Plans for Combining Ambleside Online Years 8 & 9 Over 18 Months

In a previous post I mentioned that we were planning to do a combination of Years 8 & 9 over 18 months.  This is the Year 7, 8, & 9 in Two Years plan at AO that I'm modifying - we started at Week 25. As we were finishing up Year 7 when I decided to do a Year 8 & 9 combo, it frees us up to add in other areas we want to cover. I haven't finalised everything yet, but here are some of the selections that we have already started or are planning to start at some stage, including some Australian substitutions.

Devotional Reading

* Continuing Tozer's book The Root of the Righteous

**  By Searching by Isobel Kuhn - as with Year 7, I'm including a missionary biography/autobiography  in devotional reading.

*** C.S. Lewis or another title in the AO Year 8 selections

I think I've mentioned before that we didn't finish Trial & Triumph in the early years of AO so we started Saints & Heroes in Year 8 to cover some of the lives we missed earlier on & it's been a better option for us, I think.

History

As per AO Year 8 with the exclusion of Plymouth Plantation.

I started using the TruthQuest History guides when I was putting together my own curriculum with my older children. Since we started AmblesideOnline about 8 years ago, I've used them not so much as a resource for finding books, but for their commentary on the times we're studying and the worldviews those time periods espoused. I'm using this one for Year 8 and generally have Moozle read the commentary sections. I've had to purchase my copies from the USA. If I'm only after one or two books I find christianbook.com has reasonable postage to Australia (or used to have when I last looked!) The downside to these books are that they are spiral bound & one of mine already had the cover coming apart when I received it new. 

Geography

* The Bight by Colin Thiele & Mike McKelvey (Australian)

**  *** Longitude by Dava Sobel - I read this aloud about 8 years ago but Moozle wouldn't remember it. AO schedules it in Year 9, which will work out to be Term 2 in the combined schedule I'm doing (i.e. Week 1 here)

Literature

We'll probably skip Westward Ho!

* Shakespeare's Richard III
** ? The Merchant of Venice

Poetry

Grammar of Poetry is scheduled in Year 7 but I've ended up spreading it out so at the moment we've done 25 out of 30 lessons. It's interesting but gets quite technical in places and could do with some better examples in some of the exercises.


Science

* ** *** We'll be doing the second year of Architectural Science using these resources

We're continuing with:

Apologia Botany - this is an alternative book AO recommends for Botany & I'm using it because we already had it.


Signs & Seasons by Jay Ryan - I bought this before it was on the AO booklist but it's a little difficult to use if you're in the Southern Hemisphere. Moozle reads sections that are applicable to us & sometimes parts that are not because it interests her. As for experiments/observations - we've had a couple of occasions to observe some interesting sights, the lunar eclipse the other month, Mars, blood-red moon, for example, rather than what the book recommends.
I'm reading The Planets by Dava Sobel, which is a literary approach to the solar system. I was considering using it with Moozle but my thinking so far is that it would be better for an older student.

* ** *** Nature Studies in Australia by William Gillies & Robert Hall - I've scheduled this in Year 8 before and it's very good. 39 chapters covering a wide range of subjects. Free online

The other week Moozle read Chapter IV - What We See at the Beach and made a Notebook entry:

We'll be following the science schedule here (the combined AO Years 8 & 9) with the exception of Adventures With Microscope & First Studies in Plant Life.

Free Reads

Blanket of the Dark by John Buchan (1931) - a story of intrigue against Henry VIII. An enjoyable free read that fits in the AO Year 8 timeframe. Free for Kindle here.

'(Henry's) face was vast and red as a new ham, a sheer mountain of a face, 

for it was as broad as it was long...'

Lady in Waiting by Rosemary Sutcliff (1956) is set in Elizabethan times and tells the story of Bess Throckmorton, Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, who becomes secretly engaged and later married to Walter Ralegh (Raleigh). It's been a long time since I read this book and I just remember that it was quite a sad story. Moozle said it wasn't one of Sutcliff's better books (it probably didn't move quickly enough for her) but it was quite good.

