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| 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?
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| 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"?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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.
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