Tuesday 30 March 2021

THE SILENT CHILD

The Silent Child is a short film based on a true story about a deaf child and it won an Oscar in March 2018. 

The film tells the story of a deaf child, Libby, who is born into a hearing family that doesn’t have knowledge about deaf culture or anything related to deafness. Libby is growing up in a world of silence, leaving her with communication barriers and feeling isolated. A social worker begins to teach her sign language and Libby’s world changes completely. Read here.

Sunday 28 March 2021

WATCHING JANE EYRE

Jane Eyre is a 2006 television adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name. The story, which has been the subject of numerous television and film adaptations, is based on the life of the orphaned title character. 

A young governess falls in love with her brooding and tormented master. However, his  dark past may  destroy their relationship  forever.

Here you can read Charlotte Brontë's novel online.

https://ling.online/en/videos/serials/jane-eyre/


Friday 26 March 2021

ROBERT LEE FROST


President John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration Robert Lee Frost delivered a poem, said of the poet, "He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding." And famously, "He saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses." Read here.

Wednesday 24 March 2021

QUEEN ELIZABETH I

Queen Elizabeth I died on 24 March 1603. Elizabeth, the last Tudor monarch and "Virgin Queen", was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. She became queen in 1558 aged 25 and ruled for 45 years. Her reign saw the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the introduction of a revised Book of Common Prayer and a golden age of playwrights and poets. Read here.

"Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind."


Thursday 18 March 2021

HARD TIMES

Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. It describes nineteenth-century England and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era.

Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is the shortest of Dickens's novels, only just a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious (=fictional, imaginary) Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller.

One of Dickens's reasons for writing Hard Times was that sales of his weekly periodical Household Words were low, and it was hoped the novel's publication in instalments would boost circulation – as indeed proved to be the case. 

Since publication it has received a mixed response from critics. Critics such as George Bernard Shaw have mainly focused on Dickens's treatment of trade unions and his post–Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between capitalist mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era. Read here.



Tuesday 16 March 2021

FRIENDSHIP AND PEER PRESSURE - 3^C LINGUISTICO


It is needless to say how influential peer pressure can be on an individual. Peer pressure comes in when we get influenced by the lifestyles and the ways of thinking of our peers. Read here.

Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
Maya Angelou


Sunday 14 March 2021

SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTERS




Shakespeare was a master character creator, and he invented and brought to life hundreds of  characters in his many plays. Read here.

Monday 8 March 2021

THE TEMPEST - 4^C LINGUISTICO


First performed in 1611, The Tempest  is different from many of Shakespeare's plays in that it does not derive from one clear source. The play draws on many of the motifs common to Shakespeare's works. These include the painful parting of a father with his daughter, jealousy and hatred between brothers, the usurpation of a legitimate ruler, the play-within-a-play, and the experiences of courtiers transplanted to a new environment. It is commonly classified with PericlesThe Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline in a small group of plays called "romances."  These plays contain elements of comedy and, to a lesser extent, tragedy, but do not wholly belong to either category. Common elements in Shakespearean romances include experiences of loss and recovery, as well as imaginative worlds in which magic can play an important role. Read here.

Prospero uses magic to conjure a storm and torment the survivors of a shipwreck, including the King of Naples and Prospero’s treacherous brother, Antonio. Prospero’s slave, Caliban, plots to rid himself of his master, but is thwarted by Prospero’s spirit-servant Ariel. The King’s young son Ferdinand, thought to be dead, falls in love with Prospero’s daughter Miranda. Their celebrations are cut short when Prospero confronts his brother and reveals his identity as the usurped Duke of Milan. The families are reunited and all conflict is resolved. Prospero grants Ariel his freedom and prepares to leave the island. Read here.


Saturday 6 March 2021

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING - 5^C LINGUISTICO

Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England, on 6 March 1806.

Among all female poets of the English-speaking world in the 19th century, none was held in higher critical esteem or was more admired for the independence and courage of her views than Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Emily Dickinson had ecstatically admired her as a poet and as a woman who had achieved such a rich fulfillment in her life. Her humanitarian  and liberal point of view manifests itself in her poems aimed at redressing many forms of social injustice, such as the slave trade in America, the labor of children in the mines and the mills of England, the oppression of the Italian people by the Austrians, and the restrictions forced upon women in 19th-century society. Read here.

https://prezi.com/p/dgzumjn9-8zu/elizabeth-barrett-browning/

"How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways," or "Sonnet 43" is one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous poems.  Read here

Monday 1 March 2021