Reading Classic Literature

Lesson #192: Inversions of Word Order When Using Interrogative and Relative Pronouns

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‘Who’, ‘how’, ‘which’, ‘why’, ‘when’, ‘where’ – these are often called question words or interrogative pronouns. But they are also relative pronouns. These two different functions sometimes lead to common mistakes, especially in relation to where they are placed in a sentence’s word order. In this Lesson we will look at the functions of both […]

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Lesson #191: Describing Contrast with Transition Words ‘Although’, ‘Though’, and ‘Even Though’

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If you have ever heard someone mention ‘Lilliput’ or ‘Brobdingnag’, you have heard a reference to one very early English classic, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (1726). 📗 It is a fantasy story of a surgeon and captain called Lemuel Gulliver who is shipwrecked on islands of tiny people

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Lesson #190: Understanding the Difference between ‘Beside’ vs ‘Besides’

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📙 “And one day, I remember, I met Miss Matty in the lane that leads to Combehurst; she was walking on the footpath, which, you know, is raised a good way above the road, and a gentleman rode beside her, and was talking to her, and she was looking down at some primroses she had

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Mini-Lesson Monday, Lesson #188 (Part 2): Considering ‘Can’, ‘Could’, and ‘Be Able To’ through Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’

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📘 ‘He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the contest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of savage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly wiping

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Mini-Lesson Monday, Lesson #188 (Part 1): Considering ‘Can’, ‘Could’, and ‘Be Able To’ through Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’

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If you are interested in classic English literature (and if you are reading these Lessons, why wouldn’t you be? 😊), you have surely heard of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861). 📘 “Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be comfortable— or anything but miserable— there, Biddy!— unless I can lead

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Lesson #187: ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’: How a Poem by Longfellow Tells a Story from American History

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Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year … – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’ (1860) It may be that your experience with reading poetry goes back to

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Lesson #186: Advanced Reading Comprehension from Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe’

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Today’s Lesson draws on one of Sir Walter Scott’s most beloved works, the medieval romance Ivanhoe (1819). Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish novelist who both lived concurrently (at the same time) with Jane Austen, and also admired her writing (especially Pride and Prejudice, which we enjoyed yesterday). In his own right, Scott was one

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Lesson #185: ‘And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting!’ – Uses of ‘Which’ in Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’

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📘 “But it is not merely this affair,” she continued, “on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what

Lesson #185: ‘And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting!’ – Uses of ‘Which’ in Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Read More »

Lesson #184: Describing A Process and An End Result: How to Correctly Use ‘Eventually’, ‘Finally’, ‘Gradually’, and ‘Ultimately’

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Many students have struggled with understanding the differences between two essential adverbs: gradually and eventually. So in this Lesson I will try to define each with plenty of examples and synonyms where possible. I mentioned in yesterday’s Lesson (on Cecilia, by Frances Burney) that this week we would be looking at some novels that either

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Mini-Lesson Monday, Lesson #182 (Part 2): The Influences of Great Dictionaries on the English Language – Noah Webster’s ‘Dictionary’

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As we saw in the first part of this Lesson, Samuel Johnson spent nearly ten years working on his dictionary. Our next dictionary-writer (or lexicographer), Noah Webster, probably spent decades (tens of years) preparing the research for his dictionaries. In his lifetime, he saw several editions of his dictionaries being published, and each time he tried to improve and refine

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Mini-Lesson Monday, Lesson #182 (Part 1): The Influences of Great Dictionaries on the English Language – Samuel Johnson’s ‘Dictionary’

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If every English language student has one book in common, it is almost certainly an English dictionary! The question would be: which one to choose? 📚 There are so many nowadays, but if we could travel back a few hundred years or so, we would be lucky to find a copy of one.  I am

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Lesson #181: Remembering a lost paradise: Christina Rossetti’s Poem ‘Shut Out’

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One theme that often appears in English literature – novels and poetry – is that of a lost paradise. Christina Rossetti, one of the major female poets of the Victorian era, penned (wrote) a poem on this very theme, and since Saturdays are our days for enjoying a little bit of poetry, we will look at ‘Shut

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