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson - a story of the Wars of the Roses. Free for Kindle here.

I've been reading Stevenson a bit lately & he is a great story teller. I'd recommend any of his books.

Plutarch

I tend to alternate Shakespeare & Plutarch term by term, as we don't always have time to do them both each week. These are the two I plan to do:

** Cicero

*** Demosthenes

Watercolor Workshop by Sasha Prood - Moozle's older sister bought her this and she's using it to develop her watercolour skills and techniques.

Latin

Continuing with Latin Alive! from Classical Academic Press & very happy with it.

French

Moozle finished the second year of French for Children (Primer B) but unfortunately, the next Primer in the series won't be ready until next year sometime. Classical Academic Press suggested French First Year or French Second Year by Eli Blume in the meantime but it's only available from the USA and when I enquired it was going to cost me $200 Australian for shipping alone!!!
I bought an older edition second-hand but when I received it there was no answer key & I haven't been able to source one, so it's not much good to us. So at present we're using 'Living French' by T.W. Knight (it's ok but Moozle isn't really inspired by it) until I decide what to do...

Moozle is reading all her 'school' books on her own. I'd previously read How to Read a Book by Adler aloud but she's getting more out of it reading it on her own.

I'm still reading James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small to her - it's sort of our Natural History book but it's mostly just for fun.


I recently pulled these books I've had for many years off the shelf: Beautiful Girlhood originally by Mabel Hale but this edition has been revised by Karen Andreola. I'm using the Companion Guide, which I think is out of print, very loosely. Sometimes it has Scripture verses to study or ideas - again, I've got the book so I'm using it. I do this about once a week.

We're revisiting these folksongs I've used when the boys did Year 8 a number of years ago.


I'm sure I've forgotten a few things here but life in general has been very full. Lots of good things which I may get to post about later.
This verse from a hymn has been on my mind this past week:

For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of the mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

See My Homeschool for some Australian options for high school

A Combination of Mystery & History: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951)

The Daughter of Time is an unusual type of crime mystery in that a piece of English history is resurrected and brought into the 20th Century to be investigated. It concerns the reign of Richard III and the murder of the Princes in the Tower.
Josephine Tey’s Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard conducts his own investigations into the four hundred year old mystery from a hospital bed where he is confined after an accident while on duty. Bored and despondent, nothing has much interest for him until one day a friend, endeavouring to cheer him up, brings him a collection of historical portraits of people who had some mystery attached to them.
Grant had always had a passion for faces, made a conscious study of them, and had an almost instinctive way of picking out a criminal on sight.
When he finds a portrait of a man in his mid-thirties, dressed in the fashion of the late fifteenth Century, he is arrested by the expression in the subject’s eyes:

Grant paused in the act of turning the thing over, to consider the face a moment longer. A judge? A soldier? A prince? Someone used to great responsibility, and responsible in his authority. Someone too conscientious. A worrier; perhaps a perfectionist. A man at ease in a large design, but anxious over details...

When Grant turns the portrait over and discovers the subject is Richard III, he is piqued that he mistook a notorious murderer for a judge. His first impression of the man in the portrait was certainly not that of a villain. This arouses his curiosity and so he begins his own investigation into the allegations against Richard.
Each of the four books I’ve read by Josephine Tey have been quite different from each other, although Inspector Alan Grant features in all of them. The Daughter of Time is different from any other mystery/crime novel I’ve ever read and I enjoyed its uniqueness and its mental challenge.
Tey unearths contemporary accounts, documents, and historical resources to present Richard Plantagenet from a different viewpoint. She reveals that Sir Thomas More, the author of More’s History of Richard III, had never known Richard at all and had, in fact, only been eight years old when Richard died at Bosworth. More obtained his account of Richard III from John Morton who was the Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry VII’s reign and a bitter enemy of Richard.
Tey not only turns the Princes in the Towers mystery on its head but also has a little swipe at Cromwell:

Cromwell started that inverted snobbery from which we are all suffering today. ‘I’m a plain man, I am; no nonsense about me.' And no manners, grace or generosity, either...

