Lesson video

Hello.

My name is Mrs. Wilkinson, and I'm an English teacher and today's lesson is going to be about a sonnet called ''Death, be not Proud.

'' And it's by somebody called John Donne.

So he was born a long time ago.

And so today we're going to be finding out all about his life and what might have influenced, his poetry.

And before we do that, I want you to make sure that you're prepared for the lesson, that you have a pen, you have some paper, a ruler and a pencil to underline your titles, and you have a nice quiet space if possible, and you've turned off any devices and any other distractions so that you can focus.

So pause the screen now, if you need to prepare yourself and then we will begin.

So first of all, let's find out what we're going to be learning about in this lesson.

First of all, we're going to find out, who was John Donne.

So John Donne is the poet who wrote this sonnet.

We're going to find out what his life was like because he lived over 400 years ago.

And then we're going to be looking at why religion was so important at that time.

And all of these things are going to help us to understand, why he chose to write about death and why we call this context.

So the context of any text, actually, so it could be a novel poem or even sort of a notification text would be influenced by what was actually happening at the time it was written.

So what influenced the, the man at the time? so who was John Donne? So, as I said, he was born over 400 years ago in the 16th century, he was born in 1572.

So over 400 years ago, that would have been life would be incredibly different.

So imagine yourself there.

So there's no, cars there's, very little technology.

Everything was done by horsepower and by manpower.

So they didn't have cars.

They didn't have things like washing machines in the houses.

They didn't have any phones even then not in, not just mobiles, they didn't have telephones.

So you can imagine the life was quite tricky, quite tough.

And that was actually the 16th century when he was born.

So he was born in the 15 hundreds.

So that's the 16th century.

And then he died in the 17th century.

So that was in the 16 hundreds.

So John Donne was married and he had 12 children.

Unfortunately, five of those children died.

And that wasn't actually uncommon because many people died young in those days because mainly because they didn't have very good understanding about disease and disease control.

So they didn't have childhood immunizations, for example, which you probably all benefit from now.

And also we didn't have things like, antibiotics in those days.

They didn't have them.

So people did die a lot more of infections.

And also, life was just a bit tougher.

It's very hard work.

So people tended to die a bit younger.

So John Donne became a Christian priest in the early 17th century.

So when he was probably in his forties and a priest is somebody who gives sermon.

So he's a preacher.

He preaches sermons in church.

And John Donne was a very important priest because he used to preach at St Paul's cathedral in London.

So he was very influential John Donne wrote religious poetry and they were called the ''Holy Sonnets.

''' And that we are not studying one of the Holy Sonnets today and Death be not Proud.

So thinking about what we've just heard, I want you to in a moment, pause the video and decide which one of these is true.

So pause the video now.

Okay.

So let's see how you got on.

So what I want you to do, is if you think the option is true, I want you to give me a thumbs up.

If you think it's false, I want you to give me a thumbs down.

Okay.

So option one, seven of his children died.

So is that true or false? And obviously that is false.

So it wasn't seven of his children that died.

Was it, it was five.

option two.

He was born in the 17th century.

So give me a thumbs up or thumbs down.

And that is false.

He was actually born in the 16th century.

He wasn't, he was born in 15 hundreds, number three, he was a Christian priest.

Is that true or false? So true.

Well done.

You go back home.

Correct.

And number four, he wrote poems for a living.

So think about for a living there that means to make money, to support your family.

So did he do that for a living true or false? And so his main job was being a priest and he wrote poems for his own benefit and to sort of help him understand things.

So let's move on to look at why religion was so important.

The main reason why religion was so important, was that people believed that God had created the earth.

God created the world and God created all the creatures in the world.

And the book that you see on there on the right hand side, they had the Bible, the Holy Bible explains everything.

So explains of how the world was created in Genesis.

So that's book one and then all the way through the Bible, it tells you about all sorts of things that happened and how they were dealt with.

So you might have heard of Noah and the flood and things like that.

So there's lots of stories in the Bible that kind of helped to explain why things are like they are.

But also the Bible helped us to live.

It gave us rules to live by in our life.

So how to be a good person.

So all the rules were there in the Bible and priests were the interpreters really of the Bible.

And they would then explain everything to everyday person.

So most people couldn't read in those days.

So John Donne being a priest, he would have been able to read.

So he'd have been very learned.

He would have been very knowledgeable and clever.

So what they also believed at that time that when you died, that wasn't the end, there was an afterlife.

So that means life after death and eternal means forever.

So it means it goes on forever.

And what you did in your life on earth, actually decided really what happened to you when you died.

So if you've been good on earth, then you went to Heaven and if you've been bad on earth, then you'd go to Hell.

So we all kind of have an idea of what Heaven and Hell would be like.

So Heaven would be like lovely and pleasant and hell would be horrible and nasty.

So as I already said before, death was everywhere.

So people did die very young.

It was an everyday occurrence.

So Donne wrote his Holy Sonnet, to help people come to terms with religious ideas, such as the eternal afterlife.

And also he would actually have been trying to help people to make the right choices so that they actually went to Heaven.

