Lesson video

Hello, thank you very much for joining me, I'm Mr. Blackburn.

Today we're going to be looking at the life and times of a Romantic poet called Charlotte Smith before we move on to read one of her poems, "To a Nightingale." Before we start, you'll need to find a pen and paper, you'll need to make sure that you've turned off any notifications or anything which might distract you, and if you can, you'll need to try and find somewhere quiet to work.

Once you've done all that, let's get started.

What are we going to be doing today? We'll begin by introducing ourselves to Charlotte Smith, and learning some things about her life and the times that she was writing in.

Then, we'll read her poem titled "To A Nightingale." After that, we'll consider some of the aspects of a form of poetry called a sonnet before giving you the chance to recap all of the knowledge that you've learned today.

Let's begin by learning about Charlotte Smith.

Charlotte Smith was born in 1749 and she was one of the original romantic writers.

Along with some other writers at the time, she helped to define what we now know as Gothic literature.

So if you've read things like "Frankenstein" or "Jekyll And Hyde," you have read Gothic literature and Charlotte Smith is somewhat responsible for making the rules that decides whether a piece of literature is Gothic or not.

Charlotte Smith was married to a man called Benjamin Smith, and together they had 12 children, although two of them died very young.

However, the marriage between Charlotte and Benjamin Smith was an unhappy one and Charlotte Smith took the decision that she had to leave the marriage and she took all of her children with her.

Smith used her writing to make money in order to support herself and her children.

Like other Romantic poets, lots of Smith's writing is often about nature.

Although Smith's writing focuses on the way that she feels imprisoned and trapped in her own life, and then contrasts that with the freedom that nature promises.

Because of this, lots of Smith's writing is quite sad.

But in contrast to this sadness, Smith did use her writing to try and campaign for more rights for women.

At the time that Smith was writing, women had fewer rights than they do today and Smith was arguing that women should have equal rights to men.

She especially was concerned with the rights of unmarried women.

I think it's time for a quiz.

So true or false? Smith was born in 1749.

Three, two, one, that's true.

She was born in 1749.

True or false? Smith wrote the Gothic novel "Frankenstein." Three, two, one, that's false.

Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein," but Smith helped to define what makes a piece of literature Gothic.

Smith and her husband had 10 children.

True or false? Three, two, one, that's false, they had 12 children although two died very young.

Smith left her husband and made money by writing.

True or false? Three, two, one, that's true.

She left her husband and supported her family by writing.

Much of Smith's writing is about the freedom that she enjoys in life.

Three, two, one, that's false.

Much of Smith's writing is about how trapped she feels in her life contrasted against the freedom which nature promises to others.

Smith fought for women to have more rights in society.

True or false? Three, two, one, that's true.

She was fighting for women to have more rights, especially unmarried women.

Before we go any further, it's important that we discuss what we mean by women's rights.

Nowadays, most women have the same rights as men.

However, when Charlotte Smith was writing, this wasn't true.

So for example, women didn't have a choice in career other than to stay at home and look after the children.

Women were seen as less important than men, women didn't have the right to vote, and lots of female authors had to write using a fake name for fear that they wouldn't be taken seriously if they used their real name.

This denial of rights that Smith was arguing against is a form of oppression and we know that the romantics argued against oppression in lots of their writing.

So this is a particular form of oppression, which Charlotte Smith was particularly engaged with when she was writing.

Now that you know some things about Charlotte Smith, it's time for you to write yourself a mini biography.

What I'd like you to do is copy out these sentences, filling in the missing words.

Pause the video while you do it.

Once you're done, come back and we'll check your answers.

Welcome back.

Here is how your answers should look.

Charlotte Smith belongs to the original generation of romantic writers.

Smith helped to define the Gothic genre of literature.

Like other romantic writers, Smith's poetry was often about nature.

Smith used her writing to provide for her family, and women did not have the right to vote.

Women were expected to take care of the children and the house, they didn't have a choice to try anything else, and women were seen as less important than men.

Your answers for number five might look slightly different, and that's okay, but if you got any of those answers wrong or missed any out, now is the time to fill them in.

Now we're going to read Charlotte Smith's poem called "To A Nightingale." But before we go any further, I want you to think about what a nightingale might symbolise.

What is important about the nightingale in the poem? Well, a nightingale is a small songbird with a sweet and usually uplifting song.

And looking at those pictures, look how tiny that bird is.

Using those pictures, I want you to write down three words which you might use to describe a nightingale.

So pause the video for just a couple of seconds and write down three words.

Here's mine, fragile, sweet and harmless.

