The Romantic Era
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” William Wordsworth - Lyrical Ballads
Embedded Files
The Romantic Era is a favorite of mine (and many of my students) and we will spend a while reading and studying the era's authors. In fact, it is the last unit that is really given the time it deserves - all too soon the year has ended and though we will briefly glance over the Victorians and the Twentieth Century writers - our very last comes from the Romantics - Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" (the perfect poem to look back on the journey that we have taken together). Though we usually read Jane Austen's Persuasion (earlier it was Pride and Prejudice) - that work, Romantic though it may be, is given its own berth on this website. We begin with the pre-Romantic Thomas Gray, and jump into the Romantics with Robert Burns. Next we look at the unusual (and student favorite) writer and artist (and visionary) William Blake. We move on to William Wordsworth (for a good deal of time), then his closest friend and coauthor of Lyrical Ballads, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. After acting out "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" we make a leap and read the poems of Byron, Keats, and Shelley. We could easily spend a year on this unit.
One of my favorite lessons for one of my favorite units. In fact, students would come back 20 years after they had my class - and the beginning of today's lesson would stick out in their heads. I owe so much of this lesson - and everything that I did in this unit to my wonderful Professor at UIC, Gene Ruoff - to whom I dedicate this unit on this unit on the Romantics.
The lesson begins with a demonstration involving darkness and light (see my description below) - this is what students really remember and I have to say, it is pretty cool. We then talk about what makes the Romantic Era, the Romantic Era. We discuss (briefly) Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Next, we read the first poem in that collection: "My Heart Leaps Up", and talk about what it means. We then read our only nonBritish poem of the year - "A Child Went Forth" by Walt Whitman - and we read it as we walk through the halls of my school, observing the people around us as we read (and go forth). When we make it back to our room, I play the song "The Cat's in the Cradle" and the students put this together with everything else that we've done so far that day. I tell a very personal story about rainbows and the wonders of small children seeing their first one - and we end the class with Eva Cassidy's incredible "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
This is very subversive lesson. Many people love this poem - but I am not one of them. Gray is considered a preRomantic for a reason - his language is flowery, and though the poem is about "the simple people" (as he would say) - it is definitely not from their perspective. In fact, I find it downright patronizing. HIs central thesis is that there many wonderful people who live and die in the country (away from London) but because of their location - their lives go unnoticed (like flowers blooming in the desert). What nonsense! These people's lives are just as full and fruitful as the learned in their city.
Another one of my "big" lessons. In fact, the poem (or song) "To a Mouse" is referenced in one of our very early classes (Grendel - Chapter 5) and at one point in my career - I had considered opening the entire year with this incredible text. It also happens to (like Donne's tolling bell) one of the most misunderstood and quotes texts in English. The mouse - though his home is destroyed by the farmer - is blessed compared to humankind - for while the mouse in that moment is distressed - they soon will forget and move on, while we, on the other hand, are doomed to worry about what came before (earlier home destructions) and the future (plows that will someday demolish our home & hearth). This lesson tries to get that depth across - it is obviously something that everyone can identify with - but especially our anxiety, stress-riddled students of today.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse