Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts

January 04, 2024

#08-373: Abelard and Heloise

Abelard and Heloise surprised by Master Fulbert (Wikipedia)

Note: This may be the weirdest love story you've ever heard--and it really happened!


Get Ready: What do you think is a fitting punishment for a man who marries a woman against her parents' or guardians' wishes?


September 08, 2023

#08-343: The Phantom of the Opera

Erik--the Phantom--shows his true face as though it were a mask (Wikipedia)

Note: This "haunting" tale of love and madness seems to be perfect for the modern stage, but in fact started out as a French novel over 100 years ago.


Get Ready: How do you think physical deformity (or not) affects a person's mental or moral processes? Is it fair to say "ugly equals evil"? Or "beautiful equals good"?


August 24, 2023

#08-338: The Bayeux Tapestry

Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry (Wikipedia)

Note: The most important date in English history--1066, the year a French count took England as his own--is commemorated in this stunning work of art.


Get Ready: What can art teach us  about history? Can it be trusted?


August 18, 2023

#08-337: The Stranger

A cemetery in Algiers (1899) (Wikimedia)

Note: This story has also been published under the English title, The Outsider--perhaps a better description of the main character's relationship to the world.


Get Ready: How important are other people in your life? Too important? Not important enough? Or just right?


August 26, 2022

#08-235: Puss in Boots, Part II

Puss meets an ogre
(Wikipedia)

Note: As the story continues, we see even more of the cat's cleverness.


Get Ready: Is it okay to get ahead by trickery, if the person you are tricking is a bad person? How about if he is a good person?


August 25, 2022

#08-234: Puss in Boots, Part I

The King introduces the "Marquis of Carabas" to his daughter
(Wikipedia)

Note: A miller's third son is left with only a cat for his inheritance. But what a cat! See how he helps the youth to get ahead in the world.


Get Ready: If you start out with nothing, what are some ways that you can become well-to-do or even rich?


August 05, 2022

#08-229: Mont Saint Michel and Chartres

Mont Saint Michel
(Wikipedia)

Note: The historian Henry Adams uses two tourist destinations in France as a "hook" to discuss the Middle Ages in a beautiful little book.


Get Ready: What do you know of the art and architecture of the European Middle Ages? What are its main themes?


January 06, 2022

#08-175: The Count of Monte Cristo

Cover of the Classic Comics version
(Wikipedia)

Note: This classic tale of revenge remains popular, having been produced at least 50 times for film and television, in many languages.


Get Ready: Why do you think Stories about revenge--the righting of a wrong--are so popular?


December 09, 2021

#08-163: Cyrano de Bergerac

From a 19th-century production of Cyrano
(Wikipedia)

Note: A classic play about a man with a big nose and a bigger heart, as good at swordplay as at wordplay.


Get Ready: Is it better to be good-looking but not too good with words, or unattractive but a good talker?


September 14, 2021

#08-135: The Three Musketeers

in a black-and-white pen-and-ink drawing, four long-haired men in capes and frilly clothes look off camera
D'Artagnan and the three Musketeers
(Wikipedia)

Note: Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and their protégé d'Artagnan--the Three (plus one) Musketeers! Read about their swashbuckling adventures and political intrigues.


Get Ready: How do you think the use of guns and gunpowder disrupted the "art of war"? Prior to their introduction, fighting was limited to handheld weapons (like knives, swords, clubs, etc.); bows-and-arrows; and spears. How would fighting change when "musketeers" came on the scene?


August 31, 2021

#08-129: Bluebeard

ink drawing of a large, bearded man wearing a feather in his cap and a large robe, handing a ring of old-fashioned keys to an ornately-dressed young woman and raising a finger to her, seemingly in warning
Bluebeard turns over the keys--with a warning
(Wikipedia)

Note: A gruesome tale of what happens when a fearsome man's young wife enters a locked room, and does "The One Forbidden Thing."


Get Ready: Can you think of stories where someone--often a woman--does the one thing that he or she is prohibited from doing? What usually happens in such stories?