Now, why is it important that we can describe a nightingale this way? Perhaps it's because the nightingale represents Charlotte Smith.

Perhaps Charlotte Smith is a fragile, sweet, and a harmless person who feels the same way as the nightingale in the poem.

Let's read the poem and see if you agree.

"Poor melancholy bird, that all night long "Tell'st to the moon thy tale of tender woe; "From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow, "And whence this mournful melody of song? "Thy poet's musing fancy would translate "What mean the sounds that swell thy little breast, "When still at dewy eve thou leav'st thy nest, "Thus to the listening night to sing thy fate.

"Pale Sorrow's victims wert thou once among, "Though now released in woodlands wild to rove; "Say, hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong, "Or diedst thou - martyr of disastrous love? "Ah, songstress sad, that such my lot might be; "To sigh and sing at liberty, like thee!" So is Charlotte Smith, fragile, sweet and harmless as she presents the nightingale to be here? Well, I think yes, and the big clue is in the last couplet, the last two lines.

"Songstress sad, that such my lot might be; "To sigh and sing at liberty, like thee!" She wants the freedom that the nightingale has, that she doesn't feel she has in her own life.

So maybe she is fragile, sweet and harmless.

Now, how would you describe the tone of this poem? Would you say that it was a sad poem? Would you say that it was a joyful poem? Or would you say that it was an angry poem? You can always pause and have another read if you want.

But I want you to pick one of those.

Three, two, one.

If you said that the tone of the poem was sad, then you were correct, well done.

And if you remember, earlier in the lesson, I told you that lots of Charlotte Smith's writing was about her sadness.

What we're going to do now is try and decipher the rhyme scheme of this poem.

Now a rhyme scheme is just which lines rhyme with which other lines.

You might have done this before, you might not have done, so we're going to go through it very slowly.

And what we're looking for is which words at the end of lines rhyme with which other words.

They might be spelt different, they might look different on the page, but if they have the same sound, then they rhyme.

What we're going to do is start by labelling the first line A.

We're looking for the next line in the poem which ends with a word that rhymes with long.

Does the second line rhyme with it? "Tell'st to the moon thy tale of tender woe"? No.

What about the third line that ends with flow, does that rhyme? No.

What about the fourth line, "And whence this mournful melody of song?" Ah, yes, that one rhymes.

So we're also going to label that one A.

So we have two A's.

Next, we're going to look at the second line.

That ends in the word woe.

And we're going to label that B.

And because flow rhymes with woe, we label that B as well.

Now you'll notice that they don't have the same spelling pattern, they look different on the page, but the sound they make is the same and that's how we decide what rhymes and what doesn't.

Okay, the next line which has a different sound is the one which ends in translate.

So the last sound in that line is late or ate.

So we're looking for the next line which rhymes with that sound.

Take a few seconds and see if you can find the word that rhymes with that.

Three, two, one.

So you should have said, "Thus to the listening night to sing thy fate." So so far, our rhyme scheme is ABBAC, something something C.

The next line which has a different sound is "What mean the sounds that swell thy little breast," and we're going to label that D.

Which other line are we going to label D? Three, two, one.

So you should have said, nest.

I've gone ahead for you and I've labelled the lines which we're going to call E.

"Pale Sorrow's victims wert thou once among," which rhymes with wrong.

Maybe not so much in the way that we speak nowadays, but perhaps it rhymed better when Charlotte Smith wrote it.

So ABBACDDCE, something E something.

"Though now released in woodlands wild to rove; "Or diedst thou - martyr of disastrous love?" Hmm, well again, they don't quite rhyme in the way that we speak but perhaps they did when Charlotte Smith was writing.

So we're going to go ahead and label those lines F.

So our rhyme scheme so far goes ABBACDDCEFEF.

"Ah, songstress sad, that such my lot might be; "To sigh and sing at liberty, like thee!" Well what do we notice about those two lines? Be and thee rhyme.

So we're going to label those G's.

So to recap, what we've done is we've thought about the sound which each line ends with.

We've labelled each sound with a letter.

And then we've found where there's a rhyme for those elsewhere in the poem.

Woe and flow, spelt differently but sound the same.

ABBACDDCEFEFGG.

Now, we can split this poem up into two different sections, one of eight lines long, and one of six lines long and the way that we split it is by thinking about the content of those sections.

Now, the first section which is eight lines long and is called an octave is all about the nightingale and how sad it must be and how lonely it must be.

The second section of the poem, which is six lines long and is called a sestet is Charlotte Smith thinking about why the bird is sad.

So the first one is telling us that the nightingale is sad, the second section is about why the nightingale is sad.

