Sunday 30 June 2013
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
Labels:
Literature,
Poetry,
Shakespeare,
Shakespeare's sonnets
Friday 21 June 2013
WHAT IS THE SUMMER SOLSTICE?
The summer solstice marks the peak of summer and takes place on the
longest day of the year, that is to say when the Sun is at its highest in the sky. In Britain
and other places north of the equator, to be precise the Northern Hemisphere, this
takes place on June 21. After the summer solstice the days get shorter until the winter solstice
when they start to get longer again.
June 21 is called the summer solstice in the Northern
Hemisphere and simultaneously the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Around December 21 the solstices are reversed and winter begins in the Northern hemisphere.
The summer solstice has been celebrated since ancient times and is still
celebrated around the world today.
Many people gather at Stonehenge which is believed to have been used as an important religious site by early Britons 4,000 years ago.
Here you can read an interesting article about the meaning of the summer solstice.
Many people gather at Stonehenge which is believed to have been used as an important religious site by early Britons 4,000 years ago.
Here you can read an interesting article about the meaning of the summer solstice.
Thursday 20 June 2013
II PROVA SCRITTA ESAMI DI STATO
The end of the school year has finally come about and I
have been sent to a Technical Institute for the school-leaving examination as an external teacher - the students there have to take
tests on specific subjects, including English.
As to my students of 5^ C
Liceo Linguistico, today they had to sit for their II Prova Scritta, a Foreign
Language written exam, but they had the opportunity to decide on the English, Spanish or French language.
As usual, the English test included a text analysis, a summary and a
composition, but there was a choice between an article about sealing
your love with a Master Lock in Paris, taken from The Wall Street Journal, Europe Edition, and a passage
from The Great Gatsby by the American
author Francis Scott Fitzgerald, a love story set in the 1920s - a period of jazz and
decadence.
Here you can
download both of them, just in case you are curious!
Sunday 9 June 2013
MISS AUSTEN REGRETS
Miss Austen Regrets is a BBC-produced drama film that depicts the last years of Jane Austen's life. Approaching her fortieth birthday, Jane Austen appears happily unmarried and displays all the assured wit and charm of her novels' young heroines. Yet when asked to help her young niece, Fanny Knight, find a husband, her confident composure is threatened. She finds herself looking back on her potential suitors and the choices she has made.
Born the daughter of an English Anglican minister in 1775, she died in
1817 at age forty-one, unmarried and
poor; she left us with six completed novels acclaimed
by many to be literary perfection.
Traditional views on Jane Austen's love life vary, and little evidence
still exists today to support much of a story. What we know survives from her
personal letters and family recollections of a quiet 18th century life, spent in privacy and decorum. Apart from the one
known proposal by Harris Bigg-Wither, no other known love affairs were
documented. Unfortunately, much of Jane Austen's personal correspondence, that
could have supplied more private details, was destroyed after her death by her
sister Cassandra. From what we know, the question surrounding Jane Austen's
life is how an individual with little personal experience of romance and love
could write with such understanding about the nature of the human heart.
In this speculative tale, director Jeremy Lovering and
screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes look into the motives why the real Jane
Austen never found her own Mr. Darcy.
Now
let’s watch the trailer of this beautiful film, graced with an excellent performance by Olivia Williams.
Tuesday 4 June 2013
60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE QUEEN'S CORONATION
The Queen has joined 2,000 guests for a service at Westminster Abbey to
mark 60 years since her Coronation.
Some
of those who took part in the 1953 service were among the congregation. Inside
the abbey, several generations of the royal family
waited: the Queen's son, Prince Charles, now in his 60s, and next in line to
the throne, and her grandson, Prince William, second in line, with his pregnant wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who is due to give birth to
yet another royal heir next month.
Britain's
Prime Minister David Cameron - the 12th to serve under Queen Elizabeth - gave
the reading to all the guests gathered at the abbey.
Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Rev Justin Welby said the event
honoured "60 years of commitment".
Several key items from the Coronation were placed in
Westminster Abbey for the service.
They included the heavy, solid gold St Edward's Crown, displayed on the
High Altar – it hasn’t been out of the
Tower of London since 1953. Beside it was the Ampulla, the gold, eagle-shaped
bottle from which the holy oil was poured for the Queen's anointing. The Coronation Chair, one of the oldest pieces of
English furniture still in use, was also on show.
Here you can watch a beautiful video of the 1953 Coronation ceremony!
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