Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going...

Hi all,
Many thanks for a really enjoyable lesson on Friday morning, and a warm welcome to Mr Marshall, who will be joining us as much as possible during his time at Cheney. We managed to read and understand a reasonably sized chunk of the poem, although it's so difficult not to stop and discuss every 5 lines or so, particularly when dealing with work as rich and interesting as this. Anyhow, much of interest was discussed, with particular focus on the following:
- the strong use of narrative voice and digression in this poem
- recurrent themes of emotion vs reason, the use of dreams and drowsiness and the way that reality can intrude on this happy state (as Keats sees it). This leads on to Keats' theory of Negative Capability, which we'll discuss on Monday; read about it here beforehand if you get the chance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_Capability
- Keats' treatment of women- some strong views expressed here!
On Monday, we'll finish reading the poem and start reviewing our study of Keats in the light of the narrative techniques we have already established, and also try to identify some new examples.
At home, you need to start reading McEwan's Enduring Love please- if you've read it before, start reading it again!
See you on Monday,
Mr Boulter
ps- special prize for whoever leaves the first comment showing from which play the quotation in the title of this post comes, and what it refers to! No Googling!

Doctor Who?

Yes, I'm back. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blog recently. Christmas upset my routine.

In the intervening time, you have been working on your Hamlet essays and I am looking forward to seeing all your drafts by the end of this week. And we have been getting our teeth into some ideas about modernism and especially modernist poetry in preparation for studying Auden.

The main points I've been hoping to get across to are:

1. The important role of ambiguity in poetry, and especially perhaps in modernist poetry - in some ways establishing a new relationship between reader, author and text - where the reader plays a more active part in interpretation and the writer may withhold information that might assist with interpretation.

2. The function of poetry as a form of expressive art - in which sound, shape, colour, texture, etc. are an important part of the effect - and perhaps in modern poetry particular which is often less narrative, more expressive in nature. (And remember poetry NOT intended to be studied in class....)

3. The various characteristics of modernist poetry - listed on the sheet I gave you after we had tried to work them out from looking at Prufrock and various other poems.

4. Some of the ways in which poets in the 20th century have worked with conventional poetic form but in unconventional ways - e.g. using enjambement between stanzas, half rhyme, broken metres, etc, (remember the snake in the box?) whilst also using strong expressive approaches to sound - alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, etc.

And so on to Auden....

Dr S

Friday morning

Hi all,
Sorry for the lateness and brevity of this post- just to confirm that I'm expecting Ellie, Georgina, Rachael A and Sasha to attend during p 1 tomorrow, whilst Rachel S, James, Tom and Laura should aim to turn up during p3. Bring your updated coursework please and be prepared to show me where you've made the changes you've made after the first draft.
Ta
Mr Boulter
Oh yes one more thing, look at this! http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/keats.html Lots of good stuff here- I like the section on Keats' use of imagery.

Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, smiling like a happy pig...

So. After a Motown-inspired opening, we conducted a detailed analysis of the fascinating passage in which Lamia transforms from a snake into a person, considering the impact of language and form. We did not look at a worksheet (generated by an un-named English teacher) which had an apostrophe-related mistake on; this did not happen. We did focus on the problematic question of tone- how are we supposed to receive this passage? Is it positive (Lamia is after all getting what she has requested), or negative (the experience is painful at times, and she is described as ugly towards the end, then beautiful again at the opening of the next passage)? I think that we concluded that Keats' message is deliberately ambiguous here, leaving the reader to consider the potential that love and passion carries for pleasure and for pain- this is an area which we'll consider in more detail in class, but it's certainly worth you thinking about in the meantime. Other aspects we considered were use of apparently contradictory imagery, control of pace and intensity, use of couplets / triplets, colours, sexual imagery, lists and links with other Keats poems- lots of withering and paleness for example.

At home, I'd like you to read and annotate the next 100 lines, up to line 300. You are reading for meaning, to understand the plot, and to note down what seem to you to be interesting images, techniques or moments in the poem. By all means keep reading if you'd like, but you don't need to annotate beyond this point.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone- we'll discuss coursework on Monday, and remember that your deadline is Friday.

Mr Boulter

To Bee or not to Bee (or, The Hive of St Agnes...)

Hello all,

On Friday we continued our investigation into Keats' narrative techniques in TEOSA, with much of interest being drawn out- I'm glad to see so much thought going into homework, and hope that you can see the benefits that this brings to the quality of discussion we can then have in the lessons.

