€¦ · web viewi'll tell you what, never again . ... "well i'll give you an...

Parent/Guardian Copy!

Dear Parents {/ Guardians/ Fellow Citizens/Kind nannies/ Au Pairs/Childminders}, this has been e-mailed and hard copies have been sent (this one for you, and one for your son.)} Please do encourage him to read through it. I hope you enjoy the extracts too. N.B.:It is on the website, under curriculum, if there is any glitch downloading the file.

Happy Christmas! Paul

1Paul’s Year Six Christmas Cracker: 2014


Dear Beloved Year Six,

Please try to work through these sheets before term.They will be used in our extension lessons and for interview discussions. I have chosen extracts which should interest and challenge you, and flex up your mental muscles for interviews and other comprehension-type exercises. Do discuss them with your family too. These sheets complement the materials given by Paul C , Joe J and Janet. Such materials help you as you face the possible exams in January and beyond. The three poems at the end are pretty demanding and I am going to let you wrestle with them. I will give you a Crunchie if you can memorise ‘The Darkling Thrush’ : it is one of the greatest poems ever written. I have provided some stimulus material to help you grapple with it. Understanding, and wanting to understand a great poem can be much more useful than reading a mediocre novel!

We want you all to have a good holiday and although this looks like work, you know it isn’t really! It is a Christmas Gift to stimulate you when you are bored of TV silliness. X- factor, Transformers 7 and your presents!

Please download the electronic version of this booklet to your computer. It is on the St. Anthony’s website, under Curriculum, and has been sent to your family’s e-mail addresses.

Turn over for your first treat: another stocking, full of of simply execrable puns. Can you divide them into TYPES of pun? How many types can you spot or define? They are from the brillaint comedian Tim Vine.



Please get into the habit of looking up words you don’t know.

Execrable (/ˈɛksɪkrəb(ə)l/)

adjective: execrable

extremely bad or unpleasant.

"execrable cheap wine"…… synonyms: appalling, awful, dreadful, terrible, frightful, atrocious, very bad, lamentable;

Pun /pʌn/

noun

plural noun: puns

1.

a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.

"the Railway Society reception was an informal party of people of all stations (excuse the pun) in life"

synonyms: play on words, wordplay, double entendre, double meaning, innuendo, witticism, quip; bon mot, jeu de mots;

verb3rd person present: puns

1.

make a pun.

"Freeth adopted the nickname Free in punning allusion to his beliefs"



These are what are commonly thought of as his 10 Best Jokes !

Puns and jokes like this are a good test of your sense/grasp of the various meaning of words.

1. Exit signs? They're on the way out!

2. Black Beauty? Now there's a dark horse!

3. Velcro? What a rip-off!

4. Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.

5. Eric Bristow asked me why I put superglue on one of his darts. I said you just can't let it go can you?

6. I saw this advert in a window that said: “Television for sale, £1, volume stuck on full.” I thought, “I can’t turn that down.”

7. I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again

8. Conjunctivitis.com – that’s a site for sore eyes.

9. So I said to a Scottsman 'did you have terrible spots as a kid?' He said 'ac ne'

10.Do you ever get that when you're half way through eating a horse and you think to yourself, 'I'm not as hungry as I thought I was'



Pun: a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.

Can you explain these jokes? Where you are not sure, check with a friend or member of your family: this is fun and painless way to test your comprehension and vocabulary.

I phoned the local gym and I asked if they could teach me how to do the splits. He said, "How flexible are you?" I said, "I can't make Tuesdays."

"He said 'I'm going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library'. I thought 'That's a turn-up for the books.'"

"So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said "Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it.'"

"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said 'Parking Fine.' So that was nice."

" I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on three counts.

I bought some Armageddon cheese today, and it said on the packet 'Best Before End...'

So I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said "Analogue." I said "No, just a watch."

I went to the doctor. I said to him "I'm frightened of lapels." He said, "You've got cholera."

So this bloke says to me, "Can I come in your house and talk about your carpets?" I thought "That's all I need, a Je-hoover's witness"."You know, I'm not very good at magic - I can only do half of a trick. Yes - I'm a member of the Magic Semi-circle"



You see I'm against hunting, in fact I'm a hunt saboteur. I go out the night before and shoot the fox.

You see my next door neighbour worships exhaust pipes, he's a catholic converter.

So I went to the dentist. He said "Say Aaah." I said "Why?" He said "My dog's died.'"

