International Journal of Library & Information Science (IJLIS) Volume 6, Issue 2, March–April 2017, pp. 34–41, Article ID: IJLIS_06_02_005 Available online at http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJLIS?Volume=6&Issue=2 Journal Impact Factor (2016): 8.2651 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com ISSN Print: 2277-3533 and ISSN Online: 2277-3584 © IAEME Publication

FREE WEBSITES BENEFITTING THE LEARNING AND TEACHING OF 18TH CENTURY ENGLISH

Patricia Robin Research Scholar, Bharathiar University, Librarian, St. Michael’s College, Cherthala, Kerala, India

Dr. P. Joshi George Research Guide, Bharathiar University, Librarian, St. Albert’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala, India

ABSTRACT The role of Free Websites in the arena of teaching and learning is vast and varied. The 18th century English are still popular with the academic world. Websites benefitting the learning and teaching of poets of this era is short-listed from the world wide web and the best of these websites serving the above purpose are identified. Key words: Free websites, 18th century poets, English Literature. Cite this Article: Patricia Robin and Dr. P. Joshi George, Free Websites Benefitting the Learning and Teaching of 18th Century English Poetry. International Journal of Library & Information Science, 6(2), 2017, pp.34–41. http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJLIS?Volume=6&Issue=2

1. INTRODUCTION Literary works have stood the test of time based on its literary quality, in addition to its popularity (Kolodny, Annette 1980)[1]. Today when a student of English Literature is asked to mention the names of few English poets, it is found the names repeatedly mentioned by diverse groups at different spell seems to be similar. Perhaps the only difference is that, the order of mentioning of the names of the slightly alter. Invariably, the list of English poets goes like this Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Byron, Blake and a few more. A person who has had an in-depth study regarding English poetry has innumerable number of poets ranging from the 14th century Chaucer to the post-colonial poet Ishion Hutchinson. On trying to identify the above mentioned poets for any common lineage shared by them, it was deciphered that all of them belonged to the category of ‘18th Century Poets’ (Thorpe, Peter 1975)[2] . Hence it probed the thought that if a student of English literature, or the library personnel approached by students of the genre, with the desire to know the exhaustive list of the 18th century poets, their biographical details, their complete works, criticism based on them, books and links for extra reading - what could be the source for finding a solution?

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The Wold Wide Web, being a universal panacea (Smith, Pauline 1997)[3], provides a solution to this too. The innumerable number of ‘Free Websites’ on the Internet also include websites only meant for 18th century English Literature as well as English Literature in general. These websites can be analysed in detail, to reach the inference as to which free websites can be made use of studying the specific area, and to what extend it will be useful to its users (Nim Park , Son 2009)[4]

2. POPULARITY OF THE 18TH CENTURY POETS 18th century poets are always popular than poets of all ages (Jain, Nalini 2016)[5]. On perusing the poems of these poets, it is noticed that there is an underlying common element in these poems. Romanticism is one of the outstanding features. Nature, love, hope, loneliness, passion, human relations are the theme matters of the poems of this age. These themes are very much integrated with human life of all times. Perhaps that is why, the 18th century poets, namely ‘Romantic Poets’ and their poems are so much appealing to readers, not of the then century, but even in the modern era. This is the urge behind the content analysis of the free websites which is used by the students of English Literature for learning or teaching 18th century poets.

3. RESEARCH FOCUS The motive was to identify websites which will serve as information sources for the teaching and learning of the ‘18th century poets’. Initially, the list of 18th century poets was listed out, and then the world wide web was searched for those English Literature websites covering the listed poets, or 18th century poets on the whole. Analysing the content of these website, a conclusion could be reached as to what extend these websites are going to be useful (Ya-Ting C. Yang, Chia Ying Chan 2008)[6]

4. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY  To identify the free websites, useful for the study of the 18th. century English poets.  To find out which website provides the exhaustive list of the 18th century English poets.  To assess the best website which can be used for studying the 18th century English poets, from the websites under study.

