Final Essay.

Applying Literature inside the classroom.

“The Faerie Queene”: A Representation of the power of a new Female identity.

The following essay will discuss allegorical points of view in the poem; “Faerie Queene” by Edmund Spencer. By looking into the moral lesson in the poem, we are going to be able to understand the deeper dimensions that this knightly tale shows us. Moreover, through this discussion we are going to recognize how the Faerie Queene represented a construction of cultural aspects of the English society during the Elizabethan period.

Besides, this discussion will allows us to relate how literature and specifically the Faerie Queene contributed to be a representation of the literary ideal, as well as the new female image of the Elizabethan period, and how it created a social change. Furthermore, at the end of the discussion, this essay will guide us to find the reasons for using literature or a poem such as the Faerie Queene in the EFL classroom.

If we want to start to examine Spenser’s Faerie Queene we are going to realize that he used faery mythology to represent and celebrate a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. As an example of it the “Letter to Raleigh” provides the most direct expression of Spenser’s intentions for fairy and tells us how he uses the image of the faery queen and fairyland to present Elizabeth and her kingdom.

As we can see the poet of the Faerie Queene used the allegories to show a representation of a perfect image that people must had about Queen Elizabeth I and her reign, as well as the values of the Elizabethan society in order to cause an effect on readers and to establish some sense of meaning for them.

Throughout the The Faerie Queene, Spenser emphasizes the importance of performing one's duty and accepting responsibility to complete the quest. Several heroic figures emerge during the course of the poem and each is given a question to undertake, a monster or demon to extinguish. Each time, the hero must overcome disadvantage and hurdles to succeed, but the importance of the quest is always the overriding concern.

Having provided a motivation for the characters to fight against everything and overcome different types of situation to reflect values that every men should have, Spencer proceeds to supply a topical identification for the allegoric character of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene representing different aspects of the most excellent and glorious person, as well as the most virtuous and beautiful lady.

Probably, all of these representations that Spencer gave to Elizabeth I may have plenty of theories to explain why the poet wrote in favor of the Queen. But, from my personal point of view I think that all of the characterizations that Spencer gave to the Queen were based on the hypothesis of the phenomenon of female power that women started to have in England.

Regarding to the female power that Spencer demonstrated in the Faery Queene we can see reflected the rule that women had in general as a specific and unique aspect of Elizabeth’s rule that was beginning to dominate through when Spencer was writing. Queen Elizabeth, the virgin Queen, had, by virtue her virginity, the singular opportunity to name her own heir and shape England’s destiny. In Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, the female characters hold the same power over their male companions.

At this point of the discussion we are able to see how the Faerie Queen figure is part of Elizabeth’s strategy to construct and manipulate her political iconography and idealized her representation as a Queen in order to legitimate her integrity and identity.

As I mentioned before, Elizabeth’s sex required a form of negotiation achieved through the construction of a series of mythological identities. All of the strategies used by Spenser in the construction of the perpetuation of the “cult” of Queen Elizabeth I were part of the creation of an ideal world where men behave with dignity and with truth and valor.

Edmund Spenser’s fairyland represents a world in which personal values were more important than greed or lechery. From my own perspective, I think that when Spencer was creating his utopia, he was also responding to changes in English life, as English society moves from the middle Ages into the Renaissance.

To sum up, on the one hand we can say that The Faerie Queene represents in an allegorical way the image of female dominion over male identity, because through the characterization that Spencer gave to the Queen, we as readers are able to interpret the figure that Elizabeth I wanted to spread over the English Empire. On the other hand, the poem gives us as readers the opportunity to reflect on the values that were important during the Elizabethan period, and through the image of the characters of the poem find in the hidden messages of this knightly tale some cultural aspects of the English society.

Clearly, until this point of the discussion we are ready to figure out how we as teachers of a foreign language can apply this kind of topic to our classroom. One of the main answers is to teach to our students the capacity of understand what they are reading, even though when most of the times they have to read old texts with different contexts or periods of time that they cannot empathize.

Consequently, we can say that it is crucial for teachers to empathize with our students and guide them when they are in the labor of understanding a literature piece. Similarly, we as teachers must teach our students how through reading they can find messages, so their attitude towards what they are reading must be active, instead of passive. In a nutshell, what I’m trying to explain is what we as teacher must do at the moment of bringing the literature into the classroom. As a first step we need to teach to our students how they can feel part of what they are reading in order to think in a critical way and in the same way practice with them the capacity of critical literacy.

Finally, as we may know literature is authentic material. In the case of The Faerie Queen we can see how through the reading and understanding of it, we are exposing our learners to deal with difficult unknown periods of time, indeed, students are also dealing with new language which expands their language awareness, so they can also used them outside the class. In the same way literature encourages interaction, we can bring discussions about a specific topic of a literature piece, such as the one we were discussing, the representation of Queen Elizabeth I in the Faery Queen.

