CHAPTER 3: ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN LITERATURE

LESSON 1: Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

LESSON OUTCOMES:
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to attain the following:
a. identify the addressee of the speaker;
b. give their interpretation of the sonnet; and
c. relate Shakespearean love with today’s dating scene

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is of course best known as the writer of sonnets and of
plays, but he also wrote lyrics for songs in some of the plays. The following two lyrics are sung
at the end of an early comedy, Love’s Labor’s Lost. (No early settings are known for these
songs.) Conflict is essential in drama, and in these two poems we get a sort of melodious
conflict, a song in praise of spring, juxtaposed against a song in praise of winter. But notice that
within each song there are elements of conflict.

Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

ASSESSMENT
Directions: Have fun answering the following questions.
1. Review the last two powerful lines of the sonnet. Does this poem necessarily keep living
so long as humans keep breathing? Is the speaker right?

2. Pick one line or more from Shakespeare’s sonnet. Only your favorite line or lines.
Describe what makes the line/s you’ve chosen special – did it trigger any emotions, do
you like how it’s worded out? You are free to associate it with anything.

3. This sonnet is obviously about love. Imagine someone reading this sonnet in front of you
on Valentine’s Day. They’re expressing how you’re more lovely and more temperate
than a summer’s day. Do you think, with that poem, they can earn your heart? Why do
you think so?
LESSON 2: I Used to Live Here Once by Jean Rhys

LESSON OUTCOMES:
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to attain the following:
a. retell the story in their own words;
b. identify he tone of the story; and
c. analyze details that paints the theme of the story

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“Jean Rhys” was the pseudonym used by Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams (1890–1979). She
was born in the West Indies, in Dominica (at that time a British colony), and educated there and
in England. After a term at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts she joined a touring musical
company, married a man who was soon convicted of illegal financial dealings, divorced, lived
with the writer Ford Madox Ford, and married twice again. Much of this experience found its way
into the stories and novels she began to publish in 1927. After the publication in 1939 of a novel
called Good Morning, Midnight, she published nothing until 1966, when another novel, The
Wide Sargasso Sea, again brought her to public attention. This book is a retelling of Charlotte
Brontë’s Jane Eyre, from the point of view of Rochester’s first wife, the madwoman confined to
the attic. The fact that Rhys’s most common theme is the maltreatment by a man of a sensitive
woman doubtless explains part of the revival of interest in her work, but she was by no means
limited to that theme, as the following story indicates. In addition to writing stories and five
novels, she wrote Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography (1979).

I Used to Live Here

Jean Rhys

She was standing by the river looking at the stepping stones and remembering each one. There
was the round unsteady stone, the pointed one, the flat one in the middle—the safe stone where
you could stand and look round. The next wasn’t so safe for when the river was full the water
flowed over it and even when it showed dry it was slippery. But after that it was easy and soon
she was standing on the other side.

The road was much wider than it used to be but the work had been done carelessly. The felled
trees had not been cleared away and the bushes looked trampled. Yet it was the same road and
she walked along feeling extraordinarily happy.

It was a fine day, a blue day. The only thing was that the sky had a glassy look that she didn’t
remember. That was the only word she could think of. Glassy. She turned the corner, saw that
what had been the old pave had been taken up, and there too the road was much wider, but it
had the same unfinished look.

She came to the worn stone steps that led up to the house and her heart began to beat. The
screw pine was gone, so was the mock summer house called the ajoupa, but the clove tree was
still there and at the top of the steps the rough lawn stretched away, just as she remembered it.
She stopped and looked towards the house that had been added to and painted white. It was
strange to see a car standing in front of it.

There were two children under the big mango tree, a boy and a little girl, and she waved to them
and called “Hello” but they didn’t answer her or turn their heads. Very fair children, as
Europeans born in the West Indies so often are: as if the white blood is asserting itself against
all odds.

The grass was yellow in the hot sunlight as she walked towards them. When she was quite
close she called again shyly: “Hello.” Then, “I used to live here once,” she said.

Still they didn’t answer. When she said for the third time “Hello” she was quite near them. Her
arms went out instinctively with the longing to touch them. It was the boy who turned. His grey
eyes looked straight into hers. His expression didn’t change. He said: “Hasn’t it gone cold all of
a sudden. D’you notice? Let’s go in.” “Yes let’s,” said the girl. Her arms fell to her sides as she
watched them running across the grass to the house. That was the first time she knew.