So in a moment, you're going to pause the video and I want you to have a look at these options, these statements, and then we will go through them.

So pause the video now.

Okay.

So let's have a look.

So let's go to option one.

Most people in England, in the 17th century lived by religious rules.

So a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Yes.

Thumbs up.

People in England in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries all lived by these religious Christian rules.

Option two.

People believe that when you die, you go to Heaven or Hell.

So that those in those times, what did they believe they did? Yes.

They did believe that they believed, after you died you went somewhere else.

Option three.

Donne wanted to frighten people to make them follow the rules of Christianity.

True or false that's a false.

Isn't it? And he didn't really want to frighten people.

He was trying to help people.

People often died of diseases and other causes even when they were young.

So yes, we've worked discussed that quite a lot.

Lots of people died early.

So give yourself some ticks if you've got those ones, right.

Well done.

So let's just get to the meaning of Eternal Afterlife.

So only one of these is correct.

So pause the video now and pick the one that you want to go with And give yourself a tick.

If you went with option three.

when you die, there was another life that goes on.

So we're going to move on to our poem itself now.

So the title of poem is ''Death Be not Proud.

'' So always important to have a good look at the title of a poem because the title gives us clues about what the parents can be about.

Sometimes even sort of almost sums up the ideas in the poem.

So let's first of all start with this section I want you to do is.

I want you to want you to annotate this poem.

So annotate means to look at the actual choices that the poet's made, those particular words that he's made.

And I want you to just make little notes about what he's talking about.

Okay? So we'll say,you can circle things if you like, you can do little arrows, maybe even think about how you might say it today.

When you're looking at a text that is an olden day tanks, right? They say things slightly differently.

Think about how you might say that today.

I make you help you.

It could be easy to understand.

So be not.

How would you say that today? So just pause the video now and just spend five to 10 minutes.

Just thinking about what these words actually mean to you.

So here's a few names that I've made.

So what it looks like to me, it's like, he's saying he's like talking to death, so he's addressing death.

That's that little calmer.

That is like, when you start a letter, isn't it.

So dear James, Yeah.

So as long as like he's addressing death, as if you were to be addressing like, be not proud.

So be not in today's language, you'd say don't be, death don't be.

And then proud kind of means, being really pleased with yourself.

like being a bit of a show off doesn't it? So don't be arrogant.

So that's what it means as well.

So don't be arrogant.

Don't show off.

Don't get too big for your boots.

You press not as important as you thought you were.

So we've actually looked at who John Donne was, his life was like, what was religious too important.

And now what we're going to do, is we're going to think about particularly why he writes about death, those contextual issues that would have influenced him.

So before we do that, I want you to write your definition of context down.

Okay.

So right.

Context, and then your definitions and pause the video now and do that just so that helps you to remember, what we're talking about.

So context was what was happening at the time, the text was written that influences the writer.

So all of those things we've talked about, what his life was like, what his family life was like, what to professional life was like, okay.

So what are you going to do now, is you're going to think about all of those things, drop down the ideas of those contextual factors that may have influenced John Donne to write this poem about that.

Since a few hints down the bottom there, what they believed in, what people believed in generally when he was alive, his personal life, what actually happened to him and his family and his profession.

Yes, he was professional is what he did for a living and the kind of person that he was.

So pause the video now and spend five to 10 minutes, thinking about those contextual factors.

So to finish off our lesson, I want you to actually finish off these sentences.

So you're going to copy them and complete them.

So Donne wrote about death because.

so that's like why he might write about death.

Donne wrote about death but.

so that means a kind of, almost like a contrasting or opposite idea.

And Donne wrote about that about death so.

consequences are a reason.

So come up with three different ideas, make sure you try and explain.

Clearly if you need to check back on the video to recap your ideas, obviously do that.

So give yourself 5 to 10 minutes again, to write these sentences out, try to make sure that they are punctuated correctly.

So using commas, full stops in the right place.

Capital letters and so on.

Okay.

So off you go, let's look about , how you could have completed those sentences that Donne wrote about death because perhaps it was because he was surrounded by death, something from his personal life.

Okay.

So thinking about that, that sort of family, his father, his wife, and five children died young.

So that's explaining something very personal to him.

Some contextual that might have influenced him.

So Donne wrote about death, but he did not believe it was the end.

Okay.

So he didn't believe it was the end because everybody believed in the afterlife and those times didn't they, and he was actually a priest.

So the fact he was a priest is very important.

And so Donne wrote about death so the consequences of reason, why did he do that? No one wrote about death, so that people would not be scared of dying.

So that sort of tells you something about him as a person.

So he was, he was honestly trying to help people.

So have a look at your own work.

See if you've written something similar, make sure that your sentences, read them out loud yourself, make sure they make sense, make sure that you've explained any of your ideas properly.

If you want to go back and amend anything or change anything, we'll have another go do that now, otherwise well done for completing the lesson and all the amazing learning that you've done today.

And hopefully I will see you soon for the next lesson in this series where we will actually start to look at the poem itself and actually do some work on the poem.