"So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said 'Who's speaking please?' And a voice said 'You are.'"

"So I rang up a local building firm, I said 'I want a skip outside my house.' He said 'I'm not stopping you.'

I have spent the afternoon re-arranging the furniture in Dracula’s house… I was doing a bit of Fang-Shui

I want to tell you a bit about myself.. I’m a very quiet and secretive person, and that’s it really.

"So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up, and he said 'You've been promoted.' And I swerved. And then he rang up a second time and said "You've been promoted again.' And I swerved again. He rang up a third time and said 'You're managing director.' And I went into a tree. And a policeman came up and said 'What happened to you?' And I said 'I careered off the road.'

This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, "I want you to trace someone for me."

So this lorry full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster.

So I told my girlfriend I had a job in a bowling alley. She said "Tenpin?" I said, "No, it's a permanent job."

So I told my mum that I'd opened a theatre. She said, "Are you having me on?" I said, "Well I'll give you an audition, but I'm not promising you anything."

So this cowboy walks in to a German car showroom and he says "Audi!"

So I fancied a game of darts with my mate. He said, "Nearest the bull goes first" He went "Baah" and I went "Moo" He said "You're closest"



So I met this bloke with a didgeridoo and he was playing Dancing Queen on it. I thought, that's aboriginal.

I visited the offices of the RSPCA today. It's tiny, you couldn't swing a cat in there.

A friend of mine always wanted to be run over by a steam train. When it happened, he was chuffed to bits!

So I went to the record shop and I said “What have you got by The Doors?” He said: “A bucket of sand and a fire blanket!”

I was in the army once and the Sergeant said to me: “What does surrender mean?” I said: “I give up!”

Practice Good Punmanship

The secret to writing good puns is using a puncil instead of a pen.

If your writing becomes infected by puns, go to the nearest writer’s clinic for a shot of punicillin.



Look carefully at this picture and then read the article below.

Behold, the River Thames is frozen o’er,

Which lately ships of mighty burdens bore!

Now different acts and pastimes here you see Anonymous, 1814



In late December of 1813, London experienced a severe frost. Already known for its tendency toward fog, the city was encased in thick clouds for eight days. The fog became so dense that “the usual lamps appeared through the haze not larger than small candles;” when the fog finally lifted, “a tremendous fall of snow” descended upon the city blocking the Northern and Western roads, the two main roads into London.Sealed off from communication with the outside world, Londoners turned to the Thames, the city’s waterway, only to discover that the river itself was frozen. While the freezing of the Thames was not unknown to Londoners, the relatively temperate climate of London meant that the river froze only rarely.

When the river did freeze solid, as it did in January of 1814, Londoners often promoted “frost fairs” upon the ice. The first of these fairs dates back to at least 695 AD when booths selling goods were built upon the river after it had frozen. By the sixteenth century, a period when the weather was colder than it is today, the freezing of the Thames brought out revelers in full force.

In 1564, Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers joined the city’s residents at what many scholars agree was “the first really notable frost fair.” That winter, boys “plaied at the football as boldlie there as if it had been on the drie land; divers [courtiers]...shot dailie at [targets] set upon the Thames and the people, both men and women, went on the Thames in greater numbers than in anie street of the City of London.” The revelries came to a halt only when the river thawed in January. Just over forty years later, in 1608, the Thames froze again. According to one contemporary, “The Thames began to put on his Freeze-coate about a week before Christmas and hath kept it on til now this latter end of January.” As had been true of the Thames in 1564, “the river shows not now...like a river, but like a field where archers shoot while others play at football...It is an alley to walk upon without dread.”

All was not fun and games, however, as cold temperatures and the city’s isolation led to food scarcities and rising prices across the city. The frozen river also presented dangers, as holes appeared when the ice froze, thawed, and froze again. As a result, “one [boy who was playing on the ice] stumbled forward, his head slipt into



a deepe hole, and there was hee drownd.” Cautionary tales abounded. Those who were tempted to engage in heavy drinking on the ice, for example, had only to remember the “poor fellow...[who] having heated his body with drinke, thought belike to coole it on the water, but comming to walke on the Ice, his head was too heavy for his heeles, so that downe he fell and there presently died.”