Some of the aspects we considered:

- Keats' treatment of religion, particularly through the bleak, cold setting at the beginning, the presentation of the beadsman, and the (slightly unconvincing?) veneration of Madeline by Porphyro, where Keats uses religious imagery and allusion to show P's worhipping of her. We discussed the way that, in the later stages of the poem when reality kicks in, Keats turns to more pagan imagery, perhaps suggesting an incompatibility between Christianity and the reality of life / love? It would be interesting to explore Keats' view of religion further: here's a quote to get you started:

"I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that."

Let's discuss, but if anyone was able to do some research into Keats' views, that would be great.

- the setting of Madeline's bed chamber, and the use of contrast in the imagery and description we find here against much of the setting elsewhere. We thought particularly about the connotations of the fruit and flowers, which led to a most interesting discussion about the reproduction in flowers, and the perilous state of the bumblebee- see this link for more details on this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/09/animalbehaviour - very alarming!

- We also considered the characterisation of Madeline herself, and Keats' representations of love- do we interpret this as a positive celebration of young love and passion, or as a sneering, satirical mockery of love's naivity?

Next steps are to organise all this discussion into an coherent form- there are various ways to do this which we will discuss on Monday. Also, we need to consider other aspects of narrative such as the poets' voice, use of time and sequence and the impact of the ending- all of which we have discussed to an extent, but we need to get some notes down. On Monday, we will aim to wrap up our study of St Ag for the time being, and move on to look at Lamia- if you are able to read this, or at least the first few stanzas, over the weekend, so much the better. Otherwise, if you haven't yet made steps towards redrafting your coursework, you need to do so as a matter of priority so that we have a chance to discuss before you hand in your final work.

Have a good one and thank you for your contributions on Friday,

Mr Boulter

Coursework

Hi everyone
Just a reminder that I need to see your essay plans for the Hamlet coursework next week, and I'll spend some time talking to each of you - so bring your copies of Hamlet to the lesson so that you work independently whilst I deal with individuals. If we have time, we'll also start the Auden poems next week; otherwise, the week after.
Mr Snapper

Lesson Review and Homework

Hi all,

Well done on your performance in today's lesson, in which we focused on the way that Keats uses characters and setting to drive the narrative of the poem. Lots of high level analysis and discussion was undertaken and it's good to see you analysing the quotations in real detail, considering the precise connotations of the words and techniques that Keats employs. Some of the elements we considered were:

- Use of contrasting heat / warmth imagery

- Use of the pastoral

- Use of lists, particularly in the final alexandrine of the stanza

- Use of the conventions of courtly love

- Use of metaphor

The only problem today was that we needed to get a bit more covered, but never fear! Homework comes to the rescue- by Friday, you need to have achieved the following:

- Identified the 10 most important quotations or stanzas which deal with character and characterisation. For each one, note down at least 3 points of interest about the language and its effect.

- Completed the same for quotations or stanzas which deal with setting.

So, essentially, I'm asking you to extend the work that we started today and make a concerted effort to go through the whole poem finding and analysing the most relevant quotations. On Friday, we'll have a look at how you got on, so I need to see the homework on paper- notes on your booklets won't be enough I'm afraid.

Have a good week- wrap up warm!

Mr Boulter

Ah, bitter chill it is!

Hello Year 12, and welcome back to your blog for 2009! I trust you all had a wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating break, and are ready to get stuck into some high quality study this year. Mr Snapper and myself are agreed that you worked extremely well last year particularly in term 2, and we look forward to seeing you continue to develop as a group. Our main priorities at the moment are to:

- review The Eve of St Agnes, and analyse the text in the light of the narrative devices and approaches that Keats employs. This will be our task on Monday's lesson.

- read and analyse our third and final Keats poem, Lamia. This is the last one we have to study for the exam anyway- we'll have a look at some of the others as well in the spirit of enrichment and independent reading for you.

Also, coursework final drafts need to be handed in by the 23rd Jan. We'll discuss this in the morning, but I'd also like to arrange a time with you individually to see how you're getting on with this.

Finally, we need to get going on our detailed study of a novel. I know we initially thought we'd like to do The Kite Runner- and we should certainly all have read this by now- but we also spoke last term about the possibility of changing our detailed study to McEwan's Enduring Love - there are some good reasons for this I think, so let's discuss tomorrow also.

Happy New Year to all, and I look forward to seeing you all at school tomorrow.

Mr Boulter