And Mary Queen of Scots:

Her tragedy was that she was born a queen with the outlook of a suburban housewife...If you are willing to put a country of ten million people in pawn in order to score off a royal rival, then you end by being a friendless failure.

And she also has no time for the Scottish Covenanters:

The Covenanters were the exact equivalent of the I.R.A. in Ireland. A small irreconcilable minority, and as bloodthirsty a crowd as ever disgraced a Christian nation...A dragoon (read policeman) couldn’t arrest anyone without a warrant...but there was nothing to hinder a Covenanter lying snug in the heather and picking off dragoons at his leisure. Which they did, of course. And now there’s a whole literature about the poor ill-used saint in the heather with his pistol; the dragoon who died in the course of his duty is a Monster...Like Richard.

I read this book aloud to my thirteen year old daughter as it’s scheduled in Year 7 of the Ambleside Online curriculum and she really liked it, although it took a couple of chapters for her to get interested. As the AO website states, there are some sections that need editing for this age group, but they’re mostly in the first few chapters and they aren’t central to the story.

This book opened a wonderful door for the discussion of historical perspectives and bias and inspired Moozle to do a bit of reading on the Plantagenets and the Tudors. Then we started reading Shakespeare’s Richard III. Now, this was interesting after the perspective of The Daughter of Time! Shakespeare’s Richard III is a real creep. You only have to read the first two scenes of Act 1 before you believe Richard capable of every vile deed known to man.
Shakespeare’s Globe sheds some light on Shakespeare’s view of Richard. His portrait of Richard as a physical and moral monster is not accepted by modern historians.
The Daughter of Time is a splendid way to learn some history as well as being an enjoyable mystery.
Available free for Kindle

Updated to add this link: The Search for King Richard III (thanks to GretchenJoanna for passing this on!)


This is my choice for A Classic by a Woman Author in the 2018 Back to the Classics Challenge

Linked to Books You Loved.

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (1599)

 The Death of Julius Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini (1798)

Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, is basically a tragedy, although, like many of his other plays, the distinctions are often blurred, and so this play is partly a history and involves civil war and the politics of Ancient Rome.
Shakespeare used Plutarch’s Lives as his source for Julius Caesar but he altered some of the historical account as he was wont to do.
I read Plutarch’s Life of Julius Caesar before I read this play which helped fill in some background not present in Shakespeare’s account. Plutarch began his Life of Caesar in 75 BC with Caesar’s capture by pirates and he shows some facets of Julius Caesar’s personality that Shakespeare omits.  Shakespeare focussed on the conspiracy and the subsequent assassination of Caesar in 44 BC and then the repercussions of his death. Brutus is actually more prominent than Caesar in the play.
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar opens with Caesar’s triumph over Pompey in Act 1, Scene 1 and by Scene 2 Cassius’s feelings towards Caesar are out in the open as he confides in Brutus.

Cassius: 
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that ‘Caesar’?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

The main characters:

Julius Caesar - powerful, skilful, arrogant. Physically, he suffered from epilepsy; Shakespeare exposes some of his more undesirable characteristics in the lead-up to his death.

Brutus - idealistic and honourable, he appears to act for the common good but is also manipulated by Cassius. Antony was later to declare that Brutus was the only conspirator who acted honourably:

Antony:
This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.

Cassius - intense, choleric; lean and hungry. I’ll let Caesar describe him:

Caesar:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Antony:
Fear him not, Caesar, he’s not dangerous, He is a noble Roman and well given.
Caesar:
Would that he were fatter!

