General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe English Language has Changed a Lot.
Earlier, someone posted a thread about Lincoln's Gettysburg Address being used as a sample to get students to do something called "close reading." That's a literary analysis technique that looks at a piece of writing within itself, rather than in context. That particular text was probably not the best choice, since its context is, or should be, known by most students before they'd be asked to do a "close reading" of it. So, I looked for another piece of writing from about the same period that might have been a better choice. I chose "American Notes" by Charles Dickens. Like the Gettysburg Address, it uses some words in ways that employ less familiar definitions. It also has a more complex sentence structure than we're used to seeing today.
What do you think? Should today's students be able to read the passage below and understand it? Can they derive meaning from it without reference to context. I think they should. But, I doubt that most students would make much sense of it. How about you? Read it and see what you think. This is the English of the mid 19th Century, written by one of the most famous authors of his day. How do you see it today, in 2013?:
astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of January
eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and put my head
into, a state-room on board the Britannia steam-packet, twelve hundred
tons burthen per register, bound for Halifax and Boston, and carrying Her
Majestys mails.
That this state-room had been specially engaged for Charles Dickens,
Esquire, and Lady, was rendered sufficiently clear even to my scared
intellect by a very small manuscript, announcing the fact, which was
pinned on a very flat quilt, covering a very thin mattress, spread like a
surgical plaster on a most inaccessible shelf. But that this was the
state-room concerning which Charles Dickens, Esquire, and Lady, had held
daily and nightly conferences for at least four months preceding: that
this could by any possibility be that small snug chamber of the
imagination, which Charles Dickens, Esquire, with the spirit of prophecy
strong upon him, had always foretold would contain at least one little
sofa, and which his lady, with a modest yet most magnificent sense of its
limited dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more than
two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight (portmanteaus
which could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away,
than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower-pot): that this
utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and profoundly preposterous
box, had the remotest reference to, or connection with, those chaste and
pretty, not to say gorgeous little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand,
in the highly varnished lithographic plan hanging up in the agents
counting-house in the city of London: that this room of state, in short,
could be anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest of the
captains, invented and put in practice for the better relish and
enjoyment of the real state-room presently to be disclosed:these were
truths which I really could not, for the moment, bring my mind at all to
bear upon or comprehend. And I sat down upon a kind of horsehair slab,
or perch, of which there were two within; and looked, without any
expression of countenance whatever, at some friends who had come on board
with us, and who were crushing their faces into all manner of shapes by
endeavouring to squeeze them through the small doorway.
JimboBillyBubbaBob
(1,389 posts)I will use your suggestion with one of my groups and report back to you the outcome. It may be next week following the break. More to follow.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)I read most of Dickens' novels in high school, but I was something of an oddball. I still like 19th Century literature, and enjoy how language was used then.
I suspect most folks don't, though.
I would be intent on learning the reaction of your students.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)I like the long, complicated, but precise thoughts that are conveyed in typical Victorian prose. If you haven't read these before, try them. They're some of my favorites:
http://sherlock-holmes.classic-literature.co.uk/
Especially this one:
http://sherlock-holmes.classic-literature.co.uk/the-adventure-of-the-bruce-partington-plans/
-Laelth
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)try the first two paragraph's of Emerson's essay, "Self Reliance," quoted below:
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
JimboBillyBubbaBob
(1,389 posts)...I will use each with different sections and see how it works itself out. This will work into a daily activity already utilized.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)It will be interesting.
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)in middle school, and I will suggest that she have her students read it.
REP
(21,691 posts)From "stupid" to "agreeable, pleasant."
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)It's only from context that you can determine which one was meant. The "stupid" meaning is inferred, rather than direct, really. It's an excellent word to look up in a good dictionary, to be sure.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)"Well, bless your li'l ole heart!"
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)There are others, though. Much meaning is contained in the manner of speaking it.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)The Innocents Abroad has a similar style.
Other than being long-winded (typical Dickens, typical Victoriana) it's not difficult to read or understand. Dickens used to be required reading when I was in school- I don't know if it still is, but if students could digest Great Expectations, they should have no problem with a passage like this.
However, since I didn't see the thread you referenced, your post, like the passage, is lacking context for me. Link?
