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 […]
📙 “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
Lesson #190: Understanding the Difference between ‘Beside’ vs ‘Besides’ Read More »
📗 ‘Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter.’ – J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1904) … Perhaps you have heard or even watched a movie on Peter Pan,
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
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
Lesson #186: Advanced Reading Comprehension from Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe’ Read More »
📘 “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
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
Lesson #181: Remembering a lost paradise: Christina Rossetti’s Poem ‘Shut Out’ Read More »
When I choose a novel to read, I tend to like books that have social morality or human motivation as some of their themes or topics. Anthony Trollope’s book, The Warden (1855), is one such book. It is the first of his collection of a series of novels he wrote called the ‘Chronicles of Barsetshire’. Anthony Trollope
📙 ‘He and his family had been weary when they arrived the night before, and they had observed but little of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing.’ – Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) … Although the principle of this lesson is a simple one, namely: ✍️ RULE: A singular
Lesson #179: Agreement Between Subject and Verb Form – 7 Rules to Avoid Common Mistakes Read More »
Every single language that is spoken today has undergone (gone through) many changes over the years, over centuries. This is also true of English, which could be described as having several phases or historical stages of development: 🪔 c. 500-1150 AD: Old English This is made of the dialects of Anglo-Saxon tribes, with a very few words
Lesson #177: Appreciating a Medieval English Poem: William Langland’s ‘Piers Plowman’ Read More »
In the last part of this lesson (see here), we covered the distinctive traits of the formal and informal registers in the English language. I recommend that you check this Part 1 first before reading this, since what we are going to addressed here builds on what was covered before! Through the help of Kenneth
Another childhood favourite (I seem to be sharing a lot of these lately!) is today’s classic, The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame, a Scottish writer at the turn of the twentieth century. His children’s classic is a story about four animals with human characteristics and personalities (a kind of writing called anthropomorphism, when an animal or