Урок «Поезія Джорджа Байрона»

The Title of the Lesson: George Gordon Byron. Biography and Literary Works Overview. “She Walks In Beauty”.

Objectives: present information about George Byron’s life and work, practise the skills of reading comprehension, provide an interactive purpose for reading, provide practice in using interactive questions, recollect prior knowledge of literary devices, introduce the notion of personification, practice identifying them in the poem, create the pupils’ own personification, analyze and discuss the theme of the poem, articulate pupils’ attitude to beauty;

Skills: critical reading and thinking, collaborative work, individual research work, develop pupils’ skills effectively in literacy and information and communications technology (ICT).

The Procedure of the Lesson

1. Lead-in.

1. Revision of the Preceding Material.

Match the lines in A with the lines in B to recollect the key facts about the Romantic Movement:

1. 1) Romanticism was                                     B.    a) published a volume of Lyrical Ballads;

2)Romanticism in literature was the reaction to b) emphasized the contrast between Man

                                                                              and nature in his “Ode to a Nightingale”;

3) William Wordsworth was                               c) the period between 1770-1840;

4) In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge               d) wrote her novels anonymously;

5) George Byron was                                          e) the Lakist;

6) John Keats was                                               f) French Revolution and disappointment

                                                                                from its results;

7) John Keats                                                       g) the Late Romantic;

8) Mrs. Anne Radcliffe was                                h) the youngest among the Revolutionary

                                                                                 Romantics;

9) Jane Austen                                                     i) one of the first women-novelists in

                                                                                English literature;

2. Revision of the Vocabulary and Material of the Previous Lecture.

The “Don’t Say ‘Uh’” Game. See Lesson 2 for instructions.

Recommended vocabulary for the game: French Revolution, Romanticism, The Romantics’ theory, The Lake School, The Late Romantics, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, Jane Austen.

3. Checking Pupils’ Homework.

Ask the volunteers to ask anyone of their classmates the questions they made up on the previous lesson. A person who answers asks his question in turn and calls out the name of the person to answer. They do the activity in a chain order.

4. Introducing the Pupils to the Theme of the Lesson. Brainstorming.

 Answer the questions:

 

2. Instructional Procedures and Activities.

1. Previewing Vocabulary.

Match the words with their definitions. Then, choose the appropriate Ukrainian equivalent to each from the words in the box.

1. Be in reduced  circumstance  a) to be treated as being very important;
2. Acclaim                                  b) a very strong feeling of happiness;
3. To be lionized                        c) a group of people who travel with an important

                                                   person;

4. Clubfoot                                 d) covered with a lot of liquid;
5. Exultation                              e) protection given to someone by a government

                                               because they escaped from fighting or political trouble;

      6) Rumors                                   f) to be poorer than you were before;

            7)Entourage                                 g) information that is passed from one person to

                                                      another and which may or may not be true; 

      8)Drenched                               h) to become gradually less strong or less important;

     9)Alms                                      i) praise for a person or their achievements;

    10)Asylum                                  j) a foot that has been badly twisted since birth

                                                  and that prevents someone from walking properly;

    11)To loan                                   k) money, food etc. given to poor people in the past;

    12)To wane                                 l) amount of money you borrow;

 

Втрачати зацікавленість            притулок             кульгавий           почуття щастя   заборгувати               супровідні особи                       з обмеженими фінансовими можливостями           пересуди             милостиня             відчувати шану до себе               визнання                     змоклий

2. Making Predictions.

Read the statements about George Gordon Byron’s life and work and predict if they are true or false about him.

1. George Gordon Byron travelled to many countries during his lifetime.
2. Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley were good friends and spent much time together.
3. He wasn’t interested in politics and was never involved in political affairs.
4. He had a daughter and two sons.
5. He lived in Italy for quite a long time which was the most productive period of his literary work.

