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Note: I am using these teaching diary entries to process my thoughts before they are fully developed, the same way I used to sneak into my great-grandma’s parlor and pick at all the fresh pasta she made before it was really ready to eat. That is to say, these entries are mostly still ingredients and not a finished dish, but please feel free to comment and add to the conversation.
My British Lit class is very small -- four kiddos. Three are girls. We’re finishing up a Renaissance poetry unit, and we read Ben Jonson’s “Song: To Celia.” Here is an analysis I found online. I do not agree with this analysis, but I share it as an example of how this poem is usually discussed. The analysis begins “‘Song: to Celia’ by Ben Jonson describes the deep love which exists between the speaker and his lover and how it transcends normal bounds.” The thing is, the speaker and Celia aren’t lovers! From the text of the poem, we learn that Celia returned the roses sent to her, which the speaker then says “ smells, I swear, / Not of itself, but thee.” Okay, buddy.
Men have been writing poetry to women forever. Celia might not even be a real person but a character. (I haven’t researched, and I don’t really care that much.) We talked about Petrarch and his obsession with Laura, a woman who is probably Laura de Noves, a noblewoman he met maybe once and then stalked for years. Literally, he followed her around on walks and at church -- the Wikipedia article says Petrarch “[haunted] her in church and on her walks.” He left Avignon for a time, and when he returned, he bought a house near hers. Because that is totally normal behavior!
I want that last sentence to be sarcastic, except as we discussed the Jonson poem, we (the women in class) started talking about our experiences with men and how they will take our smiles and politeness as invitations for romantic relationships. And my students, who are all 16-17 years old, had a ton of examples they could list without much thought. One of my students, who is Chinese, went on a rant about Chinese boys. The Korean student said, yep, it’s the same with Korea, and the Polish student agreed. At which point I stopped the conversation for a second to check in with the lone boy in class to see what his experiences were. He said that he had once followed a girl home from school every day (when he was in middle school) to try and get her to notice him. None of us in the room tried to make him feel bad for this because he was pretty young and acting in a way he thought was normal and in fact has been encouraged, through media and society at large, to act in such a way because he thinks it’s romantic. I didn’t criticize it. I asked him about the results of his actions, and the other students gently teased him about being a creep.
My point is not to demonize or shame this student. It just struck me, reading these poems now as an adult, with a lot more life experience, how profoundly creepy a lot of love poetry that is revered in English Literature Canon is, particularly when you learn it’s rooted in actual actions (Petrarch, inasmuch as we can know the actions of a long-dead Italian), and how modern teachers have an opportunity (and obligation) to use these as entrances into discussions, and how important it is for teachers to know when to step back and let their students follow these thoughts further.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what the kids have to say today as we read “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.” I’m learning more and more how to facilitate and am trying not to force my own worldview on the students as we have conversations, but come on, Herrick!
Edit (not that I’ve published this yet): You know what? Forget Herrick! His reputation will not suffer, nor will the kids’ education suffer, if we do not read this poem today. If they take a British lit class at university, the will doubtless read it. But for a minute, I forgot that women exist, even though I’ve just been talking about them. So I just printed some poems from Lady Mary Wroth, Isabella Whitney, and Mary Sidney Herbert -- rich, white noblewomen, sure, but my unit requirements constrain me to that period. But enough of creepy men writing poems to women they once saw in church. At least for today.
My British Lit class is very small -- four kiddos. Three are girls. We’re finishing up a Renaissance poetry unit, and we read Ben Jonson’s “Song: To Celia.” Here is an analysis I found online. I do not agree with this analysis, but I share it as an example of how this poem is usually discussed. The analysis begins “‘Song: to Celia’ by Ben Jonson describes the deep love which exists between the speaker and his lover and how it transcends normal bounds.” The thing is, the speaker and Celia aren’t lovers! From the text of the poem, we learn that Celia returned the roses sent to her, which the speaker then says “ smells, I swear, / Not of itself, but thee.” Okay, buddy.
Men have been writing poetry to women forever. Celia might not even be a real person but a character. (I haven’t researched, and I don’t really care that much.) We talked about Petrarch and his obsession with Laura, a woman who is probably Laura de Noves, a noblewoman he met maybe once and then stalked for years. Literally, he followed her around on walks and at church -- the Wikipedia article says Petrarch “[haunted] her in church and on her walks.” He left Avignon for a time, and when he returned, he bought a house near hers. Because that is totally normal behavior!
I want that last sentence to be sarcastic, except as we discussed the Jonson poem, we (the women in class) started talking about our experiences with men and how they will take our smiles and politeness as invitations for romantic relationships. And my students, who are all 16-17 years old, had a ton of examples they could list without much thought. One of my students, who is Chinese, went on a rant about Chinese boys. The Korean student said, yep, it’s the same with Korea, and the Polish student agreed. At which point I stopped the conversation for a second to check in with the lone boy in class to see what his experiences were. He said that he had once followed a girl home from school every day (when he was in middle school) to try and get her to notice him. None of us in the room tried to make him feel bad for this because he was pretty young and acting in a way he thought was normal and in fact has been encouraged, through media and society at large, to act in such a way because he thinks it’s romantic. I didn’t criticize it. I asked him about the results of his actions, and the other students gently teased him about being a creep.
My point is not to demonize or shame this student. It just struck me, reading these poems now as an adult, with a lot more life experience, how profoundly creepy a lot of love poetry that is revered in English Literature Canon is, particularly when you learn it’s rooted in actual actions (Petrarch, inasmuch as we can know the actions of a long-dead Italian), and how modern teachers have an opportunity (and obligation) to use these as entrances into discussions, and how important it is for teachers to know when to step back and let their students follow these thoughts further.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what the kids have to say today as we read “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.” I’m learning more and more how to facilitate and am trying not to force my own worldview on the students as we have conversations, but come on, Herrick!
Edit (not that I’ve published this yet): You know what? Forget Herrick! His reputation will not suffer, nor will the kids’ education suffer, if we do not read this poem today. If they take a British lit class at university, the will doubtless read it. But for a minute, I forgot that women exist, even though I’ve just been talking about them. So I just printed some poems from Lady Mary Wroth, Isabella Whitney, and Mary Sidney Herbert -- rich, white noblewomen, sure, but my unit requirements constrain me to that period. But enough of creepy men writing poems to women they once saw in church. At least for today.