Antony - loyal to Caesar, ruthless. He manipulates the mob during his funeral speech for Caesar and unleashes his anger and revenge over the assassination.
When he captured Lucillius who had posed as Brutus, he treats him with respect, saying:

This is not Brutus, Friend, but, I assure you, A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe, Give him all kindness. I had rather have Such men my friends than enemies...

Octavius - a cool character who first appears in Act 4. He didn’t come across as very likeable except where he defends Lepidus against Antony’s scorn:

Antony:
This is a slight, unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands...

Octavius:
You may do your will,
But he is a tried and valiant soldier.

Antony:So is my horse, Octavius, and for that
I do appoint him store of provender.

Calpurnia - Caesar’s wife who has a dream about his death and tries to persuade him not to go to the Senate. She and Caesar were unable to have children.

Portia - the wife of Brutus. They are portrayed as having a loving relationship. She discerned changes in her husband and was concerned about him.

This play ends tragically, with suicide one of the main causes of death:
Portia, Brutus, Cassius, Titinius, all end their own lives at various points in the play.

Favourite scenes:

Act 4, Scene 3 - this almost reads like a comedy. Cassius and Brutus have a heated argument in Brutus’s tent when he was camped near Sardis in Asia. Brutus basically tells Cassius he’s acting like a madman and asks why he should give way to ‘rash choler.’
Cassius becomes melodramatic and offers his dagger to Brutus telling him to strike but the situation is defused by Brutus admitting blame:

Brutus:
When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too.

Cassius:
Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

Brutus:
And my heart too.

Cassius:
O Brutus!

Brutus:
What’s the matter?

Cassius:
Have you not love enough to bear with me 
When that rash humour which my mother gave me 
Makes me forgetful?

Brutus:
Yes, Cassius, and from henceforth
When you are over-Ernest with your Brutus, 
He’ll think your mother chides, and leave you so.




And of course, the funeral speech by Antony.

Summary

The central idea of the play considered as a tragedy is that Good cannot come out of Evil. "Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest," but he made shipwreck of his life by one great error. He committed a crime to prevent, as he thought, a greater crime, and by so doing he brought upon himself and his country greater evils than those he had sought to avert.

Julius Caesar by F. A. Purcell & L.M. Somers (1916)

Linking to Back to the Classics 2107: Classic Published Before 1800

Ambleside Online Year 6: looking back on the week

We finished Shakespeare's King Lear yesterday. Moozle wrote this narration on the play today in 'the style of Plutarch.'

I've mentioned in previous posts that we were watching a movie version of King Lear on YouTube. We've got as far as the end of the eighth video but I'll probably skip at least the next two for Moozle as I think they're a bit too gory in places for her at this stage, although all in all, the movie is quite well done.

AO Year 6 has some interesting science books scheduled: starting off with The Mystery of the Periodic Table, a biography of Albert Einstein and The Elements by Theodore Gray in Term 1 and adding in a number of others as the year progresses, so we began a Science Notebook as she's been itching to add it after seeing what her older siblings have done previously. As I've done with the others, I added in the Periodic Table of the Elements videos on the Nottingham University website. She watches these after reading chapters from The Mystery of the Periodic Table & The Elements. 

I'm looking forward to reading Rachel Carson's, The Sea Around Us, which Benj enjoyed a few years ago. I posted some videos and other resources on Pinterest when he did it, but this time I think I'll put them in a blog post as they are scattered all over my Pinterest pages and are hard to find.

This is a creative narration from a later chapter in the above book:

Art

A painting in acrylics, copied from a photo:

Reading

In case you haven't realised, Moozle is a book gobbler. She reads incredibly quickly, as did Zana, one of her older sisters, but they both have excellent recall, regardless. This week she has been re-reading some of the Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce plus a whole stack of Patricia St John titles.

