COMMEMORATING JANE AUSTEN

Today is the 202nd anniversary of English novelist Jane Austen's death. She died in Winchester on 18 July 1817. She was only 41.

She was one of the first writers to pitch for women’s education and emancipation. With the publications of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. Her novels belong to the romantic genre, however, her heroines (Elizabeth Bennet, Emma) were shown to resist and reject patriarchy, ingrained in society. Oxford professor Helena Kelly said Jane Austen was not afraid to deal with touchy contemporary political and religious issues. That includes colonialism and the Church’s role in society, at a time (late 18th/early 19th century Britain) when they were not issues for public discussion, especially by a woman.
Read more here.

ANDREA CAMILLERI DIES AGED 93

"The memory of the aged becomes clearer and clearer with time. It has no pity."

Andrea Camilleri, the Sicilian author behind the popular Inspector Montalbano television series, has died aged 93 this morning.  His books won international acclaim and changed perceptions of Sicily. Read here.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

On 8 July 1822, the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died in the Tyrrhenian Sea. He was sailing back from Livorno, where he had met with Leigh Hunt, who had come from England to help with the publication of a radical journal, "The Liberal", to which Byron was also going to contribute. It is likely that an unexpected storm took Shelley by surprise, together with his friend Edward Williams and a boatboy, none of whom were particularly experienced in navigation. When Shelley's body was washed ashore and found on the beach at Viareggio, it was cremated following a quarantine, and his ashes buried at the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome. On his gravestone there is a Latin inscription "Cor Cordium", Heart of Hearts, and a passage from Ariel's song in The Tempest, a reference to the circumstances of his death:

"Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change 

Into something rich and strange."

REVISING ERNEST HEMINGWAY - 5^C LINGUISTICO

Born on July 21, 1899, in Cicero (now in Oak Park), Illinois, Ernest Hemingway served in World War I and worked in journalism before publishing his story collection In Our Time. He was renowned for novels like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, which won the 1953 Pulitzer. In 1954, he  won the Nobel Prize. He committed suicide on July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho.

Here you can find my previous post on Ernest Hemingway and his works.

JULY

"To see the Summer Sky 

Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee"

Emily Dickinson

II PROVA SCRITTA ESAMI DI STATO

Today  my students of  5^C Liceo Linguistico took a 6-hour test, it was their II Prova Scritta.

It consisted of a text analysis and a composition both in English and Spanish.

You can download it here, just in case you are curious!

EXPLORING THE VIRGINIA WOOLF BLOG

This website is a resource for Virginia Woolf fans all over the world. 

The goal of the Virginia Woolf Blog is to celebrate her life and work and give readers a clearer understanding of what she was really like. Using passages from her diaries, letters and various biographies, the blog aims to show readers the real Virginia Woolf, not the tragic figure many people see her as.

SUMMER HOMEWORK - 1^C LINGUISTICO

Here and here you can find lots of grammar and vocabulary exercises to practise and improve your English!

THE GREAT GATSBY

Here you can revise Francis Scott Fitzgerald's most famous novel, an exemplary tale regarding the American Dream, which explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval,  and excess, creating a portrait of "the Jazz Age".

Francis Scott Fitzgerald coined the term "Jazz Age" to refer to the period more commonly known as the Roaring Twenties. Jazz is an American style of music marked by its complex and exuberant mix of rhythms and tonalities. 

The Great Gatsby portrays a similarly complex mix of emotions and themes that reflect the turbulence of the times. Fresh off the nightmare of World War I, Americans were enjoying the fruits of an economic boom and a renewed sense of possibility. Yet in The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald stresses the darker side of the Roaring Twenties, its undercurrent of corruption and its desperate, empty decadence.  Read here.

REFUGEE BLUES - 5^C LINGUISTICO

Here and here you can find an analysis of the poem by W. H. Auden, written in 1939.

https://www.slideshare.net/englishanthology/refugee-blues-igcse-guide

https://literariness.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/LitCharts-refugee-blues.pdf

https://poemanalysis.com/w-h-auden/refugee-blues/

THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

The British Empire was always about more than just ruling lands; it was a state of mind, a set of beliefs and ideals and a way of looking at the world and making sense of it. Therefore it is no surprise that it left its mark in literature and the arts and that we can use these as a way of tracing its impact and influence.  Read here.

The Victorian period in British history marked the high point of British imperialism. Though the British policy of colonial expansion had begun earlier, during the nineteenth century Britain not only consolidated its existing empire, but also experienced an unprecedented expansion in its colonial possessions. Read here.

The origins of the post-colonial novel can be traced back to a period well before the post-war imperial retreat. Read here.

Here you can find a list of the  best books about colonialism and imperialism.

PRESENT PERFECT CONTINUOUS

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

The Present Perfect Simple suggests completion while the Present Perfect Continuous suggests something is unfinished. Read more here.

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

https://test-english.com/grammar-points/b1/present-perfect-simple-present-perfect-continuous/

https://elt.oup.com/student/solutions/upperint/grammar/grammar_01_012e?cc=it&selLanguage=it

MAY

"April showers bring May flowers", as the saying goes. And with those flowers comes May Day, a holiday that most people have heard of but have no idea what it’s for.  Read more here. 

BRAVE GRETA THUNBERG

At just 16 years old, Greta Thunberg has started an international youth movement against climate change.

The Swedish teenager first staged a "School Strike for Climate" in front of the Swedish Parliament in August last year. She continued to gain international attention after speaking at the U.N. Climate Talks in Poland last December.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE!

According to tradition, the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1564. It is impossible to be certain of the exact day on which he was born, but church records show that he was baptised on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptising a newborn. 

He died in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1616; it is not clear how he died, and numerous suggestions have been put forward. In 1616, there was an outbreak of typhus (“The new fever”) which may have been the cause. The average life expectancy of someone born in London, England in the 16th century was about 35 years old, he died aged 52. 

He is buried in the sanctuary of the parish church, Holy Trinity.  Read here and here.