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Description
Flashcards by Sarah Holmes, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Sarah Holmes
almost 9 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, . . . yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne. | From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte A typically Victorian extract in terms of style and language. Long, complex sentences with very formal language which seems old-fashioned to the modern reader. |
| At the end of the corridor was a locked door that led to the servants’ part of the house, just before it, the last door on the left, was an oval china handle that rattled in the ill-fitting lock. He caught her as she opened the door onto a small room with a brass bedstead and a red cover. . . . he sat back against the pillows, he stared at the picture of the medieval knight above the mantelpiece. In the grate there was a fire laid with neatly chopped kindling and coal. Against the far wall was a large country wardrobe in which were stored unused curtains, rugs, winter coats and various vases, clocks and boxes with no place in the house. The wood of the window frame was stripped and unpainted. Some white flowers of clematis moved in a light breeze against the glass. | From Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks An extract from a modern novel written in the 1990's. The room is described in recognisable ways and we can relate to the content. |
| Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye (so priketh hem Nature in hir corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. | From Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. This is the earliest from of written English and to us, as modern readers is almost un-readable! The words are spelt phonetically in line with Medieval pronunciation! |
| like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them | From The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger written in 1951. The style is conversational with appropriate use of colloquialisms to create the character of Holden Caulfield and make him seem real. |
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