3. Interactive Reading. A Pair Work Exercise.

Each student in a pair has the same text, but different information is omitted from each student's text. No one has a complete text, but all the information is available in the pair. Students have a dual purpose. They need to complete a text using predictive reading skills. To do so they have to formulate questions and where necessary follow-up their questions using linguistic skills. Before asking their questions they need time to try to predict some of the information from the context provided by the text itself. The teacher might then demonstrate with students different kinds of questions commonly used in interaction: "normal" questions, such as "When was Byron born?"; indirect questions, such as "I need to know, when Byron was born? or "Do you know/ does anyone know, when Byron was born? ; short questions such as "How about his birth place?”

The teacher is to provide all the pairs of pupils with the two versions of the incomplete text.

4. Read the whole text now and check your predictions. Write the words “True” or “False” by each statement while reading.

George Gordon Byron.

(1788-1824)

George Gordon Byron was born in London on 22nd of January, 1788.  His father was English, but mother was of the Scottish origin. She was poor but noble, her name was Cather­ine Gordon. Byron spent his childhood in the small town of Aberdeen in the eastern coast of Scotland. Soon his father died, leaving his wife and child in more than reduced circumstances.

When Byron was ten, his great uncle died, and the boy inherited the title of Lord Byron and the family castle of Newstead Abbey. Lord Byron and his mother moved to Nottinghamshire where they got a small pension from the government.

Lord Byron was educated at Cambridge. When he was twenty-one he became a member of the House of Lords. In 1809 he went on a two-year-long voyage to Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece and Turkey. He re­turned home in 1811.

In 1812 Byron published the first two parts of his major work “Childe Harold's Pil­grimage" in which he de­scribed his journey to the for­eign lands. Thus Byron's liter­ary activity began. It can be divided into four periods:

1. The London period (1812-1816)

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (parts 1, 2 ) (1812)

"The Corsair" (1814)

“Lara” (1814);

2. The Swiss period (May-October, 1816)

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” (part 3)

"Manfred" (a philosophic drama);

“Mazeppa” (1819);

3. The Italian period (1816-1823)

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (part 4)

"Don Juan" (1818-1823)

"Cain" (1821)

“Sardanapalus” (1821)

“The Vision of Judgment" (1821);

4. The Greek period (1823-1824)

Several lyrical poems.

All the periods of his literary activity were marked by the corresponding periods of his political life.

During the first period, which was called the London period and which brought him fame and universal acclaim after the publication of his “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" in 1812, Lord Byron delivered his Parlia­mentary speeches in the House of Lords. Byron was a peer of the realm. His first speech was in defence of the Luddites (industrial workers who destroyed the equipment as a protest against unemployment and low pay). His main ideas were expressed in his poem "Song for the Luddites". Between then and 1816 he published he Curse of Minerva (1812), The Giaour and The Bride of Abydous (1813), Lara and Jacqueline (1814), Hebrew Melodies (1815).

Byron was lionized in Whig society and the handsome poet with the clubfoot was swept into affairs with the passionate Lady Caroline Lamb, the "autumnal" Lady Oxford, Lady Frances Webster, and - possibly - his half-sister, Augusta Leigh.  The agitation of these affairs and the sense of mingled guilt and exultation they aroused in his mind are reflected in the Oriental Tales he wrote during the period. Seeking escape in marriage, in September 1814, he proposed to Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke.  The marriage took place on 2 January 1815.  After a honeymoon "not all sunshine," the Byrons, in March, settled in London. Lady Byron gave birth to a daughter, Augusta Ada, on 10 December, and in January she left with the child for a visit to her parents and let him know that she was not moving back.  The reasons for her decision were never given and rumors began to fly, most of them centering on Byron’s relations with Augusta Leigh.  When the rumors grew, Byron signed the legal separation papers and went abroad, never returning to England.  He was now the most famous exile in Europe.

     After visiting the battlefield of Waterloo, Byron journeyed to Switzerland.  At the Villa Diodati, near Geneva, he was on friendly terms with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his entourage, which included William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter, Mary, who was Shelley’s wife, and Godwin’s stepdaughter by a second marriage, Claire Clairmont, who had begun an affair with Byron before he left England.  A boat trip to the head of the lake with Shelley gave Byron material for his Prisoner of Chillon, and he completed a third canto of Childe Harold at Diodati.

