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Par aks le 6 May 2019 à 14:34
Introduction to Gothic literature with a presentation of Edgar Allan Poe by two students.
Presentation of the movement, within Romanticism.
Defining sanity and mental illness.
Gothic literature developed during the Romantic period in Britain; the first mention of "Gothic," as pertaining to literature, was in the subtitle of Horace Walpole's 1765 story "The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story" which, the British Library says, was meant by the author as a subtle joke. "When he used the word it meant something like ‘barbarous,’ as well as ‘deriving from the Middle Ages.’" In the book, it's purported that the story was an ancient one, then recently discovered. But that's just part of the tale.
The supernatural elements in the story, though, launched a whole new genre, which took off in Europe. Then America's Edgar Allen Poe got a hold of it in the mid-1800s and succeeded like no one else. In Gothic literature, he found a place to explore psychological trauma, the evils of man, and mental illness. Any modern-day zombie story, detective story, or Stephen King novel owes a debt to Poe. There may have been successful Gothic writers before and after him, but no one perfected the genre quite like Poe.
13/05
https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_tell-tale_heart_0.pdf
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Par aks le 10 April 2019 à 10:18
1. https://www.artfund.org/assets/news/2013/08/top-ten-british/top-ten-british-1.jpg
3.https://classicalpoets.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Stone-Roberts.jpg
1. John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888 - Tate Britain
2 Boy holding screaming baby (big brother's dilemma) by Norman Rockwell
3. Central Terminal, Stone Roberts
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Par aks le 25 March 2019 à 14:25
Enter David Hockney's painting :
Enter the painting... imagine what could be happening outside the frame or in hidden parts of the landscape. Write down a few keywords / ideas that the painting triggers (emotions, colours, the beginning of a story maybe...?)
Write a short poem which will contain repetitions of vowel and consonant sounds ( alliteration / assonance), a comparison and a metaphor.
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Par aks le 25 March 2019 à 14:25
This is an I-Pad print by David Hockney which was exhibited at his « A Bigger Picture » exhibition in London. It seems to be composed of several prints assembled together in a composition. This brick technique is often used by David Hockney to form huge and impressive paintings. He has done it with oil paintings before.
The first thing that strikes the viewer is the unusual use of colours by the artist. They are, as often in his work, extremely vivid and vibrant. Although this landscape represents a countryside scene in winter – the bare trees suggest so much – the painting is surprisingly colourful. This probably compensates for the fact that I-Pad drawing is flat and you loose the texture which is so typical of oil paintings. In using these vibrant and contrasting hues, as well as a clear sense of perspective, the artist creates the sense of depth which you definitely have here. The colours also contribute to creating a dramatic effect in revisiting the traditional world of landscape painting in an original and successful way. After all, this scene in itself represents three black trees with no leaves on a background of bright blue mountains and a foreground formed by a field organized in diagonal lines of alternate green and orangey brown to create perspective. The field is limited by a line of wild growth and in the left bottom corner there are some reeds which seem to sway in the wind and contrast with the well-defined lines of the cultivated field. The other element which creates the sense of depth is the presence of another field in golden shades between the first field and the mountains in the background. This also enhances the dramatic effect of the black trees with their thin, intricate network of branches reaching for the sky.
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Par aks le 24 March 2019 à 21:19
Abstract: art that looks as if it contains little or no recognizable or realistic forms from the physical world. Focus is on formal elements such as colors, lines, or shapes. Artists often "abstract" objects by changing, simplifying, or exaggerating what they see.
Abstract Expressionism: art that rejects true visual representation. It has few recognizable images with great emphasis on line, color, shape, texture, value; putting the expression of the feelings or emotions of the artist above all else.
Art deco: a style of design and decoration popular in the 1920's and 1930's characterized by designs that are geometric and use highly intense colors, to reflect the rise of commerce, industry and mass production.
Art nouveau: a decorative art movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century; art characterized by dense asymmetrical ornamentation in sinuous forms, it is often symbolic and of an erotic nature.