Literature, also gives us the opportunity to share students’ feelings and opinions. In all respects, literature educates the whole person, by examining values in literary texts, such as the way in which Spencer showed his intention to make readers conscious about the attitudes that a person in the Elizabethan period must had. As we know, these values and attitudes relate to the world outside the classroom, and that is exactly the way in which a teacher can collaborate to students’ meaningful learning.

Work Cited.

Carter, R. and M. Long. Teaching Literature. 1991, Longman.

References:

http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/The_Faerie_Queene

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=13567293

http://www.eslelite.com/biz/articles_for_teachers/articles_literature_in_an_esl_classroom.htm

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austin.

Chapter 39.

Elinor and Marianne were invited by the Palmers to Cleveland, due to the insistence of Mrs Jennings, they decided to accept the invitation. Once they were at Cleveland, Colonel Brandon visited them and asked Elinor to inform Edward that he is prepared to give him a position at the Delaford rectory. While Elinor and Colonel Brandon were talking about how Edward could lead a comfortable life, but he wasn't able to afford a wife, Mrs. Jennings, who was observing the conversation, she concluded that they look nice as a couple and instead of talking about Edward they must be talking about a wedding.

Chapter 40.

Mrs. Jennings approaches Elinor soon after the Colonel's exit. She congratulates her and asks her many questions, which reveal her mistaken assumption that there is an engagement between Elinor and the Colonel. Elinor showed to Mrs. Jennings that she really appreciate Brandon's generosity towards Edward. When Edward arrives, Elinor tells him the good news, he is pleseantly surprised.

Elinor goes off to visit Fanny Dashwood, who has not been feeling well since the news of Edward and Lucy's engagement. She is greeted at the door by John Dashwood, who shares the news that Robert Ferrars will inherit his mother's estate in place of his brother. Just then, Robert Ferrars arrives and expresses his pity for his older brother. John leaves them to inform his wife of Elinor's presence, and Fanny Dashwood, upon receiving Elinor, expresses her regret that the Dashwood sisters will be leaving town so soon.

Women: A Real Force...

The film "The Merchant of Venice" is an adaptation from the play written by William Shakespeare between 1596 and 1598. The story takes place in Venecia during the XVI century. Those times in history are remembered because in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the Jews are God's chosen people, while Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and they follow his teachings in the New Testament, so in that way the Jews were castigated as the people who crucified Jesus. That's the reason why in the Middle Ages the Jews left Israel and spread across the world, but they had to live in getthos separated themselves from others specialy from Christians, due to all those diferences the Jews were considered as non-citizens, so as medieval Jews they couldn't own land.

One of the main characters of the movie was a Jewish moneylender called Shaylock. He lent money to monarchs like Antonio a merchant venturer who was much more glamorous than Shylock the usurer.

This moneylender felt all the discrimination that Christians such as Antonio had against those men wearing a red hat, that's why Shylock becomes all his angry to the point of murderous revange against Antonio who had a debt with him since his beloved friend Bassanio asked him for some money to travel and marry with Portia, a beautiful heiress who lives in Belmont. Due to the fact that Antonio invested all his money in his merchant ships, he just could help his friend being Bassanio's loan guarantor.

Shylock, who hates Antonio because he had insulted him for being a Jew, saw the opportunity to optain revange from this loaning, so he lent Bassanio the money without charging any interest, but with one condition, that was if Antonio the guarantor of Bassanio will not pay the money he will pay it with a pound of his own flesh.

Portia's role in the film is extremely important in the way she influences in a dramatically way the story. She becomes in the heroine of the story since she demonstrates that she's a good counterpart of Shylock who represents the evil.

The beauty and wealth of Portia made her an exceptional figure. There was the rule that any man who could solve the mystery of the Cascade would be able to marry her and enjoy her wealth. Although Portia was very rich, at the same time she was very romantic. When sweeter from different countries came to seek her for marriage she gave interesting opinions about them.

It is clear in the film that she liked Bassanio who was a good man. He was not a rich or a powerful man. He was only the friend of Antonio. This clearly shows that Portia gives more value to love and romance than wealth and power.

Portia was a very smart and skilled person. She was educated and at the same time she was a very intelligent person. She could out with Shylock in his own game. This meant a lot of mental strength, because she knows what to say in which condition and this smartness in the end saved Antonio from the death by hands of the evil Shylock. Portia was also a very brave woman. When she heard the news of Antonio she decided that she must try to save him because he had fallen into danger only by helping Bassanio to come to her to get married. So, she took the disguise of a man and went to Venice to fought with Shylock.

At the very end of the movie none of the dukes who were at court could convince Shaylock to be a little bit softer towards Antonio. But Portia had the mental courage to fight against him through the power of persuasion with the law in her words, through all her intelligence at the right moment in the court she successfully defeated Shylock.

