Transcript Document

Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Choose a task
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
Choose a task based on the poem.
Activity A
Activity B
Activity C
Activity D
Activity E
Activity F
Activity G
Activity H
Glossary 1
Glossary 2
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity A
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
What impression does Marvell give of the woman in ‘To His Coy Mistress’?
To His Coy Mistress
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173954
Menu
Is she presented as willing or
unwilling?
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity B
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
Including some evidence from Marvell’s poem, why might the woman in ‘From his Coy
Mistress’ say: “I think I will become a nun”?
From his Coy
Mistress
Some days I think I will become a nun,
book in a convent miles away,
cut off my hair, and dress in black
wanting to purge myself of men.
I’d kneel and pray and chant a lot,
lie in a narrow bed,
devising titles of unwritten books:
A Semiotics of Flirtation. Love:
Some Concepts of the Verb ‘To Sin’.
One thing’s for sure. By wanting you,
I’m not the woman that I think I am.
I cannot eat or sleep at all,
just think about your lovely mouth
the eerie moonlight and the Northern seas.
And hope my body’s still the temple
that you’d come upon, by chance,
to excavate, a hundred years from now,
burn incense in, and dance and sing,
oh, yes and weeping, worship in.
Menu
To His Coy Mistress
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe
m/173954
What behaviour by the man in
Marvell’s poem might tempt her
to become a nun?
What does the word ‘purge’
imply about her feelings
towards men on ‘Some days’?
Why might she ‘kneel’ and ‘pray’
and ‘chant a lot’?
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity C
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
What do the book titles imply about the woman’s state of mind in her potential vocation
as a nun?
From his Coy
Mistress
Some days I think I will become a nun,
book in a convent miles away,
cut off my hair, and dress in black
wanting to purge myself of men.
I’d kneel and pray and chant a lot,
lie in a narrow bed,
devising titles of unwritten books:
A Semiotics of Flirtation. Love:
Some Concepts of the Verb ‘To Sin’.
Why is she thinking about
flirtation?
Why might ‘love’ and ‘sin’
appear in the same title?
Menu
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity D
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
What do stanza 3 and the first line of stanza 4 reveal about the woman’s thoughts and
feelings?
Menu
From his Coy
Mistress
One thing’s for sure. By wanting you,
I’m not the woman that I think I am.
I cannot eat or sleep at all,
just think about your lovely mouth
the eerie moonlight and the Northern seas.
What kind of woman does the
poem suggest she thought she
was? What contrast is suggested
between these five lines and
stanzas 1 and 2?
How many times is the pronoun
‘I’ repeated in these five lines,
and what effect does this have?
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity E
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
In Marvell’s poem, the man imagines a future with a marble vault where the body of his
mistress decays. In Deryn Rees-Jones’s poem, how does the woman imagine her own
body in one hundred years’ time?
From his Coy
Mistress
Some days I think I will become a nun,
book in a convent miles away,
cut off my hair, and dress in black
wanting to purge myself of men.
Menu
To His Coy Mistress
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe
m/173954
I’d kneel and pray and chant a lot,
lie in a narrow bed,
devising titles of unwritten books:
A Semiotics of Flirtation. Love:
Some Concepts of the Verb ‘To Sin’.
Consider the words shaded in
yellow. Click to show shading.
One thing’s for sure. By wanting you,
I’m not the woman that I think I am.
I cannot eat or sleep at all,
just think about your lovely mouth
What contrasting ideas are
linked by alliteration?
the eerie moonlight and the Northern seas.
And hope my body’s still the temple
that you’d come upon, by chance,
to excavate, a hundred years from now,
burn incense in, and dance and sing,
oh, yes and weeping, worship in.
How does the woman hope the
man will respond?
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity F
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
Track the verb tense or the time referred to in each stanza, explaining the poet’s choice
in each case.
From his Coy
Mistress
Menu
Some days I think I will become a nun,
book in a convent miles away,
cut off my hair, and dress in black
wanting to purge myself of men.
I’d kneel and pray and chant a lot,
lie in a narrow bed,
devising titles of unwritten books:
A Semiotics of Flirtation. Love:
Some Concepts of the Verb ‘To Sin’.
One thing’s for sure. By wanting you,
I’m not the woman that I think I am.