Balance: a feeling of equality in weight, attention, or attraction of the various elements within a composition as a means of accomplishing unity.
Complementary colors: two colors directly opposite one another on the color wheel. When placed next to one another, complementary colors are intensified and often appear to vibrate. When mixed, brown or gray is created. Red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and violet have the greatest degree of contrast. Red-violet and yellow-green, red-orange and blue-green, and yellow-orange and blue-violet are also complementary colors.
Composition: the arrangement of the design elements within the design area; the ordering of visual and emotional experience to give unity and consistency to a work of art and to allow the observer to comprehend its meaning.
Contrast: the difference between elements or the opposition to various elements.
Cool color: colors whose relative visual temperatures make them seem cool. Cool colors generally include green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet, and violet.
Cubism: art that uses two-dimensional geometric shapes to depict three-dimensional organic forms; a style of painting created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in the early 20th century whereby the artist breaks down the natural forms of the subjects into geometric shapes and creates a new kind of pictorial space.
Emphasis: the stress placed on a single area of a work or a unifying visual theme.
Harmony: the unity of all the visual elements of a composition achieved by the repetition of the same characteristics or those which are similar in nature.
Horizon line: in a painting, a level line where land or water ends and the sky begins. Vanishing points, where two parallel lines appear to converge, are typically located on this line. A horizon line is used to attain the perspective of depth.
Hue: the name of the color, such as red, green or yellow. Hue can be measured as a location on a color wheel, and expressed in degrees; the main attribute of a color which distinguishes it from other colors.
Impressionism: a loose spontaneous style of painting that originated in France about 1870. The impressionist style of painting is characterized chiefly by concentration on the general impression produced by a scene or object and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light.
Landscape: a painting, drawing or photograph which depicts outdoor scenery. They typically include trees, streams, buildings, crops, mountains, wildlife, rivers and forests.
Line: an actual or implied mark, path, mass, or edge, where length is dominant.
Linear perspective: a system for creating the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface. The system is based on a scientifically or mathematically derived series of actual or implied lines that intersect at a vanishing point on the horizon. Linear perspective determines the relative size of objects from the foreground of an image to the background.
Medium: material or technique an artist works in; also, the component of paint in which the pigment is dispersed.
Movement: as it applies to art, the path that our eyes follow when we look at a work of art. Naïve art: art created by untrained artists. It is characterized by simplicity and a lack of the elements or qualities found in the art of formally trained artists.
Neutral color: colors of very low saturation, approaching grays.
Perspective: the art of picturing objects on a flat surface so as to give the appearance of distance or depth.
Photorealism: a style of painting in which an image is created in such exact detail that it looks like a photograph; uses everyday subject matter, and often is larger than life.
Plane: a shape which is essentially two-dimensional in nature but who's relationship with other shapes may give an illusion of the third dimension.
Plein air: French for "open air", referring to landscapes painted out of doors with the intention of catching the impression of the open air.
Point of view: the position from which something is seen or considered; for instance, head-on, from overhead, from ground level, etc.
Pointillism: a painting technique in which pure dots of color are dabbed onto the canvas surface. The viewer's eye, when at a distance, is then expected to see these dots merge as cohesive areas of different colors and color ranges.
Pop art: a style of art which seeks its inspiration from commercial art and items of mass culture (such as comic strips, popular foods and brand name packaging). Certain works of art created by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are examples of pop art.
Portrait: a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person.
Positive space: space that is occupied by an element or a form.
Primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. With these three colors (and black and white) all other colors can be made. The primary colors themselves can not be made by mixing other colors (see illustration).
Primitive art: Art that has imagery of folk art , it places emphasis on form and expression and often looks child like.
Proportion: a sense of appropriateness in the size relationship of different parts of a work.
Pure symmetry: an equilibrium created by identical parts that are equally distributed on either side of a real or imaginary cent4ral axis in mirror-like repetition.