The seventeenth century actually witnessed repeated ice fairs, with one of the most famous of these occurring in December of 1683. Between December and February, when the Thames iced over, Londoners brought out their sleds and went “sliding with skeetes [skates].” As they ran, or in some cases rode up and down the frozen river, they could see “bull-baiting, horse and coach races, [and] puppet-plays.” Noting with some disapproval the “tipling” and other “lewd” activities occurring on the ice, John Evelyn described the fair as “a bacchanalian triumph or carnival on the water.”

In many ways, the revelry in which these Londoners engaged during that frost fair may have stemmed as much from the temper of the times as it did from the freezing of the river. After decades of civil war and religious-political tensions, the English had achieved an uneasy peace. While Charles II was not universally popular throughout his reign, the early 1680s did see a resurgence of popularity for the king.

John Forde clearly made a habit of purchasing printed cards at Frost Fairs, photo courtesy Univ. of Cambridge.

If nothing else, the placement of a printing press on the ice, which operated without any real oversight, signaled that Britain was a very different society than it had been previously.The printer who brought his press onto the ice knew, however, that Londoners were not eager to buy anything overtly political. Instead, recognizing that the “people and ladyes tooke a fancy to have their names printed, and the day and yeare set down when [it was] printed on the Thames,” this printer cranked out what we today would regard as souvenir cards which he then



Later frost fairs followed this tradition of including printing presses on the ice, with multiple printers competing to turn out not only cards but also ballads and poems celebrating the icing over of the Thames--as well as the icing of other rivers in Britain. In 1740, Thomas Gent set up his printing press at a frost fair on the river Ouse in York. Gent had the misfortune to set up his press at “a dangerous spot on the south side of the bridge.” There he began printing verses in which he noted that the name of “King George was most loyally inserted.” To attract customers, he began reading the verses out loud but as he read his audience “almost as quickly ran away, whilst I, who did not hear well...wondered at them for retiring so precipitately.”

Gent had failed to hear the ice cracking as he read. But the cracking proved only to be a shifting of the ice and Gent’s audience returned allowing him to take “some pence [from] amongst them.”

That year---1740---had seen such severe weather across Europe that the Empress Anna of Russia was able to build an entire ice palace with walls that were three feet thick on the River Neva. Britons, however, did not aspire to build on that scale on their rivers. Instead, they continued to set up simple booths and small-scale structures made out of the ice as they had done for centuries.

By 1814, when the last frost fair was held, Londoners were adept at creating what John Evelyn had described as a “bacchanalian triumph or carnival on the water.” Newspapers that year claimed, “at every glance the spectator [at that frost fair] met with some pleasing novelty. Kitchen fires and furnaces were blazing...and animals from a sheep to a rabbit and a goose to a lark, were turning on numberless spits.” Best of all, “gaming in all its branches, threw out different allurements...and the drinking tents [were] filled by females and their companions.”

Although stock images of what we have come to think of as a “Dickensian” Christmas often highlight skaters on the ice, the Victorian era brought an end to the frost fairs. Eager to improve the city’s sanitation (sewage from the Thames often overflowed during the summer months), nineteenth-century Londoners advocated for and began to build embankments to hold the river at bay.



Beginning in 1862, embankments were built along the river, reclaiming land and eventually allowing for the creation of London’s subway system. Unfortunately, they also intensified the flow of the river; the more rapidly flowing river has meant that the river freezes very infrequently. This isn’t to say that the Thames has not frozen since 1862---it has. It has simply not sparked the same sort of revelry.



Word from passage Definition: can you define what these words mean? Find out! Type in your defintions. (I have done a few…) Type in another sentence proving you know the meaning.

severe

encased

tremendous

relatively temperate climate

booths

revelers in full force.

courtiers

divers adjective archaic or literary

Of varying types; several:

‘They had lived in divers places’

isolation



scarcities

Cautionary tales abounded.bacchanalian (triumph) adjective

Characterised by or given to drunken revelry:

‘The Kaiser Chiefs end-of -tour parties were known for their bacchanalian revelry!’stemmed

the temper of the times

political tensions,

resurgence

overtly political.

ballads

retiring so precipitately.”

aspire to

adept at creating



“bacchanalian triumph

(Numberless) spits.” noun

A long, thin metal rod pushed through meat in order to hold and turn it while it is roasted over an open fire:

‘Paul simply loved eating chicken which had been cooked on a spit’

allurements... Verb: Allure

Powerfully attract or charm; tempt:

‘Will sponsors really be allured by such opportunities?’

stock images

sanitation

advocated Publicly recommend or support:

‘Voters supported candidates who advocated a Scottish Assembly.’



reclaiming ( land) Bring (waste land or land formerly under water) under cultivation: ‘much of the Camargue has now been reclaimed’

(as adjective reclaimed) ‘reclaimed land’

The idea was to build the new airport on recalimed marsh land.



