How to Read Ash Wednesday by Eliot
“Ash Wednesday” is a poem by T. S. Eliot, first published in 1930. Listen to the author reading his own poem: Dr. Bartel helps us understand this complex work: “Ash Wednesday” is a...
Audio / Video / E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum / Poetry
by EILeditor · Published February 13, 2024 · Last modified February 24, 2024
“Ash Wednesday” is a poem by T. S. Eliot, first published in 1930. Listen to the author reading his own poem: Dr. Bartel helps us understand this complex work: “Ash Wednesday” is a...
Stanzas by Mary Shelley Oh, come to me in dreams, my love! I will not ask a dearer bliss; Come with the starry beams, my love, And press mine eyelids with thy kiss. ’Twas...
Biography / E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published January 9, 2024 · Last modified November 20, 2023
JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT (1784–1859), English essayist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Southgate, Middlesex, on the 19th of October 1784. His father, the son of a West Indian clergyman, had settled as a...
E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum / Poetry
by EILeditor · Published December 30, 2023 · Last modified January 9, 2024
From “In Memoriam” by Alfred Lord Tennyson Ring Out, Wild Bells Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out,...
E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published December 6, 2023 · Last modified December 13, 2023
by John Addington Symonds The Renaissance RENAISSANCE—The “Renaissance” or “Renascence” is a term used to indicate a well-known but indefinite space of time and a certain phase in the development of Europe. On the...
E2-Resources / E4-Resources / Poetry
by EILeditor · Published November 27, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
In this lovely poem by English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld, an expectant mother speaks to her unborn baby, that “little invisible being” soon expected. To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become...
E2-Resources / E4-Resources / Poetry
by EILeditor · Published November 20, 2023 · Last modified November 27, 2023
Poem by Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld, 1743-1825. London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1791. Epistle To William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade...
E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published November 14, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
Dr. Lorraine Murphy has studied Jane Austen’s works extensively and teaches about them online and in person. You can learn from her insights at the links which follow. “‘At its heart, Pride and Prejudice...
E2-Resources / E4-Resources / Poetry
by EILeditor · Published November 13, 2023 · Last modified November 27, 2023
In this imaginative farewell poem from Roman poet Ovid to his wife, English poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld writes of aging. OVID to his WIFE: Imitated from different Parts of his Tristia. Jam mea cygneas...
He Said He Had Been a Soldier by Dorothy Wordsworth He said he had been a soldier, That his wife and children Had died in Jamaica. He had a begger’s wallet over his shoulders,...
E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published November 4, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet by Alfred, Lord Tennyson At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away. ‘Spanish ships...
E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum / Short Stories
by EILeditor · Published October 30, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
The Reticence of Lady Anne By Saki (aka H. H. Munro) Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is entering a...
E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published October 27, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
Hetta Howes tracks the many appearances of King Arthur, from a 9th-century history to a Hollywood blockbuster, via the works of Chrétien de Troyes, Thomas Malory and the author of Sir Gawain and the...
Biography / E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published October 23, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
GEOFFREY CHAUCER (? 1340–1400), English poet, is most famous for his great work “The Canterbury Tales.” His own age delighted in stories, and he gave it the stories it demanded invested with a humanity,...
Biography / E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published October 16, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616), English poet, player and playwright, was baptized in the parish church of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire on the 26th of April 1564. The exact date of his birth is not known. Birth...
Biography / E2-Resources / E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published October 9, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
Best known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, the author and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodson (1832–1898), was born at Daresbury, near Warrington, in England on the 27th of January 1832. He was the eldest son...
E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum / Short Stories
by EILeditor · Published September 18, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
Kew Gardens (1921) by Virginia Woolf FROM THE OVAL-SHAPED flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or...
Biography / E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published September 12, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
FRANCIS THOMPSON (1859–1907), poet and prose-writer, was born on 18 Dec. 1859 at 7 Winckley Street, in Preston, England. His father, Charles Thompson (1824–1896), a native of Oakham, Rutland, practiced homoeopathy at Preston and...
Biography / E4-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published September 4, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic, and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as architecture, literature, education, myth, ornithology, botany, geology, and political...
by EILeditor · Published August 28, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
In “The Other Side of the Hedge,” English author E. M. Forster seems to take a critical look at the modern quest to make progress without bothering to experience life. The Other Side of...
Biography / E4-Resources / E5-Resources / Excellence in Literature: The Curriculum
by EILeditor · Published August 18, 2023 · Last modified November 20, 2023
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564–1593), English dramatist, the father of English tragedy, and [the establisher] of dramatic blank verse, the eldest son of a shoemaker at Canterbury, was born in that city on the 6th of...
John Milton (1608–1674), author of Paradise Lost and other works, was an English poet. He was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London, on the 9th of December 1608. Milton’s Parents and Early Life His father,...
Audio / Video / Biography / Classics-Based Writing Resource / E1-Resources / E2-Resources / E4-Resources
by EILeditor · Published October 24, 2015 · Last modified November 18, 2023
Why do William Shakespeare’s plays still touch us today? This Renaissance playwright, poet, and actor had a unique way with words and a timeless grasp of human nature. His works are considered to be...
Understanding Emma’s World by Pamela Whalan Difficulties for modern readers Timeless Human Nature Good Breeding: A Marriage Consideration Wealth through Marriage: Dowries Work for Single Women Marriage as a Business Deal Men Earning Money:...
Emma: A Play by Pamela Whalan Sometimes, acting out a section of the novel can help you understand the text. We’re delighted that Pamela Whalan has given us a sneak peek at Emma: A...
Pride and Prejudice: A Play by Pamela Whalan Enjoy an excerpt from Pride and Prejudice: A Play, by Pamela Whalan, who has adaptated Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice for the stage. Sometimes acting out...
The Social Background of Pride and Prejudice by Pamela Whalan Matrimony and Finances: Women’s Options, Marriage Settlements, and Family Obligations Cost of Living: Travel and Clothing Earning Money: Property, Military, Law, and Church Work...
E4-Resources / Resources for Teaching
by EILeditor · Published February 2, 2015 · Last modified September 2, 2016
Of Education by John Milton Of Education was published anonymously as a tract in 1644. It represents John Milton’s views “concerning the best and noblest way of education.” Milton believed that education was to “fit a man to...
This brief Jane Austen biography by David Cody is likely to whet your appetite for learning more about Jane Austen and her works.
Audio / Video / Classics-Based Writing Resource / E4-Resources
by EILeditor · Published December 22, 2014 · Last modified November 18, 2023
In a Modernist* culture hostile to Christianity, how did T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and many more join the faith — and how did other intellectuals like Virginia Woolf react?...
Here’s the Everyday Educator — our annual newsletter handout. It has book lists and helpful articles about homeschooling topics. We’d rather be sharing it in person, but for now, you can download the Everyday Educator here. I hope you enjoy it!
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