Tricotomania and more

So, I went to a big academic conference. And I had a booth in the trade fair bit, which is called the Book Fair because it is mostly publishers. And I spent the entire week staring at the Wiley/Blackwell booth and maybe spent some money on the last day.

One of those books was How to Read a Poem by Terry Eagleton.

Eagleton is a big cheese literary critic (nay, theorist) in England. But this book is written for students near the beginning of their undergraduate studies and for the general reader. I think you’d have to be the kind of general reader that likes academic writing, but this is probably a fair description. And he does say that you can start at chapter 4 if you want to skip his discussion of theoretical debates.

I’m the kind of person that actually finds the discussion of debates in literary theory helpful. Because I know that literary criticism, like other forms of academic analysis, takes place in the context of debates. So it is helpful for me to have a sense of what is at stake in those debates. Eagleton’s first few chapters help with that enormously, while attending to the specific case of poetry.

They also situate certain trends in poetry historically. The influence of the Romantics on our everyday notions of what poetry should be (or at least mine) was particularly enlightening. And freeing. As was the discussion of the historical shift in the meaning (and moral/political value) of “rhetoric”.

He uses examples throughout to illustrate his points and kind of walk you through the particular aspect of literary criticism that he is dealing with. And then the last chapter walks you through 4 poems from different periods.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I never “got” literature in high school and university. And I’m particularly lost when it comes to poetry. But this book really helped me.

Just to reassure you, despite the fact that he’s a big cheese literary theorist, here is his definition of a poem.

A poem is a fictional, verbally inventive moral statement in which it is the author, rather than the printer or wod processor, who decides where the lines should end. (p. 25)

Chapter 2 goes through that definition. In addition to explaining what he means by each term –”fictional”, “verbally inventive”, “moral”– he also talks about why his definition doesn’t include anything about rhyme, rhythm, metre, and all that other stuff we associate with poetry.

All his points are illustrated with appropriate examples. I particularly enjoyed the introduction to the section on the term “fiction” (which follows that on the term “moral”).

The distinction between the empirical and the moral is not the same as the difference between fact and fiction. There are plenty of moral statements, such as ‘certain members of the Royal Family are ofish individuals of philistine tastes and remarkably low intelligence’, which are not fictional — not only because they are true, but because they belong to the real world rather than to poems and novels.

There are, of course, poetic examples, as well.

This is not the kind of book I would give to my child to read. Or at least not until she is solidly advanced in high-school level English. However, I have found it very helpful in my quest to figure out what the goal of high-school English might be. What kind of thinking do I want to nurture in my daughter? And how could studying poetry help with that?

It is also helpful in making me more comfortable with poetry in general. A useful skill since Freya seems to be a poet (among other things) and it would be nice to be able to appreciate that in more than a purely parental pride kind of way. She thinks the title of the book is nuts, btw. Who needs to be taught that?

Well, I do need to be taught how to read a poem. And I’m sure others do, too. And this book helped me enormously.

BTW, there is a Search Inside feature for this book on Amazon. The table of contents gives a good sense of what is covered and there is a substantial chunk of Chapter 1 available.

Two grammar related blog posts found courtesy of Twitter today.

The first, a detailed indictment of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style in the Chronicle (in the free to all stuff). By a linguist. With details of a (presumably better) book about grammar at the bottom. At least one to check out, I think.

Geoffrey Pullam makes some sound arguments. But for those who are not familiar with the basic tenets of linguistics, it might seem odd. For linguists (and I agree with them) the whole point about a living language is that it is living. Thus the rules are only discernable by examining how people actually use the language to make meaning.

For me, the sociologist, I would say that this means that they are more social conventions than rules. Thus you can teach the social conventions, but those conventions also change. And some people defy those conventions and still communicate well and may even be lauded.

If you want to read more about linguistics and public debates about language, I highly recommend Deborah Cameron’s Verbal Hygiene. She demonstrates how some of the vociferous debates about language are really (or also) about other things — discipline, social cohesion, employment for copy writers, etc.

The second grammar post today is Three Grammar Rules You Can (And Should) Break. Directed at bloggers it takes on some of the big rules-that-are-really-social-conventions and gives you permission to treat them as you would asking your girlfriend’s father for permission to marry her.  Sometimes makes sense. But use your judgement.

I liked both. But then I’m not a big fan of rules or rule-following at the best of times. Hope you enjoy them.

We went to the theatre last weekend. Since drama is one of Tigger’s interest areas, I decided at the beginning of the school year (such as it is) that we should go to the theatre more often. This is not as easy as it sounds when you are taking an 11 year old. Most of the “family” theatre is aimed at much younger children. But the regular program is not always interesting or appropriate for someone her age. Thus I didn’t by a subscription but picked a couple that looked interesting.