A Famous Christmas Moment

PRIVATE HEATH LETTER: North Mail, Friday January 9th 1915

Out of the dozens of Christmas Truce letters transcribed to date, this one stands out from all the rest. Partly, it's because Private Heath writes about the whole truce, from beginning to end. But also it's the beautiful way it is written. Was he a writer? Sadly, we know nothing about him other than his name and this letter. It was found and transcribed by Marian Robson. Please read this account carefully. Please pay careful attention to the words/phrases highlighted in yellow. Try to work out their meaning in context, then do the exercise which follows.

That Christmas Armistice



A Plum Pudding Policy Which Might Have Ended The War

Written in the trenches by Private Frederick W. Heath

The night closed in early - the ghostly shadows that haunt the trenches came to keep us company as we stood to arms. Under a pale moon, one could just see the grave-like rise of ground which marked the German trenches two hundred yards away. Fires in the English lines had died down, and only the squelch of the sodden boots in the slushy mud, the whispered orders of the officers and the NCOs, and the moan of the wind broke the silence of the night. The soldiers' Christmas Eve had come at last, and it was hardly the time or place to feel grateful for it.

Memory in her shrine kept us in a trance of saddened silence. Back somewhere in England, the fires were burning in cosy rooms; in fancy I heard laughter and the thousand melodies of reunion on Christmas Eve. With overcoat thick with wet mud, hands cracked and sore with the frost, I leaned against the side of the trench, and, looking through my loophole, fixed weary eyes on the German trenches. Thoughts surged madly in my mind; but they had no sequence, no cohesion. Mostly they were of home as I had known it through the years that had brought me to this. I asked myself why I was in the trenches in misery at all, when I might have been in England warm and prosperous. That involuntary question was quickly answered. For is there not a multitude of houses in England, and has not someone to keep them intact? I thought of a shattered cottage in -- , and felt glad that I was in the trenches. That cottage was once somebody's home.

Still looking and dreaming, my eyes caught a flare in the darkness. A light in the enemy's trenches was so rare at that hour that I passed a message down the line. I had hardly spoken when light after light sprang up along the German front. Then quite near our dug-outs, so near as to make me start and clutch my rifle, I heard a voice. There was no mistaking that voice with its guttural ring. With ears strained, I listened, and then, all down our line of trenches there came to our ears a greeting unique in war: "English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas!"



Friendly invitation

Following that salute boomed the invitation from those harsh voices: "Come out, English soldier; come out here to us." For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other a Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other's throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our hands ready on our rifles. Blood and peace, enmity and fraternity - war's most amazing paradox. The night wore on to dawn - a night made easier by songs from the German trenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our broad lines laughter and Christmas carols. Not a shot was fired, except for down on our right, where the French artillery were at work.

Came the dawn, pencilling the sky with grey and pink. Under the early light we saw our foes moving recklessly about on top of their trenches. Here, indeed, was courage; no seeking the security of the shelter but a brazen invitation to us to shoot and kill with deadly certainty. But did we shoot? Not likely! We stood up ourselves and called benisons on the Germans. Then came the invitation to fall out of the trenches and meet half way.

Still cautious we hung back. Not so the others. They ran forward in little groups, with hands held up above their heads, asking us to do the same. Not for long could such an appeal be resisted - beside, was not the courage up to now all on one side? Jumping up onto the parapet, a few of us advanced to meet the on-coming Germans. Out went the hands and tightened in the grip of friendship. Christmas had made the bitterest foes friends.

The Gift of Gifts



Here was no desire to kill, but just the wish of a few simple soldiers (and no one is quite so simple as a soldier) that on Christmas Day, at any rate, the force of fire should cease. We gave each other cigarettes and exchanged all manner of things. We wrote our names and addresses on the field service postcards, and exchanged them for German ones. We cut the buttons off our coats and took in exchange the Imperial Arms of Germany. But the gift of gifts was Christmas pudding. The sight of it made the Germans' eyes grow wide with hungry wonder, and at the first bite of it they were our friends for ever. Given a sufficient quantity of Christmas puddings, every German in the trenches before ours would have surrendered.

