The document outlines an English literature class discussing the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and his poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade." It also covers a lecture on Charles Dickens and his novella A Christmas Carol, with a focus on Dickens' use of literature for social commentary. Students are assigned readings from Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Coventry Patmore for homework.

1. ELIT 46C: Class 3
Alfred Lord Tennyson
“The Charge of the Light Brigade”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S93lvQ4Ukg8
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, detail of an oil
painting by Samuel Laurence, c. 1840
BORN August 6, 1809
DIED October 6, 1892 (aged 83)

2. Agenda
 The Chair Poet
 Lecture: Social Commentary,
Charles Dickens, A Christmas
Carol, and The Chimes
 Discussion
• A Summary Activity
• Discussion Questions
• QHQS
 Author Presentation:
• Christina Rossetti
• Robert Browning

3. Chair Poet of the Day?
 The first time I taught a literature class, a student
spontaneously recited “The Red Wheelbarrow” while
standing on a chair. From that came the idea of a
chair poet. A chair poet earns one extra participation
point for each two lines of poetry she or he recites
(up to 10 points), for each member of his or her
group.
In our text, you can find many appropriate poems to memorize. Likewise, on
the website, you will find links to short English poems. You can use any one of
those. Simply commit the poem to memory; it would be great if you could
also provide a very brief summary of the poet’s life (who she is, where he is
from, and some context for the poem. You don’t need to memorize that part.
Each day from now until the end of the quarter I will ask if we have a chair
poet. All you have to do is raise your hand. I will take one or two a day. If
there are multiple volunteers, we will schedule them for the next sessions. (If
you feel unsafe standing on a chair, you can come to the front of the room).

4. Charles Dickens and
Social Commentary
Dickens was not only the first great urban novelist in England, but also one of the most
important social commentators who used fiction to criticize economic, social, and moral
concerns during his life. He used his work to launch discussion about moral and social
reform.
Dickens’s deep social commitment and awareness of social abuses likely come from
traumatic childhood experiences, in particular when his father was put in Debtors’ Prison,
and he, at the age of twelve, worked in a shoe-blacking factory.
Through his literature, Dickens contributed significantly to the emergence of public
opinion. Indirectly, he contributed to a series of legal reforms, including the abolition of
debtors prison, purification of the courts, a better management of criminal prisons, and the
restriction of the capital punishment.

5. The Five Christmas Books and
stories published in periodicals
 17 December 1843: A Christmas Carol (Chapman and
Hall)
 16 December 1844: The Chimes (Bradbury and Evans)
 20 December 1845: The Cricket on the Hearth
 19 December 1846: The Battle of Life
 19 December 1848: The Haunted Man (series
concluded).

6. Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
The first edition of A Christmas Carol, released on December
19, 1843, sold out almost immediately; its publisher returned
to press no fewer than eight times within the first six months.
Scholar-bibliographer Ruth Glancy has traced how this tale, “a
truly popular work which is undeniably a masterpiece as well,”
has both charmed and confounded readers and scholars ever
since.
Dickens intended A Christmas Carol as a vehicle to stimulate
the social consciousness of the complacent upper and middle
classes with respect to the desperate need for social reforms in
the Hungry Forties (1840s).
A Christmas Carol led a nineteenth-century Boston factory
owner to give his workers a day off from work as well as free
turkeys. The tale inspired the creation of a welfare campaign
to provide “Tiny Tim” cots to children in need. It’s the story
that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt read to his family
each winter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyqDtP3iN9g

7. Reading his second ”Christmas Story” is another way of recapturing
something of the spirit in which Dickens wrote. Since we have done
that, let’s take 10 minutes to create a one minute outline of The
Chimes, a bittersweet sequel to A Christmas Carol.

8.  Much of the point of Dickens's social critique and
political satire is lost on us because for its effectiveness,
satire relies upon an intimate knowledge of the people
and conditions satirized; although we may recall that
1847 was the height of the Irish Potato Famine, which
drove so many Irish to North America, most of us are
unacquainted with the dire distress of the working poor
in The Hungry Forties
 The book brought Dickens precisely what he had hoped: initial
sales of 20,000 copies, a substantial profit, and a widespread
public debate about the issues that The Chimes had raised.
No book was more hotly disputed in the press at the time
since in it "Dickens is clearly placing the blame for the
frequency of behavior such as prostitution, infanticide, and
suicide by the poor on society's failure to help those who
desperately need help" (Thomas 43).