  


As I've substituted Australian content for some of the American titles in the Ambleside Online curriculum over the past five years, I haven't worried too much about keeping historical fiction in chronolgical order, especially as all my children have loved reading and it's been hard to keep up with their reading habits. We read books such as John of the Sirius by Doris Chadwick, Stowaway by Karen Hesse and many other Australian titles as family read alouds regardless of what historical time period we were studying. The younger ones listened in as I read to the older ones and picked up so much history on the way. My girls read the Billabong books for themselves as soon as they were able and I didn't wait until they came to the historical time period they were studying before I gave them the books. That said, I haven't found it difficult to supply them with great books for the time periods they study, but it has freed me up in some ways so that I can include classic books other than predominantly Australian titles - from Scotland & New Zealand, for example - over the course of their education.

Benj, Moozle and I have been listening to this Sherlock Holmes audiobook narrated by Ruth Golding on our car trips:

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up

All Hail Macbeth!

"God's benison go with you, and with those

That would make good of bad, and friends of foes."

William Shakespeare

I've mentioned previously that we are listening to & reading Shakespeare's Macbeth and on the weekend we headed for the hills to be present at MariMudge Shakespeare's first ever performance of that very play.

 The Cast

L to R: Mr T - 15yrs; Mr. I - 15 yrs; Miss C - 7 yrs; Miss S - 13 yrs; Miss M - 8 yrs; Miss L - 14 yrs.



I was privileged to have a rare interview with two of the weird sisters, and I must say that casting the pair in this role was a stroke of genius. Who would have known that these two with their child-like demeanour and seeming innocence would have led Macbeth down the path he took?

 But 'tis strange:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.

Macbeth: Act 1: Scene 3

Beware, Macbeth!

Not really, my nieces are very sweet!

The Royal Shakespeare Company production starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is a sparse but good interpretation of Macbeth we watched a few years ago. The scene where Macduff's wife is murdered is one you might want to skip but apart from that nothing else comes to mind. Even so, it would be better appreciated by those of a high school age as it relies mostly on dialogue and there isn't much in the way of props. Both actors are wonderful and the weird sisters not as creepy as those found in other versions of Macbeth.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth: Act 5: Scene 5

The Gael  - this piece is mostly known by its inclusion in the film, The Last of the Mohicans, but it was written by a Scot, Dougie Maclean (The Gael = The Scot or Scotsman). It's a stirring piece of music so I can understand why they pinched it. Here it is so you can feel the Scottish atmosphere of  Macbeth...

Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh!

Lady Macbeth: Act 5: Scene 1 

Although Shakespeare based his play on fact - Macbeth did rule Scotland in the eleventh century - he  changed some historical and chronological details. The book Macbeth and Son by Jackie French is an interesting version of the character of Macbeth which takes a very different view to that of Shakespeare. It uses a modern setting and interweaves the time period of Macbeth's Scotland into the narrative. One of my daughters really enjoyed this book, when she was around 13 years (?) of age:

There is an account of Macbeth in H.E. Marshall's Scotland's Story

 

All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (1604)

All's Well That Ends Well was based on a story from the Decameron (a collection of tales written in the 14th Century) and is often described as a problem play. It appears to be a comedy - it contains humorous scenes such as the interrogation of Parolles, and love wins out in the end - but there are other aspects of the play which are unlike Shakespeare's other comedies.

The story takes place in Rossilion, Paris, Florence and Marseilles.

 Helena & the Countess, Folger Shakespeare

The Main Players

Rosillion

Countess of Rossilion (or Rousillon)

Bertram - her son, the Count of Rossilion after his father's death Helena - a gentlewoman of the household
Lavatch - the Countess's clown
Parolles - a friend of Bertram's

Paris

King of France

Lafew (or Lafeu) - a old Lord

First & Second Lord Dumaine - Lords in the King's service  

Florence

Widow Capilet

Diana - her daughter

The Storyline

The King of France is ill and no one can cure him. When his friend Count Rossilion dies, he commands Bertram, the Count's son, to attend him at court.

Bertram takes leave of his mother and goes to the King in Paris.