One of these was Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Belle Moral: A Natural History. Mat decided to go to a workshop on Orchard and Small Fruit Production and Marketting that day, so I also took one of her friends (who is 13 and also into drama). The girls both loved it.

This is not light entertainment. There is a lot going on. I was thinking that it was a good thing we’ve been studying 19th century British history because a lot of that knowledge came in handy. I also had to explain a few things about Oscar Wilde, and late 19th century ideas about mental illness and physical features. I suspect that most 11-13 year olds would not be as thrilled as these to young intellectuals were.

But all of you interested in Darwin, the history of scientific thought, and the relative importance of art and science in guiding moral behaviour will love it. Lots of food for thought. And what I thought was an interesting ending, verging on the post-modern.

Belle Moral is also funny. As MacDonald says in the author’s note in the program

I’m essentially a comedian. Which is to say, an informed, jaded, jaundiced, optimist. There may be unhappy endings to stories, but all stories are happy, because as long as there are stories, there is hope.

And lots of references to other work for those who have read a lot and can get them. I would love someone to relieve me of my frustration at placing the reference to the madwoman in the attic, for example. And I’m sure I missed loads. I’ve had a quick skim of the Study Guide (PDF) and it looks like it provides a lot of relevant background.

There is so much going on in this play that I think it is one that will stand the test of time. It deals with big important themes. And it bears repeated viewings. I am seriously contemplating buying a copy of the script.

This run ends on Saturday. It has had 2 runs at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake (2005, 2008). Hopefully, it will come around again there. If you ever see it somewhere near you, I would recommend attending.

I’m doing well with my resolution to read Becky’s Poetry Friday posts. This week she hit me with a whole lot of Langston Hughes. Great stuff. I love that political stuff for exactly the reason he writes it (explained in her intro). And what a wonderful way to give insight into that experience.

Rose also posted a poem today. One by her partner, Brett. It is also political and amazing. So much of the post-election discussion in the online circles I hang out in has focused on the (so-called) defense of marriage propositions that this one felt particularly relevant.

I was reading Sheila’s post about writing poetry with her kids and realized that I forgot to update you all on my own poetry challenge.

First, I now read the poem that Becky posts on Fridays instead of skimming over it or skipping that post altogether. Sometime’s I need to force myself to do it because my instinct is still to skim or skip. I discover that “it will not kill me” (as I say to Tigger about eating the odd raisin/bit of zucchini/etc) and that it isn’t even painful. I need to keep doing this until my instinct shifts a bit.

Second, I am hosting Teatimes when it is my turn with our homeschool group. My first session of that was this past Tuesday. I went to the library on Monday and grabbed a few things off the shelf to add to the collection of poetry books that we have. The kids each brought something. I made tea and fruit punch. Tigger made cookies and picked flowers from the garden for a centrepiece (and chose a tablecloth). Some of the kids were more enthusiastic than others. Some read more fluently aloud than others (2 speak German at home and are less confident about their English, I think). But everyone read. I said it was okay to choose short things. I also said we all had to choose one poem new to us. Baby steps challenges. It was fun. Some of them were practically begging to read another one. After an hour or so I dismissed them to go play.

One thing I noticed is that Tigger likes what might be called grown up poems. The stuff I find vaguely scary.  I don’t know what the other kids thought but I noticed a real difference in style between what she chose to read and what others chose to read. She also like Shel Silverstein and John Hegley but she chose to read other stuff. This is clearly an area where I need to take a lead from her and not be scared of this stuff.

So the book Sheila mentioned about how to write poetry sounds like something we could maybe do in our December meeting or next term or something. Though apparently Tigger wrote some poetry when she was on holiday in the Gaspésie recently.

Becky put a good link in her comment on my recent lament about poetry. (Was it a lament? Perhaps not.)

So on the principal that a long journey begins with a single step, I have been listening to a few poems while cooking dinner. Apart from the annoyance of having to walk across the room to choose the next one, or pause it when the phone rings, it is rather a pleasant discipline.

The Poetry Archive has lots of recordings of poems read by the poets themselves. Always nice to see how they meant that to sound. And possibly one of my issues with reading it. I can never work out how the rhythm is supposed to go or if there is supposed to be one. (Does the line break have any aural function? Or is it merely visual? How does punctuation relate to the line breaks?) The trickiest part is figuring out where to start. Once you’ve listened to one, there seems to be a “where to next” link at the bottom of the page for something related somehow.

This is not a Poetry Friday post. I love the idea of Poetry Friday but I freeze completely at the thought of posting something. And I have to admit that I tend not to read the poems folks on my regular blogroll post on Fridays. I have some kind of aversion.

