Making
a Web site:
-
Go to the
Romantic
Chronology (http://www.english.ucsb.edu:591/rchrono/). Read through
some of the years before 1830, beginning perhaps as early as 1799: jot
down some notes about what events, artistic, political, or literary,
seem important to you. You can look again at the Longman introduction
to add comments about the particular events. If you want to find out
more about these particular events, you can look in encyclopedias or
in general history books (as a “Subject” in the library catalogue, type
in: “History Great Britain
19th”). You may be able to use the index of these various books to
find out more about the particular event that interests you.
-
Spend about
10 hours reading around in books about the period: you can look at any
of those listed in Blackboard under “Course Documents,” “Books about
the Period,” or you can select your own books based on your own research
– sometimes biographies of individual authors offer a wealth of information.
Focus on finding out about events, lifestyles, art exhibitions that
occur before, but close to, 1828.
Reread various
selections in The Bijou
(1828): http://www.muohio.edu/anthologies/bijou/
-- select one
work.
-
Situate
the work you have selected historically, based on your
reading. What do I mean by “situating” a literary work “historically”?
Well, it means that you will write 3 to 5 paragraphs about events, lifestyles,
artworks, etc., which you think might help people better understand
the poem or story as they read it.
-
Write 1
to 2 paragraphs about your literary work’s author. You can find out
about your author in various ways:
[these are specific to Miami
University of Ohio's online catalogues -- you may delete them substituting
instructions for using your own online library catalogues]:
·
biographical information: use the online Biography
Resource Center (to be found by clicking on the “Online Reference Shelf”
under “Research Resources” on Miami’s home page); if there is nothing there,
check the Dictionary of National Biography, King Reference, DA28 .D4 (4
volumes). There are also other author encyclopedias in King Reference (Dictionary
of Literary Biography, Ref/PN 451 .D5; Oxford Guide to British Women
Writers Ref/PR 111.S48 1993).
·
literary information: What else did the author write?
a.
On the MiamiLink home page, click on “Books” under “How do I find . . .?”
at the left hand side of the screen. Click on “WorldCat,” an online catalogue
of almost everything that was ever published. Type in your author’s name
and the dates 1800-1850. What else did he or she publish?
b. Go
to MiamiLink’s catalogue, and type in “English Poetry Database” (if your
work is a poem). Click on “English Poetry Database Online” and then “Connect
to Database.” You might try typing a set of words that occur in a line
from your poem to find out if it was ever published in a full collection,
or type in your author’s name to find out what else he or she published.
c.
Go to MiamiLink’s “Indexes and Databases” (at the top center of the screen).
Under “General Interest,” click on “Historical Catalogues and Indexes.”
You can try to use any of the catalogues listed here that you think would
be relevant, but also: click on “19th-Century Masterfile.” Type
in your author’s name, last name, comma, first name, and then select “author”
in the drop-down box: a list of reviews will come up, and, from the citations,
you can get a sense of how popular your author was – you may also be able
to look at some of the articles if we have those periodicals in our collection
(check in the catalogue, because they are probably shelved in the SW Depository).
d. To
read some reviews in American periodicals of this author’s works that are
available on line, go back to the “Historical Catalogues and Indexes” page
(see c above); click on American Periodical Series, then type your author’s
name into Keyword. If you get too many items, you can limit by date, requesting
reviews written during the author’s lifetime, for instance, or from 1800
to 1875.
Writing Assignment:
-
Write 1
to 3 paragraphs interpreting the poem.
-
Write 1
to 3 very experimental paragraphs connecting the poem to our time in
some way – to current events, contemporary art works, art, music, your
philosophy of life. These paragraphs can be speculative. If you can
find either the works you mention or essays about the events on line,
or any other online images, music, or text that expresses what you are
trying to say about our contemporary perspective and its relation to
this early 19th-centry work, list the related URLs – ultimately,
these will be live links.
Web-Page Making Assignment:
After receiving comments
from me on your paragraphs, you will, instead of taking the final exam,
make them into several Web pages, or a complete, freestanding Web site,
that will be linked to the poem in The Bijou – permanently!!
-- this is your first publication, which you can indeed list on your
Resumé.
Back
to Pedagogical Uses of The Bijou