1. Tennyson
Godiva
Look at the two images that follow.
What happens when you let your hair
down?
5. Form, Structure
• What kind of verse is used?
• Whose viewpoint frames the whole
narrative?
• From whose viewpoint is the story told?
• How is the poem structured?
6. Language
• How is Leofric initially presented?
• How is Lady Godiva initially presented?
• What stereotypes does Lady Godiva then
violate?
• How does Tennyson validate her course of
action? Consider
– images around light
– focus on hair
– personification of Coventry’s buildings
• What of the conclusion of the poem and the
treatment of ‘Peeping Tom’?
7. Hair
• ‘But if a woman have long hair,
it is a glory to her, for her hair is
given her for acovering’
1.Cor.11.15
• Private made public: hair
normally worn up/in chignon, so
long hair normally only seen in
private, in boudoir, bedchamber
• Hence eroticised when depicted,
long, in visual art.
• Thus supine knight in previous
slide…
– ‘showered the rippled ringlets’
– ‘unclad’, ‘half-dipt’
8. Homework – due Tuesday 6th
November
• Complete at least one of the following:
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Ulysses?
Or
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Godiva?
9. Homework – due Tuesday 6th
November
• Complete at least one of the following:
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Ulysses?
Or
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Godiva?
10. Homework – due Tuesday 6th
November
• Complete at least one of the following:
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Ulysses?
Or
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Godiva?
11. Homework – due Tuesday 6th
November
• Complete at least one of the following:
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Ulysses?
Or
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Godiva?
12. Homework – due Tuesday 6th
November
• Complete at least one of the following:
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Ulysses?
Or
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Godiva?
13. Homework – due Tuesday 6th
November
• Complete at least one of the following:
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Ulysses?
Or
• How does Tennyson tell the story in
Godiva?
Notas del editor
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘Lady Lilith’. His usual model Alexa Wilding I thin.k.
Cowper – La belle dame sans merci Or ‘Wham. Bam. Thank you, m’am.’
Lady Godiva by John Collier, c. 1897 Present this slide as a mystery…where? when? what? who? why? Notable: the horse’s rich caparison, its red colour, her red hair, blush, the idealised mediaeval streetscene, the absence of people, the horse as symbolic of vitality, innocence, presence in public sphere yet in private form (=long hair eroticised, unpinned)
Blank verse; a number of indented verse paragraphs; voice of ‘Tennyson’,