Literature is one of those subjects that I never “got” in school. You know how some folks say that they got good marks in math but feel like they don’t know anything about it? That’s me with literature. I read voraciously. But I never understood what was going on with literature class. Still don’t. I love Deconstructing Penguins but have absolutely no confidence I could guide that kind of a discussion about a book that isn’t already in there. (Seems I was going on about similar concerns this time last year.)

So. Poetry. Not sure how I didn’t get clued into it. I read a lot of A.A.Milne as a child and enjoyed it. I remember enjoying Dennis Lee as well. But I never really moved beyond kids poetry. I’ve had occasional forays into contemporary poetry — Jackie Kay, for example. And Mat got me interested in Attila the Stockbroker. But mostly I don’t know where to start and find that reminder that I haven’t got a clue to be kind of paralyzing.

One of the things I like about homeschooling is the ability to learn along with your kid. I didn’t know anything about art until Tigger got interested in it, either. So I figure this is my opportunity to figure out poetry. Or at least learn to be comfortable with it. I love Julie’s idea of teatimes. But having a teatime when you have only one child feels a bit weird. I’ve hosted one before with a few of Tigger’s friends and everyone loved it but that never became a regular thing.

No more. Our homeschool group has just had a meeting to work out what we’re going to do this term. I said, I’d like to do a teatime about once a month. So that’s what I’m doing. We each host 3 sessions between mid-September and mid-December and mine are pretty evenly spaced (and in the calendar). My plan is to go to the library and stock up on poetry books from the kids section so that I have a selection of things on hand when the kids get here. And bake. And make sure we have some nice drinks in (even for those who don’t want tea). And then we’ll just see what happens.

My first teatime is September 23. I might get some fall themed stuff. And I need something that our one lone boy might like (he brought a hockey poem the last time) so he isn’t overwhelmed by fairies or something. And I need to think of something to read to them while they have their tea…

Writing blog posts seems to send me off on internet research trips. Here are some of the things I’m finding. Some will be suitable for Tigger directly (age 11) and some will be more for my own learning. I’d never read any Dickens until Tigger and I read A Christmas Carol together last year. And my historical knowledge is generally woeful.

BBC animated biography of Dickens: This looks good. Basic. And just the sort of thing Tigger likes. Links at the bottom of the page to other kid-friendly resources.

BBC History Victorian England: Lots and lots of relevant historical information. And a Victorian history trail, with activities, games, etc. I suspect, our whole study could be based on materials found on these two pages.

Some interesting looking links from Web English Teacher to resources for teaching Dickens, including detailed lesson plans and vocabulary guides that I probably won’t use.

And another link-fest from the Innovative Teaching News.

There are some very useful things available as supplements to the Broadview Press Anthology of British Literature. Most of the links associated with this are secured to people who own the text but (under Extra Materials in the side bar) there is a useful article on British money, and a slew of short audio clips that give a sense of the sound of British literature. They obviously don’t go back far and the Florence Nightengale one is pretty scratchy, but still… There is also a very handy chronological chart available for Vol 5 (The Victorian Era). It is presented in two columns with literary works on the left and historical events on the right.

I like to listen to In Our Time while doing things in the kitchen that don’t require much intellectual engagement (it is not the sort of radio that works well if you are distracted). The following programs from the History archive are relevant to the period: Victorian Realism (about novels and the reaction to romanticism), The Riddle of the Sands (on English-German relations from Waterloo to WWI), The Enclosures, The Charge of the Light Brigade (Crimean War), The Opium Wars, William Wilberforce, The Great Exhibition, and The Peterloo Massacre (and it’s relation to the Reform Act of 1832). Two programs that cover a longer period but address very relevant themes are The Aristocracy and Slavery and Empire.

This reminds me that we have touched on this period before. Tigger has a biography of Florence Nightingale from the Usborne Famous Lives series that she enjoyed so much she dressed as FN for Halloween a couple of years ago. We also have The Villainous Victorians from the Horrible Histories series. And Mill Girl from the My Story series of fictional diaries is also relevant. It looks like there are also volumes in that series on the Victorian Workhouse and the Irish Famine though we don’t have those.

And that reminds me that we have read about the Irish famine in the past, mainly historical fiction: Nory Ryan’s Song and Maggie’s Door by Patricia Reilly Giff. But Myra Zarnowski recommends the non-fiction account Black Potatoes by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (which is in our library system). I suspect we won’t go into that in great detail at this point, except to point out that it was happening at the same time. Maybe now is the time to get the whole time-line thing going around here.

I am running into a bit of a periodization issue in this search for resources. The Very Short Introduction uses a long 19th Century — 1789 (French Revolution) to 1914 (WWI). The literary material and the BBC site use The Victorian Age (she reigned from 1837-1901) and thus a short 19th century. I might have to think more on this and talk to Mat about the possible consequences of each approach (since he actually studied history at university, though perhaps not this period). Any thoughts from readers about this would be most welcome. I have access to, and am happy to read, academic journal articles. So if there was something you read as a student that addresses this issue, do let me know.