And so we stayed together for a while and talked, even though all the time there was a strained feeling of suspicion which rather spoilt this Christmas armistice. We could not help remembering that we were enemies, even though we had shaken hands. We dare not advance too near their trenches lest we saw too much, nor could the Germans come beyond the barbed wire which lay before ours. After we had chatted, we turned back to our respective trenches for breakfast.

All through the day no shot was fired, and all we did was talk to each other and make confessions which, perhaps, were truer at that curious moment than in the normal times of war. How far this unofficial truce extended along the lines I do not know, but I do know that what I have written here applies to the -- on our side and the 158th German Brigade, composed of Westphalians.

As I finish this short and scrappy description of a strangely human event, we are pouring rapid fire into the German trenches, and they are returning the compliment just as fiercely. Screeching through the air above us are the shattering shells of rival batteries of artillery. So we are back once more to the ordeal of fire.



squelch sodden trance of saddened silence in fancy no cohesion prosperous. multitude involuntary guttural ring. boomed fearing treachery, enmity and fraternity war's most amazing paradox the pipings of piccolos recklessly brazen invitation benisons the parapet, Imperial Arms armistice. our respective trenches confessions German Brigade, composed of Westphalians. rapid fire batteries of artillery.



Fill in the missing part of the grids. I have done quite a lot for you; fill these in USING the electronic copies! The boxes will expand with your typing or picture pasting!

Tricky Word/phrase?

Give Definition! Give helpful image to define the word/idea/phrase.

Write out 2 alternative sentences showing you know what the word/phrase means!

squelch

soddenadjective:. saturated with liquid, especially water; soaked through.""the sodden ground"

antonyms: dry, arid•



trance of saddened silence

in fancysuperficial or transient feeling of liking or attraction.

"this was no passing fancy, but a feeling he would live by"

the faculty of imagination.

"he is prone to flights of fancy"

‘He was able to indulge his fancy to own a Porsche’

no cohesion There was no cohesion in the England Cricket team; it fell apart under pressure.



prosperous. successful in material terms; flourishing financially.

"prosperous middle-class professionals"

This area is full of prosperous middle-class professionals

involuntary adjective: involuntary

1.done without will or conscious control.

antonyms: voluntary, deliberate

2. done against someone's will.

She gave an involuntary shudder.

multitude

guttural ring.Adjective

guttural (of a speech sound) produced in the throat; harsh-sounding.

synonyms: throaty, husky, gruff, gravelly, growly, growling, croaky, croaking, harsh, harsh-sounding, rough, rasping,

He heard guttural shouts in a foreign language.



boomed verb

past tense: boomed;

make a loud, deep, resonant sound.synonyms:

reverberate, resound, resonate; More

Thunder boomed in the sky.

fearing treachery,



enmity and fraternity

war's most amazing paradox.

the pipings of piccolos

recklessly He drove so recklessly, it was lucky nobody was killed.

brazen invitation It was odd that Mr Cameron should such make a brazen invitation to Mr Milliband.



benisons noun literarynoun: benison; plural noun: benisons

a blessing.

He enjoyed the rewards and benisons of a good school!

the parapet,

Imperial Arms



armistice.An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, since it might be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace.

It is derived from the Latin arma, meaning weapons and statium, meaning a stopping.

our respective trenches



confessions

German Brigade,

composed of Westphalians.

rapid fire

batteries of artillery.



Please read these three poems really carefully and be ready to discuss them in our extension lessons when we come back in January. Look at the You-Tube links too.

Snowflakes

Out of the bosom of the Air. Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent and soft and slow Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression, Even as the troubled heart doth make In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels

This is the poem of the air, Slowly in silent syllables recorded; This is the secret of despair, Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, Now whispered and revealed To wood and field.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlLiJDsBDBA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlLiJDsBDBA


The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

Thomas Hardy 1840–1928 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQDH2W4aq0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQDH2W4aq0


Think about these difficult lines; think about the words in the table.

a coppice (gate) noun

An area of woodland in which the trees or shrubs are periodically cut back to ground level to stimulate growth and provide firewood or timber:

‘coppices of oak were cultivated’

spectre-(grey), spectre(ˈspɛktə) or spectern1. (Alternative Belief Systems) a ghost; phantom; apparition

2. a mental image of something unpleasant or menacing: the spectre of redundancy.