June 03, 2021

#08-092: The Necklace

pencil sketch of a woman in a period dress holding up a lamp to see herself better in a mirror, with a seated man putting on his shoes in the background
The Loisels at home
(Wikipedia)

Note: Madame Loisel wants to look her best, so she borrows an expensive necklace from a rich friend--and loses it, ruining her family.


Get Ready: Have you ever lost or damaged something that you borrowed from a friend, or had a friend do the same thing to something of yours? How did you fix the problem?


May 25, 2021

#08-088: The Little Prince

cartoon cover illustration from a book; a small blonde boy stands with his hands in his pockets on what looks like a very small asteroid, with two volcanoes (one active) and three flowers; planets and stars are in the background
The Little Prince on his asteroid
(Wikipedia)

Note: An aviator downed in the Sahara learns lessons about what's important from a little boy visiting from Asteroid B 612.


Get Ready: Which do you think are more important: the things we can see, or the things we can't? Why do you think so?


May 11, 2021

#08-082: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

black-and-white engraving of a submarine cutting through the water, which is occupied by various fishes
The Nautilus
(Wikipedia)

Note: The mysterious Captain Nemo (meaning "no one") cruises the world under the sea--long before that technically became possible!


Get Ready: Are you interested in marine biology--undersea life and so on?


May 03, 2021

#08-078: Around the World in Eighty Days

etching of a man in 19th-century European clothing in what seems a foreign port, being accosted  by figures in exotic clothing (turbans, etc.) with a ship's sail in the background
Illustration from a French edition of the book
(Gutenberg)

Note: Travel along with the delightful story of an English gentleman's bet that he can circle the globe in "just" 80 days--in 1872!


Get Ready: Do you enjoy travel? Or would you like to? Where have you been? Where do you want to go? Would you ever like to circle the world?


December 29, 2020

#08-029: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Great French Novel

engraving of Quasimodo hanging from a gargoyle high atop Notre Dame
Hanging around at Notre Dame
(Wikipedia)

Note: You may have seen Disney's 1996 animated film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or perhaps the 1956 classic live-action version of the same story. Both are based on the 1831 historical novel by one of France's most-honored authors, Victor Hugo.


Get Ready: What does the word "sanctuary" mean? Explore its many meanings before reading the story below.


December 03, 2020

#08-018: Aucassin and Nicolette

Aucassin and Nicolette
(Wikipedia)


Note: Literature is replete with great romances. Almost everyone knows about Romeo and Juliet. But do you know the story of Aucassin and Nicolette?


Get Ready: In your opinion, what makes a great love story?


May 18, 2017

#05-044: July Potpourri

etching of a battle scene in front of a large, fortified building; numerous structures are in ruins and smoke fills the sky
The storming of the Bastille
(Wikipedia)

Note: Canadians moving house en masse, a British "invasion," and the overthrow of the French monarchy--July still has a lot going on!


Get Ready: Are you familiar with the Beatles? If so, what's your favorite Beatles song?


April 16, 2015

#04-006: Edouard Manet, Early Impressionist

black-and-white photo of a man with bushy hair and a bushy beard, and heavy brows, and wearing a dark suit
Edouard Manet
(Wikipedia)

Note: Edouard Manet was a painter ahead of his time, the forerunner to the tradition-smashing movement known as "Impressionism."


Get Ready: Do you prefer paintings to look more realistic, like photographs, or should they be more impressionistic?


April 14, 2015

#04-005: Victor Hugo, Author of Les Miz

black-and-white photo of a man with a white beard and hair wearing a bow tie, vest, and coat
Victor Hugo
(Wikipedia)

Note: From miserable Jean Valjean to the pathetic hunchback Quasimodo, Victor Hugo peopled his beloved Paris with anti-heroes we still love and admire today.


Get Ready: Is it possible for the setting of a book--in Hugo's case, the city of Paris--to become as important as any of the characters? Try to think of some examples.