  The sale of Newstead Abbey finally cleared most of his debts and left him with a small income which supported him in Italy.  But money did not solve any of his problems, notably his dissatisfaction and restlessness.  Shelley and other visitors, in 1818, had found Byron grown fat, with hair long and turning gray, looking older than his years.  But a chance meeting with the Countess Teresa Guicciolo in April 1819 changed the course of his life.  In a few days he fell completely in love with Teresa, 19 years old and married to man nearly three times her age.  Byron followed her to Ravenna, and, later in the summer, she accompanied him back to Venice and stayed until her husband called for her.  Byron returned to Ravenna in January 1820, as Teresa’s accepted gentleman-in-waiting.  He won the friendship of her father and brother who initiated him into the secret revolutionary society of the Carbonari.  In Ravenna he was brought into closer touch with the life of the Italian people than he had ever been.  He gave arms to the Carbonari and alms to the poor.  It was one of the happiest and most productive periods of his life.  He wrote The Prophecy of Dante; three cantos for Don Juan; the poetic dramas Marino Faliero, Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, and Cain (all published in 1821); and his satire on the poet Robert Southey, The Vision of Judgment.  When Teresa’s father and brother were exiled for the part in an abortive uprising and she, now separated from her husband, was forced to follow them, Byron reluctantly removed to Pisa, where Shelley had rented the Casa Lanfranchi on the Arno River for him.  He arrived on 1 November 1821, having left his daughter Allegra in a convent near Ravenna where he had sent her to be educated.  She died on 20 April of the following year.

 Byron paid daily visits to Teresa, whose father and brother had found temporary asylum in Pisa, until early summer when then all went to Leghorn, where Byron had leased a villa near Shelley’s house on the Bay of Lerici.  There the poet Leigh Hunt found him on 1 July, when he arrived from England to join with Shelley and Byron in the editing of a new periodical.  The drowning of Shelley on 8 July left Hunt entirely dependent on Byron, who had already "loaned" him money for his passage and the apartment. Byron contributed his Vision of Judgment to the first number of the new periodical, The Liberal, which was published in London by Hunt’s brother John on 15 October 1822.

 Byron’s interest in the periodical had waned, but he continued to support Hunt and to give manuscripts to The Liberal.  After a quarrel with his publisher, John Murray, Byron gave all his later work - including cantos VI to XVI of Don Juan, The Age of Bronze, and The Island - to John Hunt.  But soon enough, Byron's old restlessness returned and the domesticity of his life with Teresa gave no satisfaction.  He also longed for the opportunity for some noble action that would vindicate him in the eyes of his countrymen.  Accordingly, when the London Greek Committee contacted him in April 1823 to act as its agent in aiding the Greek war for independence from the Turks, Byron immediately accepted the offer.  All of his legendary enthusiasm, energy, and imagination were now at the service of the Greek army.

     On 16 July, Byron left Genoa on a chartered ship, arriving at the Ionian island of Cephalonia on 2 August; he settled in Metaxata.  He made dedicated but ultimately fruitless efforts to unite eastern and western Greece.  On 15 February 1824 he fell ill (he possibly had two epileptic fits in a fortnight).  The spring of 1824 was wet and miserable, and it unfortunately caught Byron while he was still weak from the convulsive fits of mid-February.  He continued to carry out his duties and seemed on the path to certain recovery.  But in early April he was caught outdoors in a rainstorm; though drenched and chilled, he did not hurry home.  Unfortunately, he caught a violent cold which was soon aggravated by the bleeding insisted on by the doctors.  Though he briefly rallied, the cold grew worse; he eventually slipped into a coma.  Around six o'clock in the evening of 19 April 1824, he passed away.

    Deeply mourned by the Greeks, he became a hero throughout their land.  His body was embalmed; the heart was removed and buried in Missolonghi.  His remains were then sent to England and, refused burial in Westminster Abbey, placed in the vault of his ancestors near Newstead.  Ironically, 145 years after his death, in 1969, a memorial to Byron was finally placed on the floor of the Abbey. 

