I enjoyed Miss. Donovan's take on English Lit. Laize-fare as it were, the professors unusual approach to capturing our undivided attention during the course of the lecture was at the very minimum entertaining. Playacting a number of strong character performances, Miss. Donovan would serenade a ballade from a piece of literature that she had found pertinent to a central message, a universal theme that one could've easily viewed as ambiguous.
"During the course of the new quarter we will be dicsussing works of classic literature particularly of interest, Romanticism." All eyes followed Miss. Donovan as she walked to the front of the room and pointed with her wooden meter ruler at the pretty cursive. The black board went from one nook of the wall and stretched to the far corner at the opposite end.
The other three white walls remained plain and the tier shaped gothic stained glass windows mirrored the moody atmosphere but because our desks faced forward all we had to look at was the chalkboard. And what a bummer that was because I had been dying to get a better look at the colorful patterns.
Situated in front of the handwritten sonnet was a large office furniture desk. Miss Donovan's dark shelled desk, a durable attractive bourbon cherry veneer finish with beaded edged detailing had an upscaled look which didn't surprise me one bit. Everything at Starkhouse was lavish and made from the best materials money could offer. "Which influential writer publisehd this popular stanza?" Miss. Donovan asked.
Hear the sledges with the bells- Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, Hear the sledges with the bells- Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells- From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
As time passed I had learned Tasha was a brain when it came to the big Q&A.
On cue and because it wasn't a surprise Tasha impatiently waves her right hand in the air with the hopes that Miss Donovan would pick her. No one was dumbfounded when Miss Donovan did select Tasha out of the small group that had volunteered. "Edgar Allen Poe." Tasha's answer was both confidant and without filler.
Miss. Donovan's smile lifts, large white teeth grazing against sugar plum colored lipstick, pleasantly surprised at her exceptionally advanced overachievers. "Excellent. It's nice to know that someone had finished the assignment from last Friday." Miss Donovan walked by four rows of desks until she happened upon some freckled boy I didn't know with thick optic eyeglasses that had a black rim."What is your direct conclusion from reading the above stanza?" The Professor asked him.
He fidgeted in his chair and pulled at his collar like he had an itch that would just not go away. That albino skin couldn't didn't help matters. "Um....It's about bells?" From what I could see red splotches perfumed his neck. Really, my heart went out to the guy.
When the class erupted into laughter Miss Donovan yelled "That's enough!" in an arch tone. Her icy gaze went from student to student, face to face, until she'd looked to everyone in the room including me. "Maybe someone else, then. Hmm?" The stone-faced professor had proposed more to herself than to anyone in the room.
Like the rest of the class I sink down in my chair at the very idea of being called on the spot. That was an embarrassment I was adamant on saving myself from.
As usual Tasha was the first to raise her hand but the professor's dismissal became apparent when Miss Donovan had looked around the room for anyone else and had called upon Kira instead. "You've read his work. In your opinion what is the poem about?" Miss Donovan questioned Kira with a kind smile that I was sure was meant as a ruse to bribe Kira into talking when she didn't want to.
"It's titled The Bells." Kira didn't move from her lazy slouch as she answers with zero ounce of enthusiasm. Sharing her response might not have been what Kira would have chosen to do willingly but she knew her stuff. It was no wonder why the professor had bullied Kira for her rebuttal. "Anyone whose literat knows Poe is describing silver bells." Kira explains. And that was that until Miss Donovan had decided to take things a little further.
Miss donovan smiles encouraging a reluctant Kira to take the bait. "And how does it pertain to romanticism?" Miss Donovan queried.
Someone had coughed "freak" making everyone laugh to which Miss Donovan shut them down with a stern look of disapproval and there might have been the mention of detention slips that indefinitely put a nuzzle on things.
Kira rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath. My desk was two rows down and I could see Kira but I couldn't hear what she said when she spoke under her breath. Kira spoke up a little louder this time. "Basically...By showing emotion." Was her answer.
"Could you give us a general example how he is showing emotion?" Miss Donovan didn't waste time to pressure kira into speaking further.
Really it was the only way to ever make Kira do something she didn't want to and Miss Donovan must've known it would work because the professor was elated.
Kira huffed a loud breath of air and rolled her eyes all the way up like she couldn't believe Miss Donovan would dare call on her. With an indignefied sigh of cynicism and because she couldn't find a way out of participating, Kira relented and answered back.
"Since this is the first stanza Poe goes to great detail to get the setup, if you will, for the reader to be able to visualize the story, which incidentally is another aspect for romanticism. As the reader continues to read they find out how Poe feels about the bells, which as it turns out is a series of mixed emotions."
Pleased, Miss Donovan had thanked Kira before roaming to the front of the classroom with obvious disgust. Her high heeled boots clicking on glossy marble. "It's good to know more than one of you pays attention to my powerpoint lectures." Miss Donovan looks at the class in surly disposition.
I wasn't the best and brightest star like Tasha. When it came to my education I understood well enough to know that sir Edgar Allen Poe was regarded as one of the most well known American poets of the 19th century. Best known for his dark, gruesome depictions of emotionally haunted characters, Poe invented a new meaning of his take on romanticism and how one would normally view romance to be. And yet it was possible to suggest that his genetic predispositions may have contributed to his affect and behaviors as an adult.
"Aislin, right?"
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