From my point of view, one of the qualities that attract me from Portia's character is that she was an obedient daughter and at the same time she was a very loyal person with all the personality to fight against the injustice. She agreed with the wish of her father about the matter of cascade. She waited patiently to get married. If she wanted she could easily told Bassanio or another person what was the secret of three cascades and could get married but she waited patiently and even allow other princess to try for it. This quality of her personality really makes her an exception among all the characters in the film.

On the one hand Portia is one of the finest characters created by William Shakespeare. As a general knwoledge, normally, the women characters of Shakespeare and from most of the writters during those times didn't give an important role for women or even worst they tend to create an image of women showing them like a human being that weren't very strong in terms of personality and self-awareness, they were always dependant. On the other hand, the characters of the comedy are not that strong but I think that Portia is an exception to this matter. She was not only strong, she had many qualities that makes her a strong character. All her characteristics have made her into a very exceptional woman of Elizabethan time. I have no doubt that there were very few women in that time in England and Europe who possessed remarkable qualities like Portia.

To conclude, I'd like to repeat that Portia is a very good character and characters like her are very rare in the drama genre.

• Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/merchant/canalysis.html

OUTLINE: "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE".

Outline:

1. Introduction

2. Summary of the film

3. Opinion

4. Thesis statement:

-The role of Portia in "The Merchant of Venice" in terms of her status as women during those times.

5. Conclusion

Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh.

The letter addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh, written by Spenser was very difficult for me to understand at the begining because it was very hard to figure it out what was the intention and also was very hard to understand the meaning of some old fashioned words, but even though all that difficult process that I had reading it, at the end, I could understand in a very general way the idea of this letter.

At a first glance what I understood from this letter taken from one part of the "Faeri Queene", is that this historicall fiction has an intention or a hidden message which was to glorify Queen Elizabeth, and also to show the virtuous image of a gentleman or noble person by using the much loved Arthurian knights. The main aim of Spencer with this letter as I said before is to demonstrate human virtues as well as the lives of knights, using them as a way to convey their virtues. This letter, from my point of view also represents a demonstration of political favor with the Queen.

In the letter Spencer showed to his readers the importance of six virtues, holinness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy, with all those virtues he expressed the representation of "magnificence" and perfection. What this letter represented to me is the importance of the good things in life, that's why it's a direct characterization of Queen Elizabeth, because Spencer wanted to demonstrate in Elizabeth's figure the goodness to define the eternal struggle in all of us; the good versus evil.

Through this letter to Sir Walter Raleigh and our Literature course I was able to understand the real intention of this passage of the Faerie Queen and why it's an allegory, because it symbolizes and answer to Catholics against Protestantism and the Queen. Spencer uses the character of Sir Walter Raleigh as a symbol and meaning, and each one symbolizes other aspect of the powers and factors that were in that era in the crisis that I mentioned before, the conflict between the Catholic Church and the protestants.

• Source:

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faerie_Queene

What women love most…

I’m always wondering what I really want from life, but not only just regarded with my profession or with my family and social life, I’m also looking for answers related with what I expect from men in my life, but I still can’t find the answers to my question; what I really want and love most from them?

How powerful can be our genetic in terms of what we really want?; I think that this point is very important at the moment to think about how our DNA greatly affect our daily moods, behaviors and decisions, we are totally different from men, we want and expect always more, we are kind of perfectionist persons in the pursuit of the satisfaction of our desires.

In the “Wife of bath” by Chaucer, we find a complex portrait of a medieval woman. On the one hand, The Wife of Bath is shameless about her sexual exploits and the way she uses sexual power to obtain what she wishes, even though at first glance her actions seem to be rebellion against the male-dominated society in the Canterbury Tales or in the medieval age for women. On the other hand, as the story says, women in today’s world try to have the power that we want through our sexual actions, because we as women have always respond in a patriarchy society and as an incapable and dependent human being. As an example of that we just need to read the Bible and figure it out how the women were created and our role in the society trough history. Probably, that’s why the world that we have always been living does not offer us opportunities to be equal as them.

From the point of how Chaucer showed the role of the women in his book, I really agree with how in the book the inequalities in standards for men and women are supported, because through that reading I realized that men can understand what are our complains, but even though through the time they still can show us that they understand us.

Revelations to reach Heaven...

Geoffry Chaucer was an English poet who is still consider as the father of poetry in England. He wrote wonderful poems and stories that are still an important part of everyone's library. In one of his poem called "Truth", he attempted to stablish a connection with God and heaven, because in the way we live our existence is just a mundane part of life, because we as human beigns do not follow the instructions of God, such as telling always the true and beign real and doing good actions in the world. What he said in the poem is that we can change our future fate in heaven, the only thing that we need to do is just follow the instructions to be a good person on the earth in order to reach heaven. I think that in the poem Chaucer’s message is implicit, because affirms that staying away from petty and earthly troubles and instead trusting one’s self and one’s God we are going to be able to reach heaven and in that way of leaving we will be prepare to live our lifes without any fear. From this point of view it is obvious that Chaucer's poem has a moral advice inside it, or at least it has a Stoic and Christians traditions point of view.