Literature recs anyone?
Jan. 30th, 2012 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosipheleeSo, next Monday I have two whole hours with my one and only Upper Sixth student. Normally, I'd just carry on with whatever we were doing in class, but it seems to be a missed opportunity. It would be much more interesting to spend two hours doing something a little more unusual. I'm a Medievalist who can blag her way through Shakespeare and Victorian Literature, so our course so far has been very canonical - The Miller's Tale, Othello, Rebecca, lots of Wilde, Captain Corelli's Mandolin (his choice, not mine), a smidgeon of Gatsby, Arcadia, and my co-teacher has added in some Romantics.
But it's all very conventional, and there's so much else out there. I know there's great swathes of literature I'm not aware of (sadly, Beowulf isn't eligible). I know almost nothing of American poetry, for example (to my shame).
Has anybody got any interesting recs for something I could tackle in an afternoon? It needs to be written in English (not translated), be written between Chaucer's time and now, and fall under the heading of Love Through The Ages. It can be poetry, drama or prose, fiction or non-fiction. R is willing to have a go at anything I put in front of him (we've spent the last few weeks applying The Critic as Artist to Harry Potter) but is off to do art next year, rather than English. My fallback option is to do an extract from Wide Sargasso Sea (I wimped out of Goblin Market when I got to she sucked and sucked and sucked the more / Fruits which that unknown orchard bore).
Recommend me your cool and interesting literature of love :) *puppy-dog eyes*
But it's all very conventional, and there's so much else out there. I know there's great swathes of literature I'm not aware of (sadly, Beowulf isn't eligible). I know almost nothing of American poetry, for example (to my shame).
Has anybody got any interesting recs for something I could tackle in an afternoon? It needs to be written in English (not translated), be written between Chaucer's time and now, and fall under the heading of Love Through The Ages. It can be poetry, drama or prose, fiction or non-fiction. R is willing to have a go at anything I put in front of him (we've spent the last few weeks applying The Critic as Artist to Harry Potter) but is off to do art next year, rather than English. My fallback option is to do an extract from Wide Sargasso Sea (I wimped out of Goblin Market when I got to she sucked and sucked and sucked the more / Fruits which that unknown orchard bore).
Recommend me your cool and interesting literature of love :) *puppy-dog eyes*
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 12:06 pm (UTC)*thinks* Bits of Seaward by Susan Cooper if you've got a copy or two handily available?
Translations by Brian Friel has some romance in it. It's not the focus of the play, but it deals with love when two people can't communicate.
Honestly, I'm just tossing random suggestions your way. Poke at them at your leisure.
Rosemary Sutcliffe's retelling of Tristan and Iseult? Or does that not count, the original tale not being English?
*thiiiinks* This is hard... I'm tempted to recommend Anne of the Five Towns, but it isn't really romance... (It has some, though. It's all very tragic and people die.) *tries to think what else she's read*
Bits from Stardust by Neil Gaiman?
*so geared towards the fantasy, and can't even think of poetry* Sorry. ^-^; I hope there's something in there that's promising. Or at least leads you to such.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-05 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 12:37 pm (UTC)What'd you end up teaching him? (Yes, yes, I know Monday isn't over yet. ^-~)
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Date: 2012-01-31 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-05 11:05 am (UTC)