of the sonnet? How is it related to the content?
2. What are the questions Milton asks? What do they reveal about the speaker?
3. What is the central metaphor around which the poem is structured (allusion to Bible)?
4. What is the tone / mood of the poem? Is it constant or changing? How does it relate to the theme of the poem?
5. What is Milton’s understanding of time? Demonstrate.
6. What images are used in the poem? Do they correspond with its subject matters?
7. Find as many elements of figurative language as possible? Explain their meaning within the sonnet.
8. Relate the sonnet to Milton’s own life.
9. Formulate the theme of the sonnet.

George Bernard Shaw

Did you know that G.B. Shaw ....?


* was a vegetarian from the age of 25
* never drank spirits, tea or coffee and was a non-smoker
* enjoyed boxing, swimming, dancing and walking
* campaigned for simplified spelling and a new 44-letter alphabet
* chose the cast for his plays
* received the Nobel Prize for Literature - though he refused a knighthood, a peerage and the Order of Merit
* died at the age of 94 after fracturing a thigh in a fall whilst pruning a tree

(Source: Private Lives)

Ovid's Metamorphoses / Pygmalion

STUDY QUESTIONS - PYGMALION :
1. Formulate the theme(s) of the play.Briefly summarize the story of the play.
2. Characterize the main characters (focus on their social background).
3. Comment on Eliza’s transformation. Discuss the final scene of the play when Eliza throws Higgins’ slippers at him.
4. What role does the Sequel to the play have? What is its function? Would you prefer an open or a closed ending?
5. What characteristics of the Victorian society does the play reveal? Comment on the portrayal of different social classes.
6. Do you find any feministic features in the text?
7. What is the tone of the play and what is its genre?
8. Interpret the title of the play (allusion). What similarities and what differences can you detect between the play and the original myth?
9. Why did Shaw entitle his play after this myth? What is the subtitle of the play? Comment on its function.

**************************
Ideas for presentation activities:
Since the play focuses on the transformation ('creation') of the main protagonist, a part of your presentation may be centered on the creation process itself. Cut pictures of different parts of human body from various newspapers and magazines and bring them to the classroom. Here, ask your classmates to choose the parts they like best to create a poster of an ideal man or woman. Through this activity, you may discuss not only Eliza's transformation by Mr. Higgins and its consequences but also the parallels and differences between the play and the original Pygmalion story.

Pictures that might be used to summarize the story:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Something about Samuel Taylor Coleridge - HERE
















Did you know that S.T. Coleridge...?

* was a son of vicar who died when he was 8
* enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons to avoid college debts but was bought out later by a brother under the 'insanity' clause

* fell in love with Sarah Hutchinson but was rejected by her

* was vain and enjoyed looking at himself in mirrors

* was an excellent classicist and translated various German works

* was addicted to opium

* suffered from rheumatism and headaches

* died of heart failure aged 61

(Source: Private Lives)

STUDY QUESTIONS - THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

1. Briefly summarize the plot.
2. Define the narration (there are two narrative perspectives).
3. Characterize the Mariner’s personality. What is the reader’s perception of him?
4. Define the setting (again, there are two different frames).
5. Why did the Mariner kill the Albatross and what are the consequences of his actions? Is there any explanation provided in the poem? What does the bird symbolize to mariners?
6. What is the crew’s reaction to Mariner’s action?
7. What supernatural elements / characters appear in the story?
8. How does the setting react to the unfolding of the story?
9. What does the act of rolling dice to determine fate mean?
10. Try to interpret the symbolical meaning of the following:
Albatross
Water / sea / rain
Snakes
Wedding
Hermit
voyage
Mariner bearing the dead albatross around his neck
11. How many parts does the poem have? Do you see any symbolical meaning in it?
12. What is the prevailing mood of the poem?
13. Try to generalize the poem’s subject matters. Are they universal?
14. Compare the reference to the Mariner’s eye at the beginning and the end of the poem? Does the change signify something?
15. Formulate the theme of the poem.

Role play - presentation

Drawings