5. METHODOLOGY Initially the world wide web was browsed thoroughly to identify the websites that could be made use of to study the 18th century English poets. The websites helpful for the learning of English literature is also taken up, and analysed to find out to what extent they can be used to study the 18th century English poets. The list of poets in each website is tabulated to find out which website studies maximum number of English poets of the 18th century. Each website is analysed to find out, other than the number of poets mentioned, the biographical details of the poets, the complete works of each poet (poems written by them), criticism based on them, and books and links for extra reading. Hence a conclusion can be reached as to which of these websites under study is the best for learning 18th century English poetry.

5.1. Websites for Learning 18th Century Poetry The following websites were taken up for the analysis regarding the 18th century English poets. Of the innumerable websites the following were short listed since for a learner browsing the internet for information regarding 18th century poets, these websites seemed to be a ready reckoner. Without much effort, the learner is able together the required information sought after.

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Table 1 Sl.No. Name of the Website Website represented using the Alphabet 1. www.poetseers.org A 2. www.famous poets and poems.com B 3. www.poem of quotes.com C 4. www.luminarium.org D 5. www. Immortal poetry.com E 6. www.sparknotes.com F 7. www.cliffnotes.com G 8. www.spartacus educational.com H

5.2. Websites under Study www.poetseers.org[7] Poet Seers is a collection of spiritual and illuminating poetry by poets from around the world. Presently, it is a collection of work by 150 poets. The website contains classic poets to poets of the contemporary age. The listing of poets are from A-Z, Anna Akmatova to W.B.Yeats. The list of poets are categorised. For example, British poets, Romantic poets, American poets and Contemporary poets. Poetry can be selected by themes, such as poems on love, death etc. www.famous poets and poems.com[8] Famous poets and poems, is a free poetry site. It contains a large collection of poems and quotes from over 631 poets. The hyperlink ‘poets’ leads to three sections.  poets by name (alphabets provided)  poets born (period provided)  see also (contains poets under the category, poets by nationality, contemporary poets, women poets, African-American poets etc.) www.poem of quotes.com[9] Poem of quotes is a website dedicated to offering information on poetry and spread the works of great writers and thinkers throughout history. The homepage provides several hyperlinks. Of them one category is ‘poets’, which further opens to famous poets and analysis. This clicks open to poets of different category of which one is ‘18th century poets’. The biography, the list of poems, and the poem in detail of each poet is provided. www.luminarium.org[10] The main categories of the website luminarium are Medieval, Renaissance, 17th century and Restoration. The list for 18th century poets are not exhaustive under the restoration age. The 18 century poets beyond the restoration age – the outstanding ones like Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Southey are not included. This is one drawback of this website. www.immortal poetry.com[11] On the homepage of ‘immortal poetry’, one of the categories id poets by decade. Of this the ‘18th century’ opens the list of poems of the period. On further clicking on ‘author’, the poet in alphabetical order appears. The poets of the 18th century can easily be spelled.

http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJLIS 36 [email protected] Free Websites Benefitting the Learning and Teaching of 18th Century English Poetry www.sparknotes.com[12] The homepage of the spark notes has a link ‘literature’. Clicking on literature the ‘Title’ option and the ‘Author’ option is open. Clicking to the author option all authors in alphabetical order is displayed. The 18th century poets can be sorted out knowing their names. www.cliffnotes.com[13] The homepage of cliff notes has the link ‘literature’, which when clicked, offer ‘Title’ and ‘Authors’. On click opening the ‘Authors’ – the name of the authors in alphabetical order is shown. The 18th century poets can be spotted from the list provided their names known. The drawback of this website is that the poets are not categorised as per their period or school. www.spartacus educational.com[14] The website Spartacus educational has several links (main menu) of which one is ‘British History’. Click opening this a wide scenario opens of which, one of the links is ‘Poets, Novelists and Playwrights”. This leads to 18th& 19th century Poets, Playwrights and Essayists. The 18th century poets can be spotted out from this list provided their names are known. The biography of the poets, and their works are discussed further.