As the King reminisces about Bertram's father, he laments that the skilful physician, Gerard de Narbon, is also dead and cannot help him.

Helena, the physician's daughter has been living under the care of the Countess Rossilion and secretly loves Bertram. When Bertram goes to Paris, Helena follows him and by using knowledge learnt from her father, she cures the King.

The King rewards her by allowing her to choose a husband from among the bachelors at his court and she chooses Bertram.

Bertram declares he cannot marry Helena because she is of an inferior class, but after threats from the King, he goes ahead with the marriage. Unwilling to consummate the marriage, he tells Helena to go to his mother under some pretence and he immediately runs away to the wars in Italy with his friend Parolles.

Bertram writes to Helena from Florence and says:

When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a "then" I write a "never."

The Countess is furious with her son's behaviour and blames Parolles' influence. Helena goes on a pilgrimage to Florence and there she meets the Widow Capilet and her daughter Diana, who is being courted by Bertram. When Helena reveals her situation to the Capilet's, they fall in with her plan and Bertram is told that Helena is dead. Under cover of darkness, Helena takes Diana's place and goes to meet Bertram, who has promised to marry Diana. He gives Helena his ring, believing her to be Diana, and in return receives the ring that the King gave to Helena after she had cured him. Helena conceives a child that night and Bertram returns to his mother's house unaware that he had shared his bed with his wife and not Diana.

The King is also at Rossilion and expresses his grief over Helena's death. Bertram asks for his forgiveness saying that he did love Helena but when the King sees the ring he gave Helena, Bertram is suspected to have done her harm.

Diana arrives not long after which compounds affairs even more until Helena finally enters, tells Bertram that she has fulfilled both conditions he placed upon her and he declares that he will love her dearly, forever.

The king's a beggar, now the play is done; All is well ended, if this suit be done...

We listened to the BBC Arkangel audio as we read the play, spreading it over about 11 weeks. I read along with the Cambridge School guide and Benj read it from this website
 

Some thoughts:

Bertram - initially I was a little sympathetic towards him as he was expected to marry someone he had no wish to. His attitude and behaviour quickly put an end to that. He was self-seeking and callous; immature and easily led. His change of heart towards the end of the play seems a little strange.

Helena - a mixed bag. I thought she was rather insipid at times but she did end up displaying some strength of character. Did she really love Bertram or was she just ambitious? Why would she want to marry a man who had been so indifferent to her?

Countess Rossilion - a just, sensible woman who, although she thought Parolles was a bad influence on her son, didn't make excuses for Bertram's bad behaviour.

Parolles - was the source of some light hearted moments in the play even though he was a rogue. He learnt some humility towards the end.

Lafew - the quick witted old Lord discerned Parolles' true nature.

The King - benevolent and kind; his behaviour in the scenes towards the end of the play where the situation comes to a head is amusing.

Diana - both she & her mother were decent people and wanted to do what was right. She had a good head upon her shoulders and didn't allow herself to be taken in by Bertram's flattery.

Something that stood out to me was that apart from Bertram, all the people of rank and position in the play were honourable and well-intentioned. The Countess, for example, loved Helena and was happy for her to marry Bertram even though she was beneath him in rank.

This play is probably best left until highschool unless you use an abridged version such as Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare. There are some interesting ideas & themes for discussion in this play regarding relationships and morals.


All's Well That Ends Well is my choice for A Classic Play as part of the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015.

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare: an overview and reading plan

The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's later plays and at the time he was writing (around 1611) the 'tragicomedy' was in vogue. A tragicomedy is defined by the Oxford School Shakespeare as a play in which 'alarming events and overwhelming passions narrowly avoid their tragic consequences only in the nick of time.'

There is some light-hearted banter in The Winter's Tale but overall the story is melancholy and serious.