I cannot eat or sleep at all,
just think about your lovely mouth
the eerie moonlight and the Northern seas.
And hope my body’s still the temple
that you’d come upon, by chance,
to excavate, a hundred years from now,
burn incense in, and dance and sing,
oh, yes and weeping, worship in.
Consider the words shaded in
blue. Click to show shading.
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity G
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
How far does the woman presented in Marvell’s poem match the woman presented in
Deryn Rees-Jones’s poem?
From his Coy
Mistress
Some days I think I will become a nun,
book in a convent miles away,
cut off my hair, and dress in black
wanting to purge myself of men.
I’d kneel and pray and chant a lot,
lie in a narrow bed,
devising titles of unwritten books:
A Semiotics of Flirtation. Love:
Some Concepts of the Verb ‘To Sin’.
One thing’s for sure. By wanting you,
I’m not the woman that I think I am.
I cannot eat or sleep at all,
just think about your lovely mouth
the eerie moonlight and the Northern seas.
And hope my body’s still the temple
that you’d come upon, by chance,
to excavate, a hundred years from now,
burn incense in, and dance and sing,
oh, yes and weeping, worship in.
Menu
To His Coy Mistress
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe
m/173954
In what ways is the woman
presented in the modern poem
similar to the other poem?
In what ways is the woman
presented in the modern poem
different to the other poem?
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Activity H
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
How far does the poet’s reading of this poem, and comments on it, affect your
understanding?
From his Coy
Mistress
Menu
Some days I think I will become a nun,
book in a convent miles away,
cut off my hair, and dress in black
wanting to purge myself of men.
I’d kneel and pray and chant a lot,
lie in a narrow bed,
devising titles of unwritten books:
A Semiotics of Flirtation. Love:
Some Concepts of the Verb ‘To Sin’.
One thing’s for sure. By wanting you,
I’m not the woman that I think I am.
I cannot eat or sleep at all,
just think about your lovely mouth
the eerie moonlight and the Northern seas.
And hope my body’s still the temple
that you’d come upon, by chance,
to excavate, a hundred years from now,
burn incense in, and dance and sing,
oh, yes and weeping, worship in.
Listen carefully to the way the
poem is read – the use of
intonation, tone of voice,
suggestions of humour, timing.
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Glossary 1
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
Click on the highlighted words to
show their meaning
From his Coy Mistress
Some days I think I will become a nun,
book in a convent miles away,
cut off my hair, and dress in black
wanting to purge myself of men.
I’d kneel and pray and chant a lot,
inventing,
lie in a narrow bed,
thinking up
devising titles of unwritten books:
A Semiotics of Flirtation. Love:
human
communication Some Concepts of the Verb ‘To Sin’.
feeling a
need or
desire for
strange and
disturbing or
frightening
One thing’s for sure. By wanting you,
I’m not the woman that I think I am.
I cannot eat or sleep at all,
just think about your lovely mouth
the eerie moonlight and the Northern seas.
And hope my body’s still the temple
that you’d come upon, by chance,
to excavate, a hundred years from now,
burn incense in, and dance and sing,
oh, yes and weeping, worship in.
Menu
shy, modest
rid (the soul or body) of
unwholesome thoughts etc.
playful behaviour that indicates a
romantic interest in someone
to act in a way that breaks a
moral code or religious teaching
a building in which people
worship
Welsh
Welsh writing
writing in
in English
English F r o m h i s C o y M i s t r e s s
Glossary 2
– Deryn Rees-Jones –
Menu
To His Coy Mistress – Glossary
mistress
= a female loved by a man (in Marvell's time)
coyness
= modesty, shyness
Time’s wingèd chariot = time drives a racing chariot which has wings for extra speed
yonder
= in that place or over there
vault
= an underground chamber used as a burial tomb
quaint
= old-fashioned, unusual
hue
= colour, tint or shade
transpires
= releases/breathes out
amorous
= refers to love, especially sexual love
devour
= eat up greedily/use up greedily
languish
= spend time in hardship or discomfort
slow-chapped
= slow jawed (slowly devouring time)
intertextuality
= the interrelationship between texts, especially
works of literature; the way that similar or related
texts influence, reflect, or differ from each other:
the intertextuality between two novels with the same setting
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intertextuality