Age Duration of the 18th Century Poets It seems paradoxical to know that the 18th century poets means poets born in the time era from 1701 – 1800. Many of them established themselves as poets in the 18th century, but their life span extended into the 19th century too (ie.1801 – 1900). Hence it is found that 18th century spread from 1701 up to 1864.

5.3. English Poets of the 18th Century and their Corresponding Period

Table 2 Sl.No. Name of the 18th century poet Period 1. 1757-1827 2. 1759-1796 3. 1788-1824 4. Samuel Coleridge 1772-1834 5. 1731-1800 6. 1777-1844 7. 1752-1770 8. 1716-1771 9. 1730-1774 10. Goethe 1749-1832 11. 1784-1859 12. 1709-1784 13. 1795-1821 14. 1779-1852 15. Percy Byshe Shelley 1792-1822 16. 1774-1843 17. Sir 1771-1832 18. William Words Worth 1770-1850 19. 1793-1864 20. 1688-1744

5.4. Data Analysis of the Websites Each website under study is scrutinised to find which of the 18th century English poets is included in the website, to an extent to which a teacher or learner of this genre can make use

http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJLIS 37 [email protected] Patricia Robin and Dr. P. Joshi George of it. The 8 websites are represented in the table using alphabets A to H, representing the websites, in order to accommodate them in the table below. The same is being represented using a tick (√) mark. The total score of the website is represented at the fag end of the column. These values are used to plot the graph, Website versus 18th century poets.

Table 3 Sl.No. Name of the 18th A B C D E F G H No. of Century poet Websites for each poet 1. William Blake √ √ √ x √ √ x x 5 2. Robert Burns √ √ √ x √ x x x 4 3. Lord Byron √ √ √ x √ x x √ 5 4. Samuel Coleridge √ √ √ x √ √ x √ 6 5. William Cowper x √ x √ x x x x 2 6. Thomas Campbell x √ x x x x x x 1 7. Thomas Chatterton x √ x x x x x x 1 8. Thomas Gray x √ √ √ x x x x 3 9. Oliver Goldsmith x x x √ √ x x x 2 10. Goethe √ √ √ x x x √ x 4 11. Leigh Hunt x x x x x x x √ 1 12. Samuel Johnson x √ x √ x x x x 2 13. John Keats √ √ √ x √ √ √ x 6 14. Thomas Moore x √ x x √ x √ x 3 15. Percy Byshe Shelley √ √ √ x √ √ √ √ 7 16. Robert Southey x √ √ x √ x x √ 4 17. Sir Walter Scott x √ x x √ x √ x 3 18. √ √ x x √ √ √ √ 6 19. John Clare √ x √ x √ x x x 3 20. Alexander Pope √ x √ √ x √ x x 4 No. of poets in each 10 16 11 5 12 6 6 6 Websites

5.5. Analysis of Free Websites benefitting the Learning and Teaching of 18thEnglish Century Poetry

No.of poets in each website 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Figure 1

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No. of Websites for each poet 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Figure 2

5.6. Percentage Calculation of Websites for each Poet Of the eight websites studied, all the websites do not provide information of all the twenty poets under study. The poet Shelly is included in 7 websites, while Wordsworth, Keats and Coleridge are included only in 6 websites. Hence the percentage calculation for Shelley is 87.5% and that for Wordsworth, Keats and Coleridge is 75%. The rest of the poets follow.

Table 4 Name of the 18th century poet Percentage of website for each poet William Blake 62.5 Robert Burns 50 Lord Byron 62.5 Samuel Coleridge 75 William Cowper 25 Thomas Campbell 12.5 Thomas Chatterton 12.5 Thomas Gray 37.5 Oliver Goldsmith 25 Goethe 50 Leigh Hunt 12.5 Samuel Johnson 25 John Keats 75 Thomas Moore 37.5 Percy Byshe Shelley 87.5 Robert Southey 50 Sir Walter Scott 37.5 William Wordsworth 75 John Clare 37.5 Alexander Pope 50

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Percentage of website for each poet

