I'm in the midst of creating a thematic unit on monsters.... I want to include some cool, mostly British, stuff for a high school Brit. Lit. unit. I want to include some excerpts from Dracula, Frankenstein... and we'll read Beowulf and Macbeth... I'm looking into putting together some zombie stuff... and maybe some readings from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I'm looking for some other examples of any type of monster in brit. lit. I don't really have any poetry. I'd love to get some more ideas. Oh... I've also included some Alan Moore graphic novel excerpts... or, really, plan to. I have some ideas for some videos I can show.... maybe the fabulous Dr. Who episode called "Blink" and maybe even (not British, though Giles is in it) an episode of Buffy called "Hush." Anyway, I'm going to cross-post this (sorry) in the education forum... but does anyone know any monster poetry? More serious stuff. You can take the term "monster" literally (horrible creatures, etc.) or more metaphorically... a person who terrorizes another. Does anyone have any more ideas? Oh... and if you have any ideas on which excerpts I should use of any of the aforementioned pieces... that'd be great too! Thanks!
Yeah, thought about this... He's American, too, right? That's ok. I found out that there's a dover thrift edition here at my new school that has both frankenstein and jeckyll... or wait... maybe another pairing. Forgot. But it'll work out. Plus, Jeckyll and Hyde will be a good segue to my "Two sides to Every Story" unit. Then again... maybe I should put this unit in the world lit class and not the brit lit. Oh well. I'll figure it out... soon Thanks
Walter de la Mare The Listeners "Is anybody there?" said the Traveler, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence chomped the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor. And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the traveler's head: And he smote upon the door a second time; "Is there anybody there?" he said. But no one descended to the Traveler; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveler's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:-- "Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone. ---------------------------------------- Then of course there's Yeats' The Second Coming: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? (I used to play on rec indoor soccer team called "Things Fall Apart".)
Hi Malby. As a long-time teacher of literature in the US, I have to acknowledge that technically, you're correct (reality leaves me little choice). However, for some reason, "British Literature" classes in the US have always included Irish authors, whether they lived in England (or for that matter, Trieste) or elsewhere. So basically, the convention in the US is that "British" equals "Not by Americans, but rather by people from the English speaking Islands somewhere in the North Atlantic." I've even seen Alan Paton and Nadine Gordimer assigned in "British" literature classes, but not for quite awhile.
I thought Ireland was still part of Britain when Yeats wrote "The Second Coming". Regardless, I think Yeats is very much considered an Anglo-Irish writer because of his background (parents, Protestantism) and the time he spent there, and I also recall reading a lot about his own confusion concerning his national identity. He was very much a man between two countries.
While I appreciate the finely nuanced arguments in favor of the inclusion of Yeats, I have to say I was just relying on the phrase "mostly British" in the original post. The suggestive tone of the de la Mare poem called Yeats' Second Coming to mind.