The Purpose of this Blog

Your task on this blog is to write a brief summary of what we learned in class today. Include enough detail so that someone who was ill or missed the lesson can catch up with what they missed. Over the course of the term, these 'class scribe' posts will grow to be a guide book for the course, written by students for students.

With each post ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is this good enough for our guide book?
2) Will your post enable someone who wasn't here to catch up?
3) Would a graphic/video/link help to illustrate what we have learned?


Thursday, 20 January 2011

We started the lesson by writing Mariana's facebook status. We then finished off annotating the poem, then moved to another Tennyson poem, called Godiva.It is based on the story of Godiva, a lady who, according to the myth, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in England after her husband promised that he would remove oppressive taxes on his people if she agreed to do so.

Homework:
  • Finish notes on Godiva
  • Write two 30 minute essays; one answering the question "how does Tennyson tell the story in Godiva?" and the other "Discuus Tennyson's narrative method in Mariana"

Posted by at

9 comments:

  1. Chris. 张20 January 2011 at 11:23

    Lady Godiva Factfile:

    Status: Anglo-Saxon Noblewoman
    Spouse: Earl Leofric (Not named in Poem)

    Purpose of doing what she did: She did it to stop the taxes from being raised within Coventry by her husband

    Misc: Poem also mentions "peeping Tom" who was blinded as he watched her.

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  2. Anonymous21 January 2011 at 08:15

    I think that "Godiva" has definately been the most positive poem we're read so far in terms of representations of woman. Maybe that is because it was the last of the three to be written and that shows that attitudes towards women were beggining to change during this time period.

    Thanks for the homework reminder :)

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  3. Anonymous21 January 2011 at 08:16

    Btw the comment above it by me - Aleksandra...

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  4. Aisha Moallim24 January 2011 at 11:50

    YYAYYY!! GO ALEKS :D, yes i also agree godiva is the only poem that does not degrade women. so was Tennyson sexist? or was he just conforming to mainstream society.

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  5. Anonymous24 January 2011 at 11:55

    loool Aleks.

    I think that Tennyson's poems seem to go in a clear order in the sense that, Mariana is the poem which represents women as being "the angel in the house" and not being able to do anything without a man, Lady of Shallot seems to be a more positive approach on women with the lady of Shallot leaving her chamber and going across the moat which could be represented as male oppression during Victorian times however she ultimately dies and is only offered a "muse" from Lancalot claiming that she is quite pretty which seems to give the moral that if women tried to break free of oppression they would suffer and finally we have Godiva which represents women as being able to think for themselves and actually rising up against their husbands.

    Longest comment I have ever posted, I better not be doing the blog next...

    Roman A.

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  6. Sonny.24 January 2011 at 13:18

    Roman..
    How does Godiva represent women who rise up against their husbands when she does exactly what is asked of her? Surely this is just reinforcing the view that men are superior to women?
    Also isn't what she did degrading in any way shape or form?

    'Sonny

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  7. Rosie24 January 2011 at 13:19

    Godiva is different from Lady of Shalott and Mariana. They both have stereotypical views of women at the time. Godiva shows a change in women by being independent strong and brave.

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  8. Anonymous25 January 2011 at 00:41

    Godiva was an interesting poem. As we have seen in the last two poems, it's all been about women......

    Chris W

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  9. Dylan Hugs25 January 2011 at 01:14

    Well, I learnt what a woman will do to get what she wants~ and seeing how women are a central theme in the poems that we have studied, this is probably a great idea~ But then, it is my idea..

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