Quadrilateral: in geometry, a four-sided polygon; examples include squares, rectangles, parallelograms, trapezoids, etc.
Realism: a style of painting which depicts subject matter (form, color, space) as it appears in actuality or ordinary visual experience without distortion or stylization.
Rhythm: a continuance, a flow, or a feeling of movement achieved by the repetition or regulated visual units.
Rule of thirds: a composition rule that divides the scene into three rows and three columns. The rule states that the painting is much more interesting if the focal point is not in the center of the canvas but rather in one of the outlying regions, preferably at one of the intersection points
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Par aks le 11 March 2019 à 14:58
Art or not art?
Preliminary reflection :
What do you consider as art?
How do you define it?
What do you appreciate about it?
What does an artist express through art?
* creation / expression
* can have a goal (criticism)
* can be a celebration of aesthetics
* driven by desire
* emotion-provoking
* art can only be art if it is recognized as such
* it acquires financial value
18/03
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Par aks le 21 January 2019 à 14:28
Présentation des dossiers la semaine du 4 mars.
Épreuve orale obligatoire de littérature étrangère en langue étrangère
Durée de l'épreuve : 10 minutes maximum
Cette évaluation s'effectue à la suite de l'épreuve obligatoire ou de l'épreuve de spécialité de la langue choisie par le candidat pour cet enseignement.
Le candidat a choisi deux des thématiques du programme de littérature étrangère en langue étrangère et a constitué pour chacune d'elles un dossier composé de deux textes extraits d'une ou plusieurs œuvres étudiées (roman, théâtre, poésie). Il y a ajouté tout document qui lui semble pertinent pour analyser la réception de la ou des œuvre(s) (extrait de critique, adaptation, illustration iconographique, etc.). L'examinateur choisit l'une de ces thématiques.
Immédiatement après l'épreuve obligatoire ou de spécialité, le candidat dispose d'abord de 5 minutes pour présenter le dossier portant sur la thématique choisie par l'examinateur et pour justifier son choix de documents.
Cette prise de parole en continu sert d'amorce à une conversation conduite par l'examinateur, qui prend appui sur l'exposé du candidat. Cette phase d'interaction n'excède pas 5 minutes.
Au cours de cette évaluation, le candidat doit montrer qu'il perçoit les enjeux des textes sur lesquels il est interrogé et les spécificités de la littérature en langue étrangère qu'il a étudiée. On attend aussi qu'il s'exprime clairement dans une gamme de langue suffisamment étendue pour pouvoir décrire, exprimer un point de vue et développer une argumentation.Thématiques
En fonction de leur histoire propre et des cultures dont elles sont l’expression, les littératures ont exploré de façon inégale les thématiques proposées ci-après. Le professeur choisit pour chacune des classes du cycle terminal un itinéraire cohérent et structurant.
Je de l’écrivain et jeu de l’écriture (The I of the writer and the writer's eye)
Pistes :
– autobiographie, mémoires, journal intime ;
– l’écrivain dans sa langue, l’écriture comme jouissance esthétique, l’expression des sentiments, la mise en abyme ;
La rencontre avec l’autre, l’amour, l’amitié (Coming together in love or friendship)
Pistes :
– le roman épistolaire, l’amour courtois, la poésie mystique, élégiaque
– les jeux de l’amour, le couple et le double.
Le personnage, ses figures et ses avatars (Characters And Their Representations)Pistes :
– héros mythiques ou légendaires, figures emblématiques ;
– héros et anti-héros, la disparition du personnage.
L’écrivain dans son siècle ( Writers In Their Century)Pistes :
– roman social, roman policier, la littérature de guerre et d’après-guerre, l’essai, le pamphlet, la satire ;
– le débat d’idées, l’engagement et la résistance, la transgression, la dérision, l’humour.
Voyage, parcours initiatique, exil [Travels, Journeys of Self-Discovery, Exile(s)]Pistes :
– les récits d’exploration, d’évasion, d’aventure, le roman d’apprentissage ;
– le déracinement, l’errance, le retour.
