Where we are now. Read this - it's important.

Dear Y13
I feel like we are a disparate group and I am very much looking forward to the end of the exam period, as I am sure you are, so that we can re-group and feel like there's a sense of continuity for us all.
This term so far then...
We have looked at a critical interpretation of A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. This is an excellent poem to compare are you can easily create an argument about Donne - he writes them both, yet they show a stark contrast in the representation of women.

There are a couple of areas where, as a class, we need focus:

• analysis of form/ structure
• comparison 
• context

As a brief overview, John Donne lived in a turbulent time in British history. Elizabeth I’s reign was long and also created unease over gender roles. Donne’s writing was after her reign, but the shift in roles remained after her death. Elizabeth was able to subvert gender roles to lead convincingly (have a look at the ‘heart and stomach of a King’ speech) and to use her feminine wiles to create a ‘cult of love’. ‘In the centre of this extraordinary cult of love was Elizabeth, who managed to induce her favourites to command and combine the affection of a subject for their sovereign with that of a man for his lover’ (Royal Museums Greenwich. This is an excellent link). Elizabeth created a culture of flattery where ostentatious declarations of love were necessary to gain her favour in the court.

Other societal factors, such as the growth in urbanized environments, also exacerbated this change as women and men moved away from agricultural work to employment in shops and developing industry (though not to the same extent as the industrial revolution). These changes added to fears in society about ideas of femininity and masculinity.

Of course, one way women can be kept in their place, so to speak, is by maintaining a focus on their physicality: objectification. We can see this in the work of Donne’s contemporaries and by Donne himself in THMGTB.

The Petrarchan Sonnet is one of the most enduring poetic structures. Petrarch was a 14^th Century poet and his poems had an resounding impact on the structure of poems throughout the following centuries. The work of Spenser, particularly in The Faerie Queen, can also be seen to maintain a focus on the physicality of women through the poetic form and convention: this is where it becomes easy for you to both analyse form and comment on the context - what a gift!

In Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Donne creates an equality between husband and wife through his use of metaphysical conceit. The motif of circles also establishes the idea of a symmetry between the couple and an eternity; 'thy firmness makes my circle just' shows that Donne needs his wife to maintain balance and completion.

Coursework is due on Thursday. 

In the last lessons...

We have looked at the opening of Jane Eyre and the presentation of isolation/otherness, madness and race in the opening. The scene in the red room is particularly powerful (and also useful to look at as a Gothic text).

In the last lesson we looked at the scene where Bertha is revealed in the attic. (Chapter 26) Here, we also looked at the presentation of isolation/otherness, madness and race. 

It was this presentation of Bertha Mason that compelled Jean Rhys to write Wide Sargasso Sea. 

Make sure you have read WSS well by Monday at the very latest. It seems short, but is not easy to read.

Let me know if you have any problems/ questions.

Ms