I'm turning my mind back to school... still have two weeks before the Spring semester begins, but I have a good deal of revising in process on the syllabi for two of the three courses I teach. Today I am working on Mod Civ - that's what we all call CVEN 201 - The West in the Modern World. It's the History of Europe from roughly 1850 to 2000. I teach the history with poetry. What I hope is that it becomes the Chaucer method of history: teaching the big events , but through the eyes of the people who lived through them. I use poetry for this. My students and I read and study about forty poems from European and British poets of that era. The first one we meet is Rilke. Here is his poem entitled
"The Future":
The Future
to frighten us; too vast
a project, too large a morsel
for the heart's mouth.
Future, who won't wait for you?
Everyone is going there.It suffices you to deepen
the absence that we are.
2 comments:
Hi, you commented on my Clouds blog re the cancer post. Thanks for your insightful comment.
Will try and remember to add you to one of my blogrolls on one of my (many) other blogs as I do write about gardens and books when I am not busy ranting about unfair governmental systems.
Best wishes for the new year.
Roughseas
And the reason I was writing was that I meant to say, I studied British and European history of a similar period (shorter obviously cos I am older and left school well before 2000). My particular choice of favourite poetry are the first world war ones. There is a linky on my rough seas blog and itchy feet. Scan down to the bottom for the poetry if you don't want to bother reading through.
http://roughseasinthemed.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/strange-meeting/
http://itchyfeetatforty.blogspot.com/2007/11/armistice-day.html
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