5. Reading Comprehension.

Match the dates with the events in Byron’s life:

1. 1788              a) On 2 July, he sails from Falmouth for Lisbon. They travel through

                           Portugal, Spain, Malta, and Albania, reaching Athens at the end of the

                           year.  Byron writes the first Canto of "Childe Burun" (later Childe 

                          Harold's Pilgrimage).

 

2. 1793              b) Byron marries Annabella on 2 January.  Publication of Hebrew

                                     Melodies. Daughter, Augusta Ada, born to Byron and Annabella on 10

                                December.

 

3. 1808              c) Byron’s daughter Allegra dies in April.  Leigh Hunt moves to Byron's

                         house in June, where they collaborate on the journal The Liberal.  Shelley   

                         is drowned 8 July in his boat, the Don Juan, The Vision of Judgment

                         appears in The Liberal in October.

 

4. 1809              d) Byron is born on 22 January in London to Catherine Gordon, a  

                      Scottish heiress, and Captain John 'Mad Jack' Byron.

 

5. 1812              e) Beppo (satire in the ottava rima of Don Juan) is published in February. 

                         The Shelleys come to Italy and are with Byron from March to November. 

                         Childe Harold canto IV published in April. 

 

6. 1815              f) On 4 July, Byron receives his A.M. degree from Cambridge.

 

7. 1818              g) Don Juan cantos VI-XIV is published.  Byron sails for Greece, arriving at

                          Missolonghi on 30 December.

 

8. 1822              h) Byron enters his first school, in Aberdeen.

 

9. 1823              i) Byron catches a chill in the rain on April 9.  He dies at Missolonghi on 19

                        April.  Don Juan cantos XV and XVI are published in March.  In June,  

                        Byron is buried in Hucknall Torkard Church, near Newstead Abbey.  His

                        memoirs, which he intended for publication after his death, are burned by

                        a group of his friends.

 

10. 1824              j) Byron delivers speeches in the House of Lords.  Childe Harold's  

                         Pilgrimage, cantos I and II, published in March.  Byron meets his future 

                         wife for the first time.  He has a scandalous affair with Lady Caroline

                         Lamb. 

6. Introducing the Pupils to the Poem “She Walks in Beauty”. Brainstorming.

Listen to the poem. What is your impression of it? Who do you think the speaker in the poem is? Does the author declare his love for the young woman or simply celebrates her beauty?

She Walks in Beauty
 

She walks in beauty, like the night 
  Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 
And all that's best of dark and bright 
  Meet in her aspect and her eyes: 
Thus mellow'd to that tender light          5
  Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less, 
  Had half impair'd the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress, 
  Or softly lightens o'er her face;   10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express 
  How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, 
  So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,   15
  But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below, 
  A heart whose love is innocent!

Glossary:

Climes – places that have particular types of climate;

Aspect – (literary) the appearance of someone or something;

Mellow’d – looking warm and soft;

Gaudy – too bright (used to show disapproval);

Impaired – damaged or made it not as good as it should be;

Raven – a large shiny black bird;

Tresses – a woman’s beautiful long hair;

Dwelling – a house, place where people live;

Eloquent – showing a feeling or meaning without using words;

Tints – synonyms: shade, hue; a small amount of a particular colour;

7. Giving Background Information about the History of the Poem.

Teacher’s Notes:  “She Walks in Beauty” is a lyric poem centering on the extraordinary beauty of a young lady. George Gordon Byron (commonly known as Lord Byron) wrote the poem in 1814 and published it in a collection, Hebrew Melodies, in 1815. 

On the evening of June 11, 1814, Byron attended a party with his friend, James Wedderburn Webster, at the London home of Lady Sarah Caroline Sitwell. Among the other guests was the beautiful Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot, the wife of Byron’s first cousin, Sir Robert Wilmot. Her exquisite good looks dazzled Byron and inspired him to write “She Walks in Beauty.”

8. Identifying Literary Devices. Actualizing Pupils’ Prior Knowledge.

Remember and say what literary devices do you know? Can you explain what is metaphor, simile and alliteration?

Teacher’s Notes:

A metaphor states that one thing is something else. It is a comparison, but it does NOT use “like” or “as” to make the comparison.

For example: Her hair is silk. The sentence is comparing (or stating) that hair is silk.

