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Séquence 3 · Passion to the point of madness: Emily Brontë and John Keats

Can passion become a way of defining who we are?

Bonjour !

Dans cette séquence de langues, littératures et cultures étrangères (anglais), tu vas chercher à répondre à la grande question écrite en haut de la page. Elle se fait en 2 séances. Pour chaque séance : lis la consigne, étudie les documents, réponds aux questions sur ta feuille ou sur l'ENT, puis recopie l'essentiel dans ton cahier. Tu peux imprimer cette page avec le bouton « Imprimer ».

À la fin, je serai capable de :

Les mots importants

Romanticism, the sublime, passionidentity and fusion: « I am Heathcliff »nature imagery, metaphor, similePetrarchan / Shakespearean sonnet, apostropheembedded narrative, unreliable narrator

Ressources de la séquence

Les notions, les repères et les pistes pour aller plus loin, utiles pour toutes les séances.

Les notions à maîtriser

Romanticism
Late 18th and early 19th century movement which places emotion, nature and the individual at the centre of art.
Fusion
Catherine's love abolishes the boundary between two selves: « I am Heathcliff ».
Embedded narrative
Lockwood reports Nelly Dean's story, who reports Catherine's words: layers of narration.
Apostrophe
Address to an absent person or a thing: « Bright star! »
Sonnet form
Keats's sonnet uses the Shakespearean rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef gg) with an octave/sestet turn at « No ».
Oxymoron
« sweet unrest »: union of opposites typical of passion.

Repères

DateÉvénement
1819Keats writes his great odes; he meets Fanny Brawne (1818).
1821Death of Keats in Rome, aged 25.
1838First publication of « Bright star » in The Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal.
1847Wuthering Heights published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell.
2009Bright Star, film by Jane Campion on Keats and Fanny Brawne.

Pour aller plus loin

Sources et bibliographie

Mon parcours : je choisis mon rythme

Séance 1 · I am Heathcliff: Catherine's confession

65 min

Séance approfondie : cours développé, documents sourcés, activités exigeantes avec coups de pouce.

La question du jour

What does Catherine mean when she says « I am Heathcliff »?

Mon plan de travail

Le cours à lire · Passion and identity

In chapter 9 Catherine Earnshaw confides in the servant Nelly Dean: she has accepted to marry the rich Edgar Linton, but she loves Heathcliff, the foundling raised with her. She opposes two loves through nature imagery: love for Linton is like « the foliage in the woods », which time changes; love for Heathcliff is like « the eternal rocks beneath », « a source of little visible delight, but necessary ». Her climax, « Nelly, I am Heathcliff », expresses a fusion of identities beyond pleasure. The dashes show emotion breaking syntax. Nelly, the narrator, calls it « nonsense »: the embedded narrative leaves the reader to judge.

Document 1 · Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847), volume 1, chapter 9

Novel, first edition 1847 (public domain).

My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees—my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath—a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff—he's always, always in my mind—not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself—but, as my own being—so, don't talk of our separation again—it is impracticable; and—"

Source : E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights, vol. 1, ch. 9, 1847 (full text on Wikisource).

Pour bien lire ce document :

perished: périssait ; annihilated: anéanti ; foliage: feuillage ; impracticable: impossible.

Activité 1 · Understand

12 min
Essentiel

Supports : Document 1

Consigne :

Read the extract and answer in English.

  1. What place does Heathcliff have in Catherine's life?
  2. What would happen if Heathcliff were « annihilated »?
  3. Why is Heathcliff not « a pleasure » to her?

Ce qui est attendu (6 pts) : Comprehension

Activité 2 · Analyse

18 min
Essentiel

Supports : Document 1, lesson

Consigne :

Analyse the language of passion.

  1. Explain the contrast between the foliage and the rocks.
  2. What is the effect of the dashes in the last sentence?
  3. What is the cosmic dimension of her love?

Ce qui est attendu (7 pts) : Analysis

Activité 3 · Speak

15 min
Travail à rendre

Supports : Document and lesson

Consigne :

Record 2 minutes as Nelly Dean: tell Lockwood what Catherine confessed and give your opinion on her choice.

Ce qui est attendu (7 pts) : Oral production

Trace écrite · document à compléter (papier ou ENT)

Complète la trace écrite avec les mots de la banque, puis recopie-la dans ton cahier.

foliagefusionHeathcliffrocks

Catherine opposes her love for Linton, like the _______, to her love for Heathcliff, like « the eternal ______ beneath ». « I am __________ » expresses a ______ of identities.

Séance 2 · Bright star: Keats and the desire for eternity

65 min

Séance approfondie : cours développé, documents sourcés, activités exigeantes avec coups de pouce.

La question du jour

Why does the poet both envy and reject the star?

Mon plan de travail

Le cours à lire · The Romantic sonnet

Keats wrote « Bright star » around 1819, when he loved Fanny Brawne. The sonnet opens with an apostrophe to a star (perhaps the Pole Star). The poet wishes to be « steadfast » like it, but not in its lonely contemplation of the sea and the snow: the « No » of line 9 marks the turn. He wants permanence in a moment of physical love, « Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast », « Awake forever in a sweet unrest » (an oxymoron). The last line offers only two choices: to « live ever » in this instant, « or else swoon to death ». Keats, already ill with tuberculosis, died in 1821.

Document 1 · John Keats, « Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art »

Sonnet, written about 1819, text of The Poetical Works (public domain).

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shore Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel forever its soft fall and swell, Awake forever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Source : J. Keats, « Keats's Last Sonnet » (full text on Wikisource).

Pour bien lire ce document :

steadfast: constant ; aloft: en haut ; Eremite: ermite ; ablution: purification ; swoon: s'évanouir.

Activité 1 · Understand

12 min
Essentiel

Supports : Document 1

Consigne :

Read the sonnet and answer in English.

  1. What quality of the star does the poet envy?
  2. What does the star watch in lines 5 to 8?
  3. Where does the poet want to be forever?

Ce qui est attendu (6 pts) : Comprehension

Activité 2 · Interpret

18 min
Approfondissement

Supports : Documents of the two lessons

Consigne :

Write a paragraph (about 180 words): « Brontë and Keats both express a love that refuses time. » Compare the two texts.

Ce qui est attendu (8 pts) : Written production

Activité 3 · Translate

15 min
Travail à rendre

Supports : Document 1

Consigne :

Translate into French « Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art ».

Ce qui est attendu (6 pts) : Translation

Trace écrite · document à compléter (papier ou ENT)

Complète la trace écrite avec les mots de la banque, puis recopie-la dans ton cahier.

apostrophedeathsteadfastunrest

« Bright star » opens with an __________. The poet wants to be « _________ » like the star, but not alone. The oxymoron « sweet ______ » expresses passion; the poem ends with « live ever, or else swoon to ______ ».

Fiche à trous · je complète

Complète le texte avec les mots de la banque (sur papier ou dans le document de l'ENT).

deathfoliageHeathcliffsteadfast

Catherine says: « Nelly, I am __________ »; her love for Linton is like the _______, her love for Heathcliff like « the eternal rocks beneath ».

Keats wishes to be « _________ » like the star.

The sonnet ends: « And so live ever, or else swoon to ______ ».

Ce que j'ai appris

Les 3 idées que je retiens :
Une phrase en anglais que je veux retenir :
Ce qui reste difficile pour moi / ma question pour le professeur :