Click here and here to revise Modernism in literature.
Thursday 11 April 2024
Wednesday 10 April 2024
Tuesday 2 April 2024
THE BEAT GENERATION - 5^C LINGUISTICO
The Beat movement was an American social and literary movement, originating in the 1950s, and centred in the bohemian artist communities of
San Francisco’s North Beach, Los Angeles’ Venice West, and New
York City’s Greenwich
Village. Its adherents, self-styled as “beat” (originally meaning
“weary” (= tired), but later also connoting a musical sense, a “beatific”
spirituality, and other meanings) and derisively called “beatniks,” expressed
their alienation from conventional, or “square,” society by adopting a style of
dress, manners, and “hip” vocabulary borrowed from jazz musicians. They
advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the
heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen
Buddhism. The Beats and their advocates found the joylessness and
purposelessness of modern society sufficient justification for both withdrawal
and protest. Read here.
Friday 29 March 2024
Thursday 28 March 2024
THE BALLAD THROUGH TIME - 3^C LINGUISTICO
Once
medieval ballads (=oral compositions passed on
from generation to generation) became popular, they began to borrow
freely from the carols (=religious
folk songs or popular hymns, especially associated with Christmas),
riddle songs, popular stories and romances of the time. Ballads were popular
throughout (=in every part of) Europe and the English-language ballad also
borrowed from other countries and cultures. Read here.
There
are examples of the ballad form from the Middle Ages right up to the
present day. The 16th century saw the gradual disappearance of the
old-style romances, along with the minstrels who used to recite and sing
them.
The
ballad form remained popular through the 17th and the 18th centuries,
which saw a revival especially of magic and supernatural themes.
In the 19th century
the poetry of the Romantics drew widely for inspiration on the materials of
folk narrative ballads and lyrical folk songs: Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner owes its
intense supernaturalism and its archaisms to traditional ballads;
Keats's La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a ballad about an encounter that involves both pleasure
and pain.
In
the 20th century an oral ballad
tradition still survived in England and the United States and the
term "ballad" was applied to a short song with a slow rhythm and
romantic or sentimental content.
In
the 1960s popular music in general became a space for cultural and
political conflict and dialogue. Bob Dylan started to use the form of the
ballad to protest against the Vietnam War when, in 1962, he used the
mixture of dialogue and narration of Lord Randal in his
song A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. Among his most famous
anti-war songs are Blowin’ in the Wind and Masters of
War.
The
ballad is still used in modern pop and folk music. Read here.
from Performer Heritage 1, Zanichelli, p. 63
Friday 22 March 2024
Tuesday 12 March 2024
THE VICTORIAN NOVEL - 5^C LINGUISTICO
This is why I studied literature in college. This is why I became a teacher: to share in grand conversations about books, to spread the joy, to initiate and welcome students into the fraternity, into ..."the club of clubs," to travel with them into wondrously familiar or incredibly strange imaginative worlds.
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
The Victorian Age was called the "age of fiction" because of the immense popularity the genre gained in the period. Many outstanding writers turned to novel writing and the number of novels published yearly increased enormously. Novels were also serialised in magazines. The first part of the Victorian Age was characterised by the triumph of the realistic novel. Both characters and events were interpreted and judged by an omniscient narrator who expressed the dominant moral view of the time. The story generally ended in a happy way or at least with good triumphing over evil. In the second part of the Victorian Age an anti-Victorian trend developed in the criticism of the hypocrisy and bigotry of the middle classes. The general anti-Victorian trend culminated towards the end of the century with the Aesthetic Movement which rejected the Victorian moral view of literature.
Here you can download a handout about the Victorian novel.
Sunday 11 February 2024
PROVE INVALSI - 5^C LINGUISTICO
Tuesday 16 January 2024
Monday 8 January 2024
A JANE AUSTEN TOUR OF ENGLAND
For many of us, British or otherwise, the places and people of Jane Austen’s novels represent that quintessential English life. But these places and people were inspired by Jane Austen’s own home and life, all of which can be experienced by a Jane Austen tour of England. Read here.
Sunday 31 December 2023
Tuesday 26 December 2023
Sunday 24 December 2023
Wednesday 20 December 2023
Friday 1 December 2023
DECEMBER
"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is time for home."
Edith Sitwell
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