Title: “Frail, yet headstrong, a soul in isolation?” – Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński

Lesson plan elaborated by: Magdalena Trysińska

Topic:

“Frail, yet headstrong, a soul in isolation?” – Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński.

Target group:

1st‑grade students of a high school.

Core curriculum

I. Literary and cultural education.

1. Reading literary works. Student:

1) understands the basis for periodizing literature, situates literary works in particular periods: antiquity, the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, enlightenment, romanticism, positivism, Young Poland, the interwar period, literature of war and occupation, literature of 1945‑1989 national and emigre literature, literature after 1989;

4) recognises in the literary text the means of artistic expression learned in primary school and the means of meaning: oxymoron, periphrase, euphonia, hyperbole; lexical, including phraseologies; syntactic: antithesis, parallelism, enumeration, epiphora, ellipse; versioning, including the launcher; defines their functions;

9) recognises the subject and issues of the texts learned and its relation to the programs of the literary era, social, historical, existential and aesthetic phenomena; he reflects on it;

10) recognises in the work the ways of creating: the presented world (plot, heroes, actions, themes, motives), narrative, lyrical situation; interprets and evaluates them;

14) presents a proposal for interpretation of the work, indicates in the text of the place that may constitute arguments in support of its interpretation proposal.

III. Creating statements.

1. Elements of rhetoric. Student:

4) explains how the rhetorical means used (eg rhetorical questions, calculations, exclamations, parallelisms, repetitions, apostrophes, metadases, inversions) affect the recipient.

2. Speaking and writing. Student:

1) agrees with other people's views or polemicizes with them, substantively justifying their own opinion;

2) build a statement in a conscious manner, with the knowledge of its language function, taking into account the purpose and the addressee, keeping the principles of rhetoric;

10) in the interpretation presents a proposal to read the text, formulates arguments on the basis of the text and known contexts, including personal experience, and carries out a logical argument for the validation of formulated judgments.

General aim of education

Students learn about the work of Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Learning outcomes

Student:

• discusses selected works by Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński;

• characterises the genre characteristics of the sonnet;

• recognises stylistic means in poems, he can indicate them, he knows what function they perform;

• reads the message of M. Sęp Szarzyński's sonnet and determines his mood;

• explains why M. Sępa Szarzyński is called the precursor of the Baroque.

Methods/techniques

• activating

  • discussion.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

1. At home, students create a photo gallery that would be an illustration of three concepts: vanitas, metaphysics and existence.

Introduction

1. The teacher determines the aim of the class, which is to learn about the works of Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, the precursor of the Baroque era. It gives students the criteria for success.

2. The student selected before the lesson presents information about Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński. He should pay attention to the difficulty of classifying the poet's output as a Renaissance or Baroque (eg Sęp Szarzyński died a few years before Jan Kochanowski, who was the most outstanding representative of the Renaissance, and on the other hand takes up the subject matter of the Baroque period).

Realization

1. Students perform exercises from the e‑textbook.

2. Students carry out the tasks placed under the text together. Together, they agree on the interpretation, explain the incomprehensible issues.

3. The teacher says that the work of Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński belongs to the trend of metaphysical poetry. This name was originally used in relation to the works of some English lyrics from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries (especially the so‑called „schools” of John Donne). In the twentieth century, the term applies to works that touch on the topics of impermanence of human existence, the vanity of human life, sinfulness, submission to passions. The works of Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński were not only pessimistic, because they gave hope that God's help would overcome the temptations with which man would deceive Satan, the world and the body.

4. The students present home‑made illustrations of concepts: vanitas, metaphysics, and existence . They wonder together what relationship these concepts have with the work of Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński; if any of the presented illustrations could be an illustration of Sonnet I

5. The students present home‑made illustrations of concepts: vanitas, metaphysics, and existence. They wonder together what relationship these concepts have with the work of Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński; if any of the presented illustrations could be an illustration of Sonnet I

Summary

1. Students write in their notebooks the keys to the lessons they consider the most important.

2. The teacher asks the students summary questions, e.g.
   - What are the characteristics of the Baroque era in the poetry of MS Szarzyński?
   - Why would Sęp Szarzyński be counted among the Renaissance poets?
   - What features typical of the sonnet species have the song Sępa Szarzyński?.

Homework

1. Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

2. Interpret the meaning of the words: „O stokroć szczęśliwy/ Który tych cieniów w czas zna kształt prawdziwy”. Write down your observations on this wording in the points.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

“Frail, yet headstrong, a soul in isolation?” – Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński

The poetics of Sęp Szarzyński is extremely characteristic. It is a demanding poetry, both from the creator and the addressee. The sonnet is a genre bound by a number of imitations, namely: the number of verses, the rhyming system and the character of individual stanzas. The use of enjambment, oxymoron, inversion, alliteration, etc., makes the poetry of Sęp Sarzyński differ significantly from what an ordinary, used‑to‑the‑Renaissance‑model‑of‑poetry reader could expect.

The works of M. Sęp Szarzyński belong to the mainstream of metaphysical poetry. The term was originally used to describe works of English lyricists from the turn of the 16th and 17th century. In the 20th century the term applied to works touching on subjects like the precariousness of life, the vanity of human life, sinfulness or yielding to passions. The works of Sęp Szarzyński, however, were not solely pessimistic since there was hope that with God’s help the temptations of Satan, the world and the body could be overcome.