With captivating stories that have filled joy in the hearts of millions of children worldwide time and time again, Hans Christian Andersen is remembered as one of the most creative and widely read fairy tales author to live. Although Andersen was also a novelist, poet, playwright and essayist, his fairy tales became his identity and his greatest contribution to world literature. Andersen was born to a low class poor family on April 2, 1805 in Odense, Denmark. His father was a shoemaker and his mother contributed to the family income by washing clothes of other people.

Hans Christian Andersen

Jonas Collins, a director of The Royal Theatre supported him by arranging a scholarship to obtain basic education. However, Andersen never proved to be a good student and was weak at spelling and writing well. This is probably why his writing style was simplistic with everyday spoken language. After seven tough years at school, Andersen graduated from university in 1828. His first poem The Dying Child was published in the Copenhagen Post a year before his graduation. Travelling through Italy in 1833 and his own life inspired The Improvisatore (1835), Andersen’s first novel to obtain international acclaim. The success encouraged Andersen’s literary career and he wrote five more novels which unfortunately did not do well since Hans was a better playwright than a novelist.

Fairy tales were Andersen’s forte. Some of his most defining tales were written between 1835 and 1850. These included the famous The Princess on the Pea (1835), Thumbelina (1835), The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1838), The Snow Queen (1844), The Darning Needle (1845), The Little Match Girl (1845), and The Shirt Collar (1848). Andersen’s tales are full of emotions and heart-breaking ordeals his characters go through before settling in a happily ever after. The world around the character is often cold and cruel. It is believed, many of Andersen’s tales carry in them an autobiographic element. Before his death on August 4, 1875, Andersen was a renowned writer. He was regarded as a national treasure by the Danish government and also given a stipend. A statue was erected in Rosenborg Garden, Copenhagen to honour this legendary writer.

Source: Hans Christian Andersen. (2012). FamousAuthors.org. Retrieved 04:07, February 20, 2014 from http://www.famousauthors.org/hans-christian-andersen

LANGUAGE FOCUSSIMPLE PAST

Use the Simple past to talk about actions, states or situations that are finished at specific time in the past.

Examples of signal word:

Yesterday, last week, a month ago

 Form

Regular verbs: 

e.g. walked, showed, watched, played, smiled, stopped

Verb + ed

Subject VerbBe Have Do

I was had didYou were had didHe, she, it was had didWe were had didYou were had didThey were had did

Irregular VerbsThere is no rule for these verbs. You should learn them by heart. Here are some examples:

InfinitiveLeave Left Speak SpokeWrite WroteBuy BoughtSend Sent

FOCUSED PRACTICE

Read more about Hans Christian Andersen and underline all the verbs in the simple past

Hans Christian Andersen Career:

His father died when Andersen was 11 (in 1816). Anderson was

forced to go to work, first as an apprentice to a weaver and tailor and

then in a tobacco factory. At the age of 14, he moved to Copenhagen

to try a career as a singer, dancer and actor. Even with the support of

benefactors, the next three years were difficult. He sang in the boy's

choir until his voice changed, but he made very little money. He also

tried the ballet, but his awkwardness made such a career impossible.

Finally, when he was 17, Chancellor Jonas Collin discovered

Anderson. Collin was a director at the Royal Theatre. After hearing

the Anderson read a play, Collin realized that he had talent. Collin

procured money from the king for Anderson's education, first

sending him to a terrible, taunting teacher, then arranging a private

tutor. In 1828, Andersen passed the entrance examinations to the

university in Copenhagen. His writings were first published in 1829.

And, in 1833, he received grant money for travel, which he used to

visit Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy. During his journey,

he met Victor Hugo, Heinrich Heine, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas.

In 1835, Andersen published Fairy Tales for Children, which

contained four short stories. He eventually wrote 168 fairy tales.

Among Andersen's best known fairy tales are "Emperor's New

Clothes," "Little Ugly Duckling," "The Tinderbox," "Little Claus

and Big Claus," "Princess and the Pea," "The Snow Queen," "The

Little Mermaid," "The Nightingale," "The Story of a Mother and

The Swineherd."

In 1847, Andersen met Charles Dickens. In 1853, he dedicated A

Poet's Day Dreams to Dickens. Anderson's work influenced

Dickens, along with other writers like William Thackeray and Oscar

Wilde.

LANGUAGE FOCUS

PAST PROGRESSIVE

Use the past progressive to describe an action that was in the progress at a specific time in the past. The action began before the specific time and may or may not continue after specific time.

Eg.: When the lights changed, I was crossing the road.

(#1 – I was crossing the road#2 – The traffic lights changed)

Use the past progressive with while to talk about two actions in progress at the same time in the past.

E.g.: While I was watching TV, my brother was talking on the phone.

(#1 – I was watching TV#2 – My brother was using the phone)READING TEXTS

Usman Awang  (12 July 1929, Kuala Sedili, Johore – 29 November 2001, Kuala Lumpur)

Usman Awang was a Malaysian poet, playwright and novelist.Malaysian National Laureate (1983). He was born into a penniless family in Johore, and had worked as a coolie and served as a policeman when he was young. He was good at writing traditional Pantun poems. His career began in 1946, and he was a nucleus member of Angkatan Asas 50. The prominent Malaysian critic Syed Husin Ali, one of his closest friends, wrote this about him: "Usman is popularly considered, and most justifiably too, as perhaps the best poet in the Malay language. Most important, he is accepted without question as a people’s poet. Writing since 1955, Usman did not produce a very large corpus of poetry, only about 200 of them. But the man, his personality, his poetry and his ideas have a much deeper and wider influence than that number would