9. Trotty Veck and
his daughter
entertains
guests. — 'The
Chimes' (53),
drawn by London
commercial artist
Fred Pegram
(1870-1937),
appeared as part
of a tea
advertisement as
one in a series of
"tea parties in
Dickens."

10. The second is one of a
series of reproductions
of Punch illustrator
Frank Reynolds (1876-
1953). The whiskey
manufacturers between
1925 and 1930 released
a promotional portfolio
of thirteen well-
beloved characters plus
a likeness of Dickens
himself and companion
pictures of the Old
Black Swan distillery
itself in the eighteenth
century (1790) and the
early twentieth century
(1913):
Advertising in Dickens." The
Dickensian (1929): 53-54.

11. Scene from The Chimes, at the Adelphi Theatre. Drawn by Kenny Meadows. The Illustrated
London News Saturday, 11 January 1845, p. 29.

12. Groups
Back into your Groups! Take a few minutes
to review the discussion questions and your
QHQS

13. Discussion Questions
1. Many of Dickens’ protagonists and antagonists are outcasts of some
sort. How does not fitting in shape character? How does the need to
belong influence Toby/Trotty? What makes the feeling of belonging in
society such a powerful draw?
2. Identify the crimes and injustices that take place in Chimes, A Goblin
Story. What are some of the evidences of poverty in the story? What
does Dickens mean for the reader to take away from this story?
3. Compare and/or contrast this story with A Christmas Carol. Push past
the obvious. Make sure to include textual evidence to support your
claims. What Victorian influences can you identify in this story? Make
sure to include textual evidence to support your claims
4. Trotty is seemingly the hero of this story, yet it is he who is
summoned to the tower. What is Trotty’s crime? Why have the the
spirits' goblin helpers and then the spirits of the bells themselves
beckoned him? What is his lesson?

14. QHQs
1. Q: Is the super natural activity in Chimes, A Goblin Story, Dicken’s
method of hearkening back to older times and ancient tradition?
2. Q: If, then, the cause of Trotty's loss of faith in humanity has
stemmed from his suppression and delusion via the wealthy in this
society, why have the spirits chosen to punish him? Are the wealthy
characters (such as Mr. Filer, Sir Joseph, and Alderman Cute)
unchangeable in the eyes of the spirits? Why do they not seem to be
held accountable?
3. Q: In what ways does the main character, Toby Veck, symbolize the
Bells/Chimes he is so fond of?
4. What role does the wind play in the narrative?
5. Q: Why is it so difficult to find the patience to invest myself in non-
contemporary literature?

15. Author Presentations
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was a prolific Victorian-era
poet and playwright. He is widely recognized
as a master of dramatic monologue and
psychological portraiture. Browning is
perhaps best-known for a poem he didn’t
value highly, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a
children's poem that is quite different from
his other work. He is also known for his long
form blank poem The Ring and the Book, the
story of a Roman murder trial in 12 books.
Browning was married to the poet Elizabeth
Barrett Browning.
1812-1889

16. Author Presentations
Coventry Patmore
Coventry Patmore is one of those Victorian
authors those whose lives intrigued
contemporary and modern readers just as
much as their work. Raised in a literary
household, known from his youth to nearly
all of the great poets and essayists of his
time, this poetic advocate of religion and
marriage was in fact married three times
and became a follower of more than one
faith. He published a vast novel in verse,
telling the story of two marriages, beginning
in the 1850s with The Angel in the
House, consisting of The Betrothal (1854)
and The Espousals (1856), and continuing
with The Victories of Love (1863), consisting
of Faithful for Ever (1860) and The Victories
of Love (1863).
1823-1896

17. Author Presentations
Christina Rossetti
1830-1894
Christina Rossetti is one of the most important of
English women poets both in range and quality. She
excelled in works of fantasy, in poems for children,
and in religious poetry.
Christina was the sister of the painter-poet Dante
Gabriel Rossetti. In 1847 her grandfather printed on his
private press a volume of her Verses, in which signs of
poetic talent are already visible.
In 1871 Christina was stricken by Graves’ disease, a
thyroid disorder that marred her appearance and left
her life in danger. She accepted her affliction with
courage and resignation, sustained by religious faith,
and she continued to publish. Rossetti was considered
a possible successor to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as poet
laureate, but she developed a fatal cancer in 1891.

18. Homework
Assigned Reading:
 Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”
1282
 Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”
1496
 Coventry Patmore, from “The Angel
in the House” 1613
Suggested Reading
 Christina Rossetti, “In an Artist’s
Studio”1493
 Mill, “The Subjection of Women”
1104
HW: Discussion Question #3