ASSESMENT
Directions: Have fun answering the following questions:
1. What do you think is the story all about?

2. Observe the way the story is written. What do you think is the general feeling you get
after reading? Do you think the way you’re feeling could be because of the way the
author wrote it? Elaborate.

3. What do you make out of the following details: (a) “glassy” sky; and (b) “Hasn’t it gone
cold all of a sudden. D’you notice?”

4. “That was the first time she knew.” Knew what exactly?

LESSON 3: Mademoiselle by Guy de Maupassant

LESSON OUTCOMES:
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to attain the following:
a. understand how character development works; and
b. criticize how gender is viewed from the society of the story’s setting with today’s society

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) was born in Dieppe, France. (In speaking of him by his last
name only, the name is Maupassant, not de Maupassant.) He studied law briefly, served in the
Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and then lived in Paris, where he met such distinguished
writers as Émile Zola and Gustave Flaubert. Maupassant for a time worked as a civil servant,
but he resigned his job in 1880 when he published (in an anthology edited by Zola) the first of
his two hundred or so stories. He had meanwhile contracted syphilis, which in later years
affected his mind. He attempted suicide in 1891 and was confined to an asylum, where he died
two years later.

Mademoiselle
Guy de Maupassant
English Translation by Jane Saretta
He had been registered under the names of Jean Marie Mathieu Valot, but he was never called
anything but “Mademoiselle.” He was the village simpleton, but not one of those wretched,
ragged simpletons who live on public charity. He lived comfortably on a small income which his
mother had left him, and which his guardian paid him regularly, and so he was rather envied
than pitied. And then, he was not one of those idiots with wild looks and the manners of an
animal, for he was by no means unattractive, with his half-open lips and smiling eyes, and
especially in his constant make-up in female dress. For he dressed like a girl, and thus showed
how little he objected to being called Mademoiselle.

And why should he not like the nickname which his mother had given him affectionately, when
he was a mere child, so delicate and weak, and with a fair complexion—poor little diminutive lad
not as tall as many girls of the same age? It was in pure love that, in his earlier years, his
mother whispered that tender Mademoiselle to him, while his old grandmother, used to say
jokingly:

“The fact is, as for his male equipment, it’s really not worth mentioning— no offense to God in
saying so.” And his grandfather, who was equally fond of a joke, used to add: “I only hope it
won’t disappear as he grows up.”

And they treated him as if he had really been a girl and coddled him, the more so as they were
very prosperous and did not have to worry about making ends meet.

When his mother and grandparents were dead, Mademoiselle was almost as happy with his
paternal uncle, an unmarried man, who had carefully attended the simpleton and who had
grown more and more attached to him by dint of looking after him; and the worthy man
continued to call Jean Marie Mathieu Valot, Mademoiselle.

He was called so in all the country round as well, not with the slightest intention of hurting his
feelings, but, on the contrary, because all thought they would please the poor gentle creature
who harmed nobody by his behavior.

The very street boys meant no harm by it, accustomed as they were to call the tall idiot in a
frock and cap by the nickname; but it would have struck them as very extraordinary, and would
have led them to crude jokes, if they had seen him dressed like a boy.

Mademoiselle, however, took care of that, for his dress was as dear to him as his nickname. He
delighted in wearing it, and, in fact, cared for nothing else, and what gave it a particular zest was
that he knew that he was not a girl, and that he was living in disguise. And this was evident by
the exaggerated feminine bearing and walk he put on, as if to show that it was not natural to
him. His enormous, carefully arranged cap was adorned with large variegated ribbons. His
petticoat, with numerous flounces, was distended behind by many hoops. He walked with short
steps, and with exaggerated swaying of the hips, while his folded arms and crossed hands were
distorted into pretensions of comical coquetry.

On such occasions, if anybody wished to make friends with him, it was necessary to say:

“Ah! Mademoiselle, what a nice girl you make.”

That put him into a good humor, and he used to reply, much pleased:

“Don’t I? But people can see I only do it for a joke.”

But, nevertheless, when they were dancing at village festivals in the neighborhood, he would
always be invited to dance as Mademoiselle, and would never ask any of the girls to dance with
him; and one evening when somebody asked him the reason for this, he opened his eyes wide,
laughed as if the man had said something stupid, and replied:

“I cannot ask the girls, because I am not dressed like a boy. Just look at my dress, you fool!”