A simile is a comparison using like or as. It usually compares two dissimilar objects.

For example: His feet were as big as boats. We are comparing the size of feet to boats.

Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant. There should be at least two repetitions in a row.

For example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. The first letter, p, is a consonant. It is repeated many times. (If you use a syllable rather than a consonant, it is assonance.)

Look at the following lines containing devices mentioned above and mark the lines containing metaphor with “M”, simile with “S”, alliteration with “A”:

1. Randy Rathbone wrapped a rather rare red rabbit.
2. Ted was as nervous as a cat with a long tail in a room full of rocking chairs.
3. The fluorescent light was the sun during our test.
4. The willow dips to the water,                                                                           

protected and precious, like the king’s favorite daughter.

5. No one invites Harold to parties because he’s a wet blanket.
6. The willow’s branches are like silken thread.

9. Group Work. Read “She Walks in Beauty” one more time and find the lines in which alliteration is used. Read them out, mark them with “A”. Write out the pairs of alliterated words.
10. Look at lines 1, 2. What literary device out of the 3 mentioned above is used here?

What does the author compare?

11. Look at lines from 8 to 16. Does the comparison take place here? Fill in the table with the symbols to compare the lady to an image:

Lady	Symbols

12. Introducing the Pupils to the Notion of Personification.

Sometimes poets give human qualities, feelings, action to inanimate objects. This literary device is called personification. Can you see personification in the poem? Read out the lines or use the table you filled in as a hint.

Write the object being personified and the meaning of the personification.

1. The wind sang her mournful song through the falling leaves.

2. The microwave timer told me it was time to turn my TV dinner.

3. The video camera observed the whole scene.

4. The strawberries seemed to sing, "Eat me first!"

Can you see personification in the poem? Read out the lines or use the table you filled in as a hint.

13. Discussion.

1. What is the poem about? What does the author glorify in it?
2. What is the theme of the poem?

Teacher’s Notes: The theme of the poem is the woman's exceptional beauty, internal as well as external. The first stanza praises her physical beauty. The second and third stanzas praise both her physical and spiritual, or intellectual, beauty. 

3. What is beauty? To what extent does beauty depend on personality?

3. Follow-up.

 Divide the class into two groups. The first group gets the first line, the second line is for the second group. Ask the pupils to personify the following sentences. Change the words in parentheses to words that would describe human's actions:

1.My bedroom door (opened).
2.The puppy (barked) when I left for school.
Homework: 1. Can a person's spiritual goodness make them physically beautiful? Give examples of qualities you feel would make a person beautiful and explain why. Answer the question, be ready to share your ideas to the class on the following lesson. 2. Personify the following sentences. Change the words in parentheses to words that would describe a human's
actions:
1.The leaf (fell) from the tree.
2.The flashlight (went on).
3.Hair (is) on my head.
4.The CD player (made a noise).

3.Make up 3 to 5 special questions about Byron’s life and work. Be ready to ask and answer them in class. 4. Search for other Byron’s poems through the Internet, choose the one you liked most, be ready to recite it in class.

The Keys:

Task I. 1. 1) c 2) f 3) e 4) a 5) g 6) h 7) b 8) i 9) d.

Task II.1. 1) f 2) I 3) a 4) j 5) b 6) g 7) c 8) d 9) k 10) e 11) l 12) h.

Task II.5. 1) d 2) h 3) f 4) a 5) j 6) b 7) e 8) c 9) g 10) i

Task II.8. 1) “A” 2) “S” 3) “M” 4) “A”, “S” 5) “M” 6) “S”

Task II.9. Line 2:....cloudless climes; starry skies. 
                 Line 6:....day denies 
                 Line 8:....Had half
                 Line 9:....Which waves
                 Line 11...serenely sweet
                 Line 14...So soft, so
                 Line 18...Heart Whose

Task II. 10 simile: “she walks like the night”

Task II.11.

Lady	Symbols
Her grace ( a quality)	a perceivable phenomenon
Her thoughts	people
Her mind	dwelling place (home)
Her cheek and brow	persons who tell of days in goodness spent