Hyper-Annotated Text
Many poems are replete with allusions to other works. It is nearly impossible to fully explain every reference in a poem to a class. Strict lecturing on these allusions is also a limited way to teach. Instead, using HTML, I can present a text with hypertext annotations. Rather than describe the images William Blake refers to in The Tiger, I can upload the poem onto a webpage and link to images, audio, video, and other sources that explain or relate to a specific part of a text.
To go further, I would have the students annotate a poem in a similar fashion, not only linking to material that relates to specific allusions, but linking it to what they thought of while reading and analyzing the poem. This text to self connection allows the students to link their understanding of the poem to the content.
To illustrate this, I hyper-annotated Blake's The Tiger
To go further, I would have the students annotate a poem in a similar fashion, not only linking to material that relates to specific allusions, but linking it to what they thought of while reading and analyzing the poem. This text to self connection allows the students to link their understanding of the poem to the content.
To illustrate this, I hyper-annotated Blake's The Tiger
The Tiger
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?