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Here is the link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024082337
Now, you see, I agree with you that the passage is easily understood, but I'm 68 years old and have a Masters in Literature. In fact, I prefer the language of the 19th Century, although I must not write that way if I hope to earn my living with my words. I do not know if Dickens is in the current curriculum in secondary schools today.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)This isn't difficult. Chaucer was difficult. Dickens was merely boring, and often depressing. I was a little surprised, on reading this passage, to learn that the man had a sense of humor. I'm only familiar with his novels. I never would have guessed.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)He has a perspective on antebellum America that is at least as intruiging as Tocqueville's.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)I'll put it on my list.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)It is at Gutenberg.org, along with everything else you could want. My Kindle is full of stuff from there.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Dickens often writes entire paragraphs in a single sentence, when it suits him. I find him interesting to read.
eppur_se_muova
(36,289 posts)Most English teachers today would be outraged by this "run-on" sentence. My own feeling is that if that is the sort of thing it takes to say what you want to say -- run on, run on !
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Dickens and other 19th-century writers didn't use punctuation as it is used today in journalistic writing. That's true.
In fact, they used it in ways that helped readers understand the carefully woven stream of words on the page. I love that.
JimboBillyBubbaBob
(1,389 posts)Faulkner always impacted me that way.
Tikki
(14,559 posts)'cept the left-tenant thing.
Tikki
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)*Technically* I can read it, but like Jane Austin, I can't understand it well enough to get more than the general sense of what he's talking about.
Yes, I went to shitty schools where we only read 20th century literature.
Update: I read it a few times and I got it. But it took work. Reading is hard.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Truly. I chose this passage because I read and enjoyed this book about a year ago. Not everyone would, for sure. When it was written, people used to read things like this aloud at home. No TV. No radio. In fact, it is best read aloud or slowly, using the punctuation to guide pacing and expression.
There is a reason Dickens is honored as a writer. It is worth finding out why, IMO.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)Kudos for that - because seriously, not everyone would bother trying.
One thing I tell my students (I teach history and they often have to read primary source material that makes Dickens look like Dr. Suess) is to try reading it out loud. Often the combination of the visual and auditory stimuli will kick the old brain cells into gear when just reading it won't.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)hunter
(38,326 posts)I'll leave that exercise to others.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Highly descriptive prose is less used by people when photos are available.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)cpwm17
(3,829 posts)If a writer can't organize their thoughts into short well written sentences, with short well organized paragraphs, then I'm not interested in what they have to say. Most likely it's not worth the effort.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Thanks. You make my point admirably.
cpwm17
(3,829 posts)Kaleva
(36,343 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, The Canterbury Tales, Whitman, Emerson, going to see A Midsummer Night's Dream in Stratford, CT. after spending weeks studying it in class...and much else
We ALSO read and studied Evangeline. I can remember the classroom, where in each class someone would be assigned to recite passages from memory. I can still barely remember the beginning--
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and hemlocks,
bearded with moss, and garments green....duh.. that's it...
And Latin, French and Spanish, and Algebra, Trig, Geometry, Calculus, World, European and American History.(Excluding Asia pretty much.) Art History, GYM !!! :> I can still smell the wrestling room.
How could I have known what an influence all this would have upon my soon-to-begin-life in college, grad school, post grad, and career--no--"life," as a classical musician and teacher.
And in 2013---- what?
Great post.
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Godhumor
(6,437 posts)ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later
on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the
offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,
erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends
an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park
where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-
linsfirst loved livvy.
And, yes, I am saying this as a former teacher who employed "close reading" techniques in the classroom.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Why is it that only pretentious bibliophiles seem to 'get' Joyce, and why do they always make sure that you know that they do?
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)she almost gleefully admits that she doesn't get most of Joyce (just enough to justify attending the annual "Joyce Conference" that is always held in cool places like Prague and Dublin).
She can talk rings around most when it come to Lawrence (D.H., not T.E. - she's never slogged through Seven Pillars of Wisdom ).
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)If you don't read it like you would a modern sentence, and just keep with it like a stream of consciousness ramble- it makes sense.
pink-o
(4,056 posts)And after. Seriously, even short novels like Dorian Grey or Dr Jekyll go into great detail to give the reader deep visual descriptions. Literature after the 1930s is far more concerned with pacing the story and moving it along quickly, because people have become acclimated to a cinematic medium.
It's true in this century as well. Our attention span is shorter, we need more stimulation and the social media reflects this. Even a movie like "Network" which is so brilliant (and scarily prescient) seems to lumber--by 21st century standards, anyway. Dickens' sensibilities come through to me, but they also reflect a slower time where folks were willing to sit still and ruminate over a writer's mordant musings.