Read Magazine

It's a new year for READ magazine. This year brings many new additions and exciting changes. Subscribers will have access to all the read e-issues and lots of other new and improved online content by clicking here on September 1.

READ's new year means a whole new set of themes, stories, plays and writing exercises. It also includes a special new section called 'Writing.' READ is now 32 pages, including 8 great pages of Writing. We're kicking off the year with a classic theme: Greek Mythology.

Our Center Stage play is "Jason and the Golden Fleece." Wim Coleman's original adaptation of the epic tale is a read-aloud retelling of the Argonauts' first adventure. The quest for the Golden Fleece is a famous tale that dates back to the third century B.C. in the form of an epic poem by Apollonius of Rhodes.

In an effort to merge the old with the new, our fiction excerpt comes from a new YA novel, Nobody's Princess. In Esther Friesner's popular YA book portrays Helen in her youth. Our excerpt looks at a spunky, young Helen, long before she goes to Troy and becomes legendary for her unmatched beauty.

This first issue of READ's Lit Scene Investigation (LSI) turns to Icarus's cautionary myth. We show how the Icarus story has been interpreted in many works of art and how to better understand different portrayals. The focus of our LSI, W.H. Auden's poem "Musee Des Beaux Arts," was so fascinating to the READ staff, that we decided to use this page to explore the poem further. Please find our extra analysis after the note.

In our Writing section, we examine archetypes, such as heroes, antiheroes, and villains, and where they can be found in ancient and modern stories.

We’re sure you'll enjoy the new look of READ and would love to hear how your classes respond! If you have any comments, questions, concerns, or if you just want to say hello, you can write to us at read@weeklyreader.com. And don't forget to check out our literary blog, WORD, at www.readandwriting.com

Sincerely,
The Editors of READ Magazine

LSI: The Hidden Rhyme Scheme of 'Musee des Beaux Arts"

The LSI this month focuses on various reinterpretations of the Icarus myth, notably in W. H. Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts."
Another aspect of the poem worth looking at with your students is the surprising, almost hidden rhymes that Auden crafted.
The poem is 21 lines long. It contains 10 pairs of rhyming lines. The only line that does not have a partner is the third (Its human position; how it takes place').
Read the poem aloud. Will any listeners notice the rhymes? Probably not, because Auden follows no pattern, but clearly, he took great care in crafting them. If for no other reason, they sit there waiting to be discovered by careful readers.

1      About suffering they were never wrong, (A)
2      The Old Masters; how well, they understood (B)
3      Its human position; how it takes place (C)
4      While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; (A)
5      How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting (D)
6      For the miraculous birth, there always must be (E)
7      Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating (D)
8      On a pond at the edge of the wood: (B)
9      They never forgot (F)
10   That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course (G)
11   Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot (F)
12   Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse (G)
13   Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. (E)
14   In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away (H)
15   Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may (H)
16   Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, (I)
17   But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone (J)
18   As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green (K)
19   Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen (K)
20   Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,(I)
21   Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.(J)