William Blake Robert Burns Lord Byron Samuel Coleridge William Cowper Thomas Campbell Thomas Chatterton Thomas Gray Oliver Goldsmith Goethe Leigh Hunt Samuel Johnson John Keats Thomas Moore Percy Byshe Shelley Robert Southey Sir Walter Scott William Wordsworth John Clare Alexander Pope

Figure 3 6. FINDINGS  www.famous poets and poems.com (Website B) stands best for the study of 18 th century poets. Of the 20 poets taken up for study, Website B covers 16 poets. Above all, these 16 poets include Shelley, Coleridge Wordsworth, Keats, Blake, Southey, Gothe etc. who are the icons of the 18th Century poets – popular from the perspective of Romantic poets, Nature poets etc.  www.immortal poetry.com (Website E) stands second in the genre of websites that can be used for studying 18th century poetry. Of the 20 poets under study, Website E offers study on 12 poets. Like Website B, these websites too has Shelley, Coleridge, Keats and Wordsworth on the lead. But on the whole the total number of poets are lesser than website E.  www.poem of quotes.com (Website C) explores 11 poets of the 20 poets of the 18th century. Even in this case it cannot be overlooked that the most popular of the stream under study is infallibly included in the website, even though the number of websites are limited.  www.poetseers.org (Website A) has a category of 10 poets studied, of the 20 poets under consideration. The major poets are included in these websites. But it occupies the 4th position, since it is only half the number of poets that are taken up for study.  From this analysis, incidentally a different perspective of study has involved. Of the 20 poets falling under the category of the 18th century poets, we find that P.B.Shelley is the poet covered by 7 websites out of the 8 websites studied. The next in the line are Coleridge, Wordsworth and Keats – each of them having been covered by 6 websites, out of the 8 websites under study. Lord Byron occupies the 3 rd position when 5 websites include the study of his poems. It is also otherwise provided that, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats and Wordsworth are the most popular poets of the 18th century (Butler, Marilyn 1982)[15]. And they also fall under the category of Romantic poets, Nature poets etc.

7. CONCLUSION  The free websites, useful for the study of the 18th. century English poets, is www.famous poets and poems.com (Website B), www.immortal poetry.com (Website E), www.poem of quotes.com (Website C) and www.poetseers.org (Website A)  The website which provides the exhaustive list of the 18th century English poets is www.famous poets and poems.com

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 The best website which can be used for studying the 18th century English poets, on comparison of the websites under study is www.famous poets and poems.com

REFERENCES [1] Kolodny, Annette. "Dancing through the minefield: some observations on the theory, practice and politics of a feminist literary criticism." Feminist Studies 6.1 (1980): 1-25. [2] Thorpe, Peter. Eighteenth Century English Poetry. Taylor Trade Publications, 1975. [3] Smith, Pauline A., Ian A. Newman, and L. M. Parks. "Virtual hierarchies and virtual networks: some lessons from hypermedia usability research applied to the World Wide Web." International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 47.1 (1997): 67-95. [4] Nim Park, Chan, and Jeong-Bae Son. "Implementing computer-assisted language learning in the EFL classroom: Teachers’ perceptions and perspectives." International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning 5.2 (2009): 80-101. [5] Jain, Nalini, and John Richardson. Eighteenth Century English Poetry. Routledge, 2016. [6] Yang, Y. T. C., & Chan, C. Y. (2008). Comprehensive evaluation criteria for English learning websites using expert validity surveys. Computers & Education, 51(1), 403-422 [7] http:// www.poetseers.org [8] http://www.famous poets and poems.com [9] http://www.poem of quotes.com [10] http:// www.luminarium.org [11] http:// www. Immortal poetry.com [12] http:// www.sparknotes.com [13] http://www.cliffnotes.com [14] http://www.spartacus educational.com [15] Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, rebels, and reactionaries: English literature and its background, 1760-1830. Oxford University Press, USA, 1982 [16] Patricia Robin and Dr. P. Joshi George, Analysis of Free Websites Supporting the Learning of Shakespearean Literature. International Journal of Library & Information Science, 6(1), 2017, pp.41–50

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