Welcome to The Chic Assignment for May, 2021.
⚜️Chic Assignment no. 1 Dvořák's Humoresque No. 7 in G-flat Major, Op. 101
We will be enjoying this vibrant performance by Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman
Antonín Leopold Dvořák (1841 - 1904) was one of the first Czech composers to receive worldwide recognition. We will be learning more about Dvořák in the mid-month check-in.
⚜️Chic Assignment no. 2 Enjoy the poetry of William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
William Wordsworth, attribution Jan Arkesteijn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who lived from 1770 - 1850. You can check out much of his poetry free online or read a collected volume of his works.
Today we are reading, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. We will learn more about Wordsworth in the mid-month check-in.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
⚜️Chic Assignment no. 3 Fine-tune your morning routine
I am sharing my morning routine next week and in my video will encourage you to tailor your morning routine to your most pressing needs. I hope you will enjoy that video and take a look at your morning routine in a new light.
⚜️Chic Assignment no. 4 Focus on good posture
If you think you're having déjà vu, you're not wrong. We have included posture practice a few times before in Chic Assignment history and there is a great reason why... we must constantly be aware of the state of our posture. It's a wonderful practice to polish our posture on a regular basis. For more, check out my book, Polish Your Poise with Madame Chic.
As always, the fifth assignment is to read interesting books. This month I'll be interviewing etiquette author, Myka Meier, founder of Beaumont Etiquette. If you would like to check out her lovey book, Modern Etiquette Made Easy, I highly recommend it.
I look forward to reading about your experience with The Chic Assignment this month. Tag me on social media with #TheChicAssignment
Thank you to The Chic Society for bringing us The Chic Assignment. The Chic Society is the private membership group on YouTube. Membership is only $1.99 a month. I release a "vodcast" (a video podcast) every Friday and we go live (either on YouTube or Zoom) once a month. There are also two upper tiers who receive recognition in The Chic Assignment check-in.
⚜️ What I'm wearing
Necklace Jackie Mack Designs JENSCOTT15 for 15% off
Thank you for joining The Chic Assignment for May. I'll see you on Monday!
Love,
Jennifer
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Hi, Jennifer. I’m so pleased that you’re including the poetry of William Wordsworth in the May Chic Assignment, and I thought perhaps you’d like to be introduced to William’s sister, Dorothy, with whom he shared a close relationship all his life. “To the Daffodils” is, indeed, one of William’s most famous works, and it’s based on a journal entry written by Dorothy following an excursion they took to Ullswater in the Lake District in April 1802; her entry is almost as famous in Wordsworth circles as William’s poem. Here’s a link to that entry from one of the earliest editions of her Grasmere Journal: https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Literature_and_Literacy/Writing_and_Critical_Thinking_Through_Literature_(Ringo_and_Kashyap)/03%3A_Creative_Nonfiction_Readings/3.11%3A_Wordsworth_Dorothy_Daffodils_entry_from_Grasmere_journal_(1802)#:~:text=This%20journal%20entry%20by%20Dorothy,a%20cloud%22%20(1807). It’s very interesting to compare the two and note not only the differences in perspective but also the effects that writing for different audiences has on the work itself.
ReplyDeleteDorothy wrote nearly all her life, and her published works include many letters, a number of poems, several travel journals and her famous Allfoxden and Grasmere Journals; I studied these works for my Master’s thesis in 1990. Still unpublished are her Rydal journals, written between 1824 and 1835 while the family was living just down the road from Grasmere in Rydal; off and on since 2008, I’ve been working on transcribing and now, with a colleague, editing them to be published on an online site called Romantic Circles (http://romantic-circles.org/). We are now able to work from high-quality photos of the manuscripts, owned by The Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, rather than transcribing directly from the originals, as I did between 2008 and 2013. It’s very fulfilling work, as we are anxious that Dorothy’s legacy be made as fully available to the public as that of her more famous brother. Thank you for a very thoughtful assignment! Every blessing, Susanne
Thank you for sharing that, Susanne! My children and I (who have loved "Daffodils" for years) enjoyed reading the journal entry from Dorothy. Reading it, I can imagine a blustery spring day in the Lake District!
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