[C17: from Latin spectrum, from specere to look at]dregs plural noun

The remnants of a liquid left in a container, together with any sediment:

‘coffee dregs’

The most worthless part or parts of something: ‘the dregs of society’

desolate (Of a place) uninhabited and giving an impression of bleak emptiness:

‘a desolate Pennine moor’

Feeling or showing great unhappiness or loneliness: ‘I suddenly felt desolate and bereft’

(The tangled) bine-

noun

A long, flexible stem of a climbing plant, especially the hop.

lyres, noun

A stringed instrument like a small U-shaped harp with strings fixed to a crossbar, used especially in ancient Greece. Modern instruments of this type are found mainly in East Africa.



(Beruffled) plume,A long, soft feather or arrangement of feathers used by a bird for display or worn by a person for ornament:

ecstatic (sound) Adjective

Feeling or expressing overwhelming happiness or joyful excitement:

‘ecstatic fans filled the stadium’

Involving an experience of mystic self-transcendence: ‘an ecstatic vision of God’

terrestrial things Archaic: Relating to the earth as opposed to heaven .

trembled (through) verb [no object]

Shake involuntarily, typically as a result of anxiety, excitement, or frailty:

‘Isobel was trembling with excitement’

Hardy’s poetry, like his fiction, is characterized by a pervasive fatalism. In the words of biographer Claire Tomalin, the poems illuminate “the contradictions always present in Hardy, between the vulnerable, doomstruck man and the serene inhabitant of the natural world.



pervasive adjective

(Especially of an unwelcome influence or physical effect)

spreading widely throughout an area or a group of people:

‘ageism is pervasive and entrenched in our society’fatalism noun

The belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable:

‘fatalism can breed indifference to the human costs of war’ vulnerable, adjective

Exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally:

‘we were in a vulnerable position’

‘small fish are vulnerable to predators’

Doomstruck ?????? You do some work!

serene (inhabitant)

adjective

adjective: serene; comparative adjective: serener; superlative adjective: serenest

calm, peaceful, and untroubled; tranquil.

"her eyes were closed and she looked very serene"

synonyms: calm, composed, collected, {cool, calm, and collected}, as cool as a cucumber, tranquil, peaceful, at peace, pacific, untroubled, relaxed, at ease, poised, self-possessed, unperturbed, imperturbable, undisturbed, unruffled, unworried, unexcitable, placid, equable, even-tempered

inhabitant noun: inhabitant; plural noun: inhabitants

a person or animal that lives in or occupies a place.

synonyms: resident, occupant, occupier, dweller, settler;



Find a picture which goes with the definition and paste it in to the table below.

a coppice (gate)

spectre-(grey),

dregs

desolate

((The tangled) bine-

lyres,



(Beruffled) plume,

ecstatic (sound)

terrestrial things

trembled through

Now look at how a website presents the poem!



The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-gray,

And Winter’s dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be

The Century’s corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EoRlh_SzQSs/Tyo9y7MASII/AAAAAAAAGLM/UMl2mfJTLIY/s1600/P1010085-2009.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8XMtzyK8fVQ/TyuOKtb6H_I/AAAAAAAAGLY/IwswHxkpH8s/s1600/P2020043.JPG


And every spirit upon earth

Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited ;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mJBj1dx1yvM/TyzUV6n9GHI/AAAAAAAAGLw/yKmYN5lGB4M/s1600/songthrushimages.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sXDJbxCIbQE/TyzZ9NzyimI/AAAAAAAAGMI/KsDshzkaGUk/s1600/IMG_0996-2010.JPG


Little Tree

little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see i will comfort you because you smell so sweetly i will kiss your cool bark and hug you safe and tight just as your mother would, only don't be afraid look the spangles that sleep all the year in a dark box dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine, the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads, put up your little arms and i'll give them all to you to hold every finger shall have its ring and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy then when you're quite dressed you'll stand in the window for everyone to see and how they'll stare! oh but you'll be very proud and my little sister and i will take hands and looking up at our beautiful tree we'll dance and sing "Noel Noel"

e e cummings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKOkBmCA3T8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKOkBmCA3T8


Write a description of these two paintings and your response to them: spend 20 minutes writing.


€¦ · web viewi'll tell you what, never again . ... "well i'll give you an...

Documents