Polixenes King of Bohemia has been visiting his childhood friend, Leontes, King of Sicilia. Nine months have passed and Polixenes is planning to return home but Leontes tries to coax him into staying longer. At first Polixenes insists he must go but when Hermione joins her husband in coaxing him to stay, he agrees.

Suddenly Leontes' mind is filled with groundless suspicion and alarm. A form of madness overtakes him and he interprets every innocent word and gesture between his friend and his wife as betrayal and deceit. His behaviour changes towards them both and in his overwhelming jealousy he speaks to his courtier, Camillo, of his suspicions. Camillo sees nothing untoward and reproves his master but Leontes takes no heed.

Camillo, concerned by the situation, warns Polixenes who by this time is aware of the change in his friend's attitude towards him. He decides to return home immediately and Camillo goes with him.

When Leontes discovers that Polixenes has flown, he confronts Hermione and accuses her of adultery. Believing that the child she is carrying was fathered by Polixenes he sends her to prison.

Hermione gives birth to a daughter, Perdita, whilst in prison but Leontes rejects his child and commands Antigonus, one of his lords and an honourable man, to take the baby and abandon her to the elements.

 

John Massey Wright

John Massey Wright's watercolour of a scene from 'The Winter's Tale' - See more at: http://findingshakespeare.co.uk/exit-pursued-by-a-bear#sthash.qL9sCU2m.dpuf

John Massey Wright's watercolour of a scene from 'The Winter's Tale' - See more at: http://findingshakespeare.co.uk/exit-pursued-by-a-bear#sthash.qL9sCU2m.dpuf

Antigonus loses his life while trying to save Perdita but she is found on the Bohemian coast by an honest shepherd who understands there is a mystery behind her appearance and she grows up under his care.

Meanwhile word comes to Leontes that the Queen is dead and he is filled with remorse.

'Leontes is deeply affected.

It's now clear he should not have suspected 

The Queen of deceit; 

His despair is complete, 

Both for them and the babe he rejected...'

James Muirden (Shakespeare in a Nutshell)

Years pass and Polixenes' son, Florizel meets and falls in love with Perdita the 'shepherdess' and is determined to marry her even though his father threatens to disinherit him if he does so.

Camillo steps in and helps the young couple escape to...Sicilia where Leontes, completely humbled and repentant still grieves over his actions sixteen years before.

All through this tale I was struck by the honourable actions of everyone else in contrast to those of Leontes. He was surrounded by people who were loyal and  trustworthy but his jealousy distorted and tainted everything.

The closing scene is moving as Leontes comes to a place of forgiveness and restoration and reminds me of the biblical verse, 'I will restore the years the locust has eaten.'

We listened to the Arkangel audio recording of this play over a twelve week period. My 14 year old followed along with a free online script and I used the Oxford School Shakespeare. My 9 year old daughter just listens and having a basic outline of most of Shakespeare's plays from having read both the Lamb and Nesbit versions she follows along very well.

Be aware that if you have younger ones listening in that the word 'bastard' is used a number of times in the first few scenes. When you hear it belted out by a vehement Ciaran Hinds it is rather jarring when you're not prepared for it. 

 

Our 12 Week Schedule

Week 1

Act 1

Scene 1 - Scene 2 finishing after Leontes says: 'Go play, Mamillius. Thou'rt an honest man.' (Exit Mamillius)

Week 2

Scene 2 from 'Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer,' to end of Scene 2

Week 3

Act 2

All of Scene 1 and Scene 2

Week 4

Act 2

All of Scene 3

Week 5

Act 3

All of Scene 1 and Scene 2

Week 6

Act 3

All of Scene 3

Act 4

Scene 1 (very short)

Week 7

Act 4

All of Scene 2 and Scene 3

Week 8

Act 4

Scene 4 (this is a very long section and I just stopped about a third of the way through)

Week 9

Act 4

Continue with Scene 4

Week 10

Act 4

Finish Scene 4

Week 11

Act 5

All of Scene 1

Week 12

Act 5

All of Scene 2 and 3

The End