As his interrogator was a judicious man, he said to him:

“Then dress like one, Mademoiselle.”

He thought for a moment, and then said with a cunning look:

“But if I dress like a boy, I won’t be a girl anymore, and then I am a girl,” and he shrugged his
shoulders as he said it.

But the remark seemed to make him think.

For some time afterward, when he met the same person, he would ask
him abruptly:

“If I dress like a boy, will you still call me Mademoiselle?”

“Of course, I will,” the other replied. “You will always be called so.”

The simpleton appeared delighted, for there was no doubt that he thought more of his nickname
than he did of his dress, and the next day he made his appearance in the village square, without
his petticoats and dressed as a man. He had taken a pair of trousers, a coat, and a hat from his
guardian’s closet. This created quite a disturbance in the neighborhood, for the people who had
been in the habit of smiling at him kindly when he was dressed as a woman, looked at him in
astonishment and almost in fear, while the indulgent could not help laughing, and visibly making
fun of him.

The involuntary hostility of some, and the too evident ridicule of others, the disagreeable
surprise of all, were too palpable for him not to see it, and to be hurt by it, and it was still worse
when a street urchin said to him in a jeering voice, as he danced round him:

“Oh! oh! Mademoiselle, you wear trousers! Oh! oh! Mademoiselle!”

And it grew worse and worse, when a whole band of these vagabonds were on his heels,
hooting and yelling after him, as if he had been somebody in a masquerading dress during the
Carnival.

It was quite certain that the unfortunate creature looked more in disguise now than he had
formerly. By dint of living like a girl, and by even exaggerating the feminine walk and manners,
he had totally lost all masculine looks and ways. His smooth face, his long flax-like hair, required
a cap with ribbons, and became a caricature under the high stove-pipe hat of the old doctor, his
grandfather.
Mademoiselle’s shoulders, and especially his swelling stern, danced about wildly in this old-
fashioned coat and wide trousers. And nothing was as funny as the contrast between his odd
dress and delicate walk, the winning way he used his head, and the elegant movements of his
hands, with which he fanned himself like a girl.

Soon the older lads and girls, the old women, men of ripe age and even the Judicial Councilor,
joined the little brats, and hooted Mademoiselle, while the astonished fellow ran away, and
rushed into the house with terror. There he put both hands to his poor head, and tried to
comprehend the matter. Why were they angry with him? For it was quite evident that they were
angry with him. What wrong had he done, and whom had he injured, by dressing as a boy? Was
he not a boy, after all? For the first time in his life, he felt a horror for his nickname, for had he
not been insulted through it? But immediately he was seized with a horrible doubt.

“Suppose that, after all, I am a girl?”

He wanted to ask his guardian about it but he was reluctant to do so, for he somehow felt,
although only obscurely, that he, worthy man, might not tell him the truth, out of kindness. And,
besides, he preferred to find out for himself, without asking anyone.

All his idiot’s cunning, which had been lying latent up till then, because he never had any
occasion to make use of it, now came out and urged him to a solitary and dark action.

The next day he dressed himself as a girl again, and made his appearance as if he had
perfectly forgotten his escapade of the day before, but the people, especially the street boys,
had not forgotten it. They looked at him sideways, and, even the best of them, could not help
smiling, while the little blackguards ran after him and said:

“Oh! oh! Mademoiselle, you were wearing pants!”

But he pretended not to hear, or even to guess what they were alluding to. He seemed as happy
and glad to look about him as he usually did, with half-open lips and smiling eyes. As usual, he
wore an enormous cap with variegated ribbons, and the same large petticoats; he walked with
short, mincing steps, swaying and wriggling his hips and gesticulating like a coquette, and licked
his lips when they called him Mademoiselle, while really he would have liked to have jumped at
the throats of those who called him so.

Days and months passed, and by degrees people forgot all about his strange escapade. But he
had never left off thinking about it, or trying to find out—for which he was always on the alert—
how he could ascertain his qualities as a boy, and how to assert them victoriously. Really
innocent, he had reached the age of twenty without knowing anything or without ever having
any natural impulse, but being tenacious of purpose, curious and dissembling, he asked no
questions, but observed all that was said and done.

Often at their village dances, he had heard young fellows boasting about girls whom they had
seduced, and girls praising such and such a young fellow, and often, also, after a dance, he saw
the couples go away together, with their arms round each other’s waists. They paid no attention
to him, and he listened and watched, until, at last, he discovered what was going on.