L’imaginaire (The World of Imagination)Pistes :
– l’étrange et le merveilleux, le fantastique, la science-fiction ;
– l’absurde, l’onirisme, la folie, la métamorphose.
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Par aks le 7 November 2018 à 09:53
The Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an early 20th century social, political, literary and artistic movement which brought together all classes and colours and inspired poetry, literature, music, dancing, painting...
It started shortly after the First World War and ended in the early years of the Great Depression.
Langston Hughes said about the period that "the Negro was in vogue"
14/11
I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
19/11
Work on pronunciation and intonation :
When he uses the pronoun "I", he refers to the whole of his people and their history which is depicted in chronological order using rivers as symbols of the different events or landmarks.
Thus each river represents a period or event:The Euphrates refers to the beginning of time as seen from a human perspective: the cradle of humanity.The Nile evokes the building of the Pyramids by slaves.The Congo symbolizes the life of Africans in their country of origin.The Mississippi epitomizes their life of toil in the southern states of the US and the end of slavery (reference to Abraham Lincoln).The poem is also an ode to nature as the mother of humanity which provides nourishment to its children. ("its muddy bosom")21/11Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.Or does it explode?
Harlem or the dream deferred :In this poem, Langston Hughes means to point out that because the dream (equality of rights) is constantly deferred, it rots from the inside (Harlem : ghetto). It triggers criminality and violence, rioting. It causes frustration and resentment which "festers". He compares the nonfulfillment of the dream to a festering sore...to rotten meat, in other words disgusting things that make the reader uncomfortable, which is the goal of the author.He raises the question of the possible evolution of such a situation : will people just be discouraged ("does it sag like a heavy load?") or will there be a revolution...? ("does it explode?")26/11I, Too
Poem by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CmKf9nZ_4I (Denzel Washington saying the poem)
28/11
Still I rise,
Poem by Maya AngelouYou may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
Just 'cause I walk as if I have oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hope springing high,
Still I rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't take it so hard
Just cause I laugh as if I have gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You can shoot me with your words,
You can cut me with your lies,
You can kill me with your hatefulness,
But just like life, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness offend you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance as if I have diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past rooted in pain
I rise
A black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling, and bearing in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak miraculously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the hope and the dream of the slave,
And so, naturally,I rise
I rise
I rise.January 7th:
The First Day
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Par aks le 10 October 2018 à 07:55
PRESENTING YOURSELF AS A READER
get ready to talk about yourself as a reader. You may want to use some of the elements in the quiz result page..
To check the results of your reading personality quiz click here :
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Par aks le 2 October 2018 à 16:43
Sequence one : The World of Books
Introduction to the topic :
Conversation about what you like reading... Book club activity : tell us about a book you enjoyed reading, share your enthusiasm.
Les objectifs de cette séquence conçue par le CNED sont les suivants :
- vous familiariser avec le lexique et l'univers du livre.
- faire le point sur vos connaissances concernant la littérature anglophone.
- découvrir et savoir parler d'un auteur.
- vous positionner en tant que lecteur (parler de vos lectures, de vos goûts littéraires...)
- vous préparer à la lecture autonome d'un texte long.
- lire un texte long.
Vous serez évalués en expression orale et en compréhension écrite. Des micro-tâches vous permettront de vérifier l'acquisition du lexique au fur et à mesure de la séquence.
10/09
19/09
Slideshow text correction :
http://ekladata.com/-vK7vPji8CbsmjGKI1Oez3kqk9M.jpg
Check your classics :
26/09
Talking about a writer
Practice talking from notes ( E. A. Poe)
Useful expressions :
- I would like to tell you about...
- He / she was a 19th century American writer...
- He wrote...
- He was mostly famous for his...
- He is generally considered a master story-teller...
- Critics regard him as...
- Among his most popular stories / novels... are...
- ....which led to....
- He suffered from depression
01/10
Research and preparing to talk about a writer:
Follow this section's article RSS flux
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