And if you've come across the word octave before, perhaps you've encountered it in music, where it means eight notes apart, here, it just means a section of eight lines.

And it's important that we recognise firstly, the rhyme scheme, and secondly, the structure of the poem because it will help us identify what type of poem it is.

Which leads me nicely on to what is a sonnet? You may have come across sonnets before, you may not have encountered them before.

If you have encountered a sonnet, then here's a reminder and if you've never heard of a sonnet, then here's what they are.

A sonnet is just a form of poetry, and all a form of poetry means is what type of poem is it? So if you think of music, there are lots of different genres.

Am I listening to classical music, am I listening to pop music, am I listening to rock music? And poetry is the same, there are lots of different types.

So it might be a ballad, or an ode, or a narrative poem, or in this case, a sonnet.

How do we identify a sonnet? Well, they have sets of strict rules.

The first is that they have 14 lines.

The second is that they usually follow a very strict rhyme scheme.

The third is that they're written in a particular kind of metre, and if you don't know what metre is, it means the rhythm of the poem.

And the fourth rule is that there's a turning point, which we call a volta, a point of change.

So let's think about Smith's "To A nightingale." Well, that had 14 lines.

Did it follow a strict rhyme scheme? Yes, it did, and we worked that out together.

Did it follow a strict metre? Yes, it did.

I didn't tell you at the time, but it did.

Was there an obvious turning point, was there a volta? Yes, there was.

The poem went from telling us how sad the bird is to thinking about why the bird is sad.

So maybe that was the point of change.

Now, there are two types of sonnet.

Well, there are more but there are two main types of sonnet.

One is called the Shakespearean sonnet, one is called the Petrarchan sonnet.

Now, the Petrarchan sonnet, which is what to a nightingale is a version of is usually written in a metre called iambic pentameter.

If you've ever studied Shakespeare before, you might recognise iambic pentameter, because that's the metre that Shakespeare writes in.

It means that there are five pairs of syllables.

It has a very specific rhyme scheme, but you might notice that Smith uses a slightly different rhyme scheme to the standard Petrarchan rhyme scheme.

Maybe that's on purpose, maybe she didn't want to feel trapped by the conventions of a Petrarchan sonnet.

Maybe she wanted to be free.

It's usually written in one octave, and one sestet.

Well, that's exactly how we divided up "To A Nightingale," and the volta is usually on line nine, and that's where we found it as well.

Now, you might notice that Smith's sonnet doesn't fulfil all of the rules of a Petrarchan sonnet.

It is split into an octave and sestet, but the rhyme scheme is closer to a Shakespearean sonnet.

The reason behind this is that Charlotte Smith didn't really write in either a Shakespearean or a Petrarchan form, she made her own hybrid form of the both of them.

But for the purposes of this lesson, we're going to assume that this is an example of a Petrarchan sonnet.

Excellent work so far, here's what I'd like you to do now.

I'd like you to copy out this paragraph onto your piece of paper and fill in the missing words.

The missing words are at the bottom of your screen.

Pause the video and come back when you're finished to check that you've got the correct answers.

And here are the correct answers.

A sonnet is a 14 line poem which follows a strict set of rules.

There are two main types of sonnet: Shakespearean and Petrarchan.

A petrarchan sonnet has an octave, an eight line section, and a sestet, a six line section.

Both poems have a turning point, which is called a volta.

Hopefully you got all of those answers right.

If you didn't, then now is your chance to change them.

So what do you know now? Well, I want you to pause this video and complete this activity by answering the questions in full sentences.

What is a sonnet? What type of sonnet is "To A Nightingale"? And what is the tone of the poem? You can write these on your pieces of paper, and then come back when you're finished to see if your answers match mine.

And here are my answers.

What is a sonnet? A sonnet is a 14-line poem, which follows a strict set of rules and you might have gone even further than I did and included what those rules are.

What type of sonnet is "To A Nightingale"? "To A Nightingale" is an example of a Petrarchan sonnet.

And what is the tone of the poem? The tone of the poem is one of melancholy and sadness.

Now you might have slightly different answers to me, but I think this is all of the important information that you need.

So if there's something that I've written, which you haven't, maybe you should add it into your answer now.

Excellent work today everyone, well done for all of your hard work.

Today, we've learned about Charlotte Smith, we've learnt about the times that she was writing in, we've discovered how to label a rhyme scheme, and we know how to identify a sonnet.

What I'd like you to do now is make sure you take the quiz, just to prove how much you've learned this lesson.

Well done for all of your hard work today, goodbye.