British Literature Illuminated Texts

An Illuminated Text of I Find No Peace by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

We thought this poem was perfect for an illuminated text because it is filled with contradictions, so we emphasized them with different backgrounds and images. We also liked the story which is about a man who is torn within himself, struggling with opposing emotions.

The concept of illuminated texts is new to our school.  My students completed their first presentations earlier this semester and are now working on their second ones.  I was impressed with the way they tackled the learning curve and solved technical issues on their own.  I thought that this student did a lovely job with mood and word associations.

This is an illuminated text on the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Wanderer". When creating this illuminated text we tried to capture and project the loneliness of the narrator. We do this by having the text and images fade into the dark background, leaving the viewer "by themselves". After working with this poem we really got an understanding of what it truly means to be alone in the world, to have nothing but your thoughts to comfort you.

The eyes we choose to view something determines everything. The city of Trenn has clearly been ravaged, looted, and deprived from its lost battle. An eagle looms above picking at the flesh of dead corpses. But buried in the ashes is something more. Buried in the ashes is the courage that Trenn's soldiers manifested, shaming you for not dying nobly with them.

The music of this illumtext is an arrangement of Wagner's Funeral March from musopen.com. It is public domain.

We did three of the short Anglo-Saxon poems. The first is the Viking Terror, then we did two of the riddles; riddles 47- the bookworm, and riddle 68- ice on waves. Throughout all three of our texts we tried to focus on the motion of entrance that each word and idea conveyed to us. We tried to take each line by itself and find the specific emotions and the nuances to each word. This is what we went for with the animations. Then we tried to use the music to tie it together holistically. We tried to distinguish the three poems with each of them having their own tones.

This illuminated text is of the poem "What is our Life? A Play of Passion." by Sir Walter Raleigh. The poem, while written in 1612, speaks great volumes to audiences today. The idea that life is a performance, for other people to see and analyze, is something that I personally have reflected upon before. Is that a good thing, or should life contain a more personal meaning, concerning less how one appears to others, and more how he or she appear to themselves? This is an extra credit illuminated text on a poem that we did in class.

I picked this sonnet because I really like the way John Donne described his closeness to God.  Althoiugh John Donne appeared to be a very religious man, he still had a fear of leaving this world and moving on to the next.  This sonnet showed me that you can believe in something 100% but still have fear that something won't turn out the way you expect it too.  [Great animation and great thought went into this Illuminated Text a