My approach to any topic is increasingly to consider my own education alongside Tigger’s. As such, I am interested in good books for myself as well as books accessible to her. I’m not going to read all of this stuff. But I like to have a sense of the shape of the terrain before deciding on the particular path we will follow.

My planning is often serendipitous. Finding good books. External activities going on. Taking a 3 month trip to Europe. That kind of thing drives the kinds of subjects that we might study around here.

This year’s serendipitous activity is that Tigger is auditioning for the Junior Performance Company at the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama. We have a back-up plan in case she doesn’t get in, but Mat and I have been thinking about what topics that might suggest if she does. They will be performing Dickens’ Great Expectations. So we’ve been thinking that 19th Century British history would be a good idea.

When sorting out the books from my former life as an academic recently (did I tell you that I took a whole bunch to a friend who is a recovering 2nd hand bookseller?) I found Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction which I must have got as an inspection copy from Oxford University Press.  I’ve skimmed it a bit and think it might make a good read aloud and general survey spine. (I also had their Sociology book from this series which I’ve sent to a good home. To see what else is available in this series, check the Very Short Introduction page at OUP.)

Mat and I are reasonably knowledgeable about some of the origins of social science in this period and have been thinking about introducing Tigger to early sociology and political economy alongside the more general history. I’m going to see if I can find copies of Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy, which was also serialized and actually sold more copies than Dickens at the time. They are an attempt to educate the masses in the principles of political economy using fables. (It appears that they are available online. However, some have been reprinted with an introduction and other supplementary material. The reviews of that Broadview edition suggest that it makes direct connections to the literature of Dickens, which might be quite handy. For me, anyway.)

There are also some very famous large-scale surveys of living conditions in this period, including Engels survey in Manchester and Booth’s in London. (In the US, there is an excellent study of Philadelphia around this period by W.E.B. DuBois titled The Philadelphia Negro that is a similar scope.) I’m not sure how accessible this stuff is or whether there are good books about it that we could read together but just finding links for this post has revealed some interesting possibilities. (That Booth link looks fabulous.)

My goal would be to give some context to Dickens commentary on social change, social status, and living conditions at this time. He used fiction to address these issues, but there was plenty of debate going on at the time with which he must have been engaged. Right now, that sounds like a pretty hefty goal for an 11 year old but I just want to get a sense of the range and then choose some items to explore throughout the year.

So here is my request to you: do you know of any resources about this period that would be suitable for a bright middle-schooler? They don’t have to be things she would read herself. Our preference is for well-written, engaging non-fiction. I’d also be interested in video resources if you know of any. Thanks.

Tigger is loving Shakespeare camp. They work really hard and she comes home pretty tired but she is very happy. Last week they did a lot of fight training. And they each learned a passage as an audition piece. The younger ones (of whom Tigger is one) all learned the “All the world’s a stage…” piece. (They are doing As You Like It.) She does a pretty good job of it. They performed it for the director on Friday and will find out their parts today.

On Friday evening we went down to Prescott to see a performance of As You Like It at the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival.  That link has a great photo of the stage and amphitheatre, facing the river (with NY State on the opposite bank). It is less than one-hour drive and we had a picnic first and then watched the play. It was great. And I think the kids got a really good sense of how the whole thing works together. And I won the 50/50 draw! Quite the surprise.

This week might be a busy week for Tigger. They get their parts today and have to have their lines all memorized well by Friday. The guidelines that came home at the beginning suggest planning 1 hour per day for memorization this week. She’s pretty motivated, though, so it’ll probably be fine.

We are going to go to see the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream tomorrow evening. And we’ve been invited to a friend’s for a barbecue on Wednesday evening. That’s Tigger’s birthday so we said we’d bring cake. I guess I need to get on that. She’ll have a party with her friends on Saturday. We’re just going to a local park that has a wading pool and play structure. She’s made loot-bag gifts for all her guests all ready. (If you want to wish her a happy birthday, she blogs here.)

I think this Shakespeare camp might become an annual event for her. It is pretty clear that lots of the kids come back year after year. And they learn lots. Unlike other day-camps, it is not really designed as child-care but rather as an intensive theatre production.  We’ll have to work out what that means for drama stuff during the year in relation to the budget.

On the other hand, there are worse ways to learn about English literature. Having that kind of deep engagement with the script at her age might provide a really good foundation for more critical engagement later (in high school years). She doesn’t seem to be bothered at all by either the language or the font. They have scripts in old-fashioned fonts where the “s” looks like and “f”. I hadn’t even thought about the potential impact of that until some of the other moms were talking about it on Friday evening. And we had a reasonable discussion of the reasons why the other company might have staged it the way they did on the way home from the performance.