A 5-page literary path

Divided and becoming

This five-page path begins with Anne Elliot reconsidering the prudence that shaped her youth. Frederick Douglass then recognises literacy as a route toward freedom and fixes his purpose to learn. Victor Frankenstein imagines breaking the bounds of life and death; Edna Pontellier’s consciousness stirs toward the sea; Henry Jekyll names a division he can no longer contain. Knowledge changes each speaker, but the sequence does not claim that every change is liberating or wise. Keep one poem from each page, carrying questions of counsel, learning, ambition, awakening and responsibility forward. The path leaves room for becoming to include refusal, consequence and contradiction.

  1. PersuasionJane Austen
  2. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveFrederick Douglass
  3. Frankenstein; Or, The Modern PrometheusMary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  4. The AwakeningKate Chopin
  5. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeRobert Louis Stevenson

Literary path · page 1 of 5

Divided and becoming

Leave this path

Five pages of changing knowledge: a choice reconsidered, literacy pursued, life imagined, consciousness stirring and a self divided.

Begin with

Persuasion

Chapter IV · Project Gutenberg English transcription, presented as 1818

In Chapter IV of Austen’s final completed novel, Anne Elliot reflects on the advice that separated her from an early attachment.

Read Persuasion at Project Gutenberg
How to choose words

Keep the words that speak. Your poem will always follow their order on the page. With a keyboard, use the arrow keys to move through words.

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Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817) · Project Gutenberg English transcription, presented as 1818 · Chapter IV

Transcription prepared by Sharon Partridge and Martin Ward; revised by Richard Tonsing.

Read Persuasion at Project Gutenberg