Simon C. Edgett
Overview:
In this series of lessons, students will apply their study of Percy Bysshe Shelley to two poems written by the author. The first of these poems, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," will be analyzed as a class as a way of modeling the expectations for the second, teacher selected, poem. Students will compose an analytical response to the second poem looking specifically at connections to Romanticism and the author's experiences.
Note:
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•This lesson will take place over two class periods.
Objectives:
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•Students will be able to identify and analyze elements of Romanticism in "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty."
•Students will be able to connect elements from Percy Bysshe Shelley's life to his poetry.
Methods:
•Prior to this lesson, students should have read "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" for meaning and marked passages that they feel give the reader some level of understanding of the writer's past experiences.
•Ask students: "What role do the seasons play in the poem?"
•Discuss the symbolism of the seasons as they are presented in the first and the final stanzas of the poem.
•Ask students to locate other elements of nature in the poem that are being used as symbols. What do they symbolize? Allow students five to ten minutes to look silently and mark symbols built on natural imagery, and then hold an open discussion encouraging students to build off of each other's ideas.
•Have students write in their journals responding to the following question: "What is the 'Power' that Shelley refers to in this poem?"
•After students have written in their journals, ask students to locate other words or phrases Shelley uses to refer to the "Power" throughout the poem:
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•Spirit of Beauty (13)
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•Demon (27)
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•Ghost (27)
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•Heaven (27)
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•messenger of sympathies (42)
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•awful Loveliness (71)
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•Spirit fair (83)
•Discuss with students their thoughts on the nature of Shelley's "Power" in this poem.
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•What attributes does he give it? (guide students to look at Shelley's use of
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metaphors for description)
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•What is its purpose? (guide students to look at verbs connected to the "Power")
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•When and where did the speaker first encounter it? (stanza 5)
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•What does the speaker ask of the "Power" in the final stanza?
•Ask students to share the passages that they marked for homework (passages that they feel give the reader some level of understanding of the writer's past experiences) by reading them aloud.
•How do these passages give us insight into or connect to Shelley's own life? Encourage students to make connections based on the previous class discussions, their own research, or their classmates' presentations. Students focus should be on stanzas 5-7, but they may connect to other parts of the poem.
Assessment:
•Students are to read and independently analyze either "Ode to the West Wind" or "Mont Blanc" (based on teacher discretion and student level) for elements of Romanticism and for connections to Shelley's life in a two-page paper.