And then, one night, when dancing was over, and the couples were going away with their arms
round each other’s waists, a terrible screaming was heard at the corner of the woods through
which those going to the next village had to pass. It was Josephine, pretty Josephine, and when
her screams were heard, they ran to her assistance, and arrived only just in time to rescue her,
half strangled, from Mademoiselle’s clutches.

The idiot had watched her and had thrown himself upon her in order to treat her as the other
young fellows did the girls, but she resisted him so stoutly that he took her by the throat and
squeezed it with all his might until she could not breathe, and was nearly dead.

In rescuing Josephine from him, they had thrown him on the ground, but he jumped up again
immediately, foaming at the mouth and slobbering, and exclaimed:

“I am not a girl any longer, I’m a man, I’m a man, I tell you.”

ASSESSMENT
Directions: Have fun answering the following questions.
1. How would you describe Mademoiselle?

2. What do you think made Mademoiselle decide to “not be a girl any longer” and be a
man?

3. Get into the mind of Mademoiselle. Identify the motive of Mademoiselle regarding the
incident with Josephine.

4. Imagine if Mademoiselle was set in today’s time. How will the people treat him? Will it be
the same as in the story, or differently? Elaborate.

LESSON 4: The Little Prince: Chapter 21 by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

LESSON OUTCOMES
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to attain the following:
a. discriminate the traits of the characters of the story;
b. elaborate what “tame” means in the context of the story; and
c. apply the moralistic value of the story in real life

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons on June 29, 1900; he attended Jesuit schools in
France and Switzerland. He was a poor and unruly student but took great interest in the rapidly
developing science of flight. In 1921 he began military service and learned to fly, later being
commissioned as an air force officer. After 3 years in business, Saint-Exupéry became a
commercial pilot in 1926, flying first from France to Morocco and West Africa. From his
experiences he drew the novel that launched his literary career in 1929, Courrier Sud (Southern
Mail). Here he portrays the pilot's solitary struggle against the elements and his sense of
dedication to his vocation, stronger even than love.

The Little Prince: Chapter 21

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw
nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise
chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a
hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no
need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if
you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you,
I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think that she has
tamed me . . ."

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.

"On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on that planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.

But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are
just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame
me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be
different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours
will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I
do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And
that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you
have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I
shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to
discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to
understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop
anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a
friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--
like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing.
Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you
come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel
happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and
jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never
know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . .
."
"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day
different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my
hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for
me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every
day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted
me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he
added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world.
Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and
you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a
hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the
world."

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an
ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me.
But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is
she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is
she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the
caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I
have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the
heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to
remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to
remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become
responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

ASSESSMENT
Directions: Have fun answering the following questions.
1. Between the fox and the Little Prince, who would you choose more as a best friend?
Why?

2. What does “tame” mean according to the Fox?

3. Was the Little Prince able to “tame” the Fox? Why did you say so?

4. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
What is your own interpretation of this? What do you think are those things that only the
heart can see? And why do you think so?

5. Have you ever “tamed” someone? Have you ever been “tamed” by someone? Elaborate.

LESSON 5: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

LESSON OUTCOMES
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to attain the following:
a. determine the rhyme scheme of the poem;
b. analyze the symbolisms depicted in the poem; and
c. reflect on the connection between us and nature similar to the circumstance limned in
the poem;

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Wordsworth (1770–1850), the son of an attorney, grew up in the Lake District of
England. After graduating from Cambridge University in 1791, he spent a year in France, falling
in love with a French girl, with whom he had a daughter. His enthusiasm for the French
Revolution waned, and he returned alone to England, where, with the help of a legacy, he
devoted his life to poetry. With his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in 1798 he published
anonymously a volume of poetry, Lyrical Ballads, which changed the course of English poetry.
In 1799 he and his sister Dorothy settled in Grasmere in the Lake District, where he married and
was given the office of distributor of stamps. In 1843 he was appointed poet laureate.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

ASSESSMENT
Directions: Have fun answering the following question.
1. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?

2. What does the speaker mean about the daffodils?

3. What is a cloud lonely? What could the speaker mean when he says about this?

4. Do you believe that everyone has an “inward eye?”

5. Have you ever made an observation that caused you to feel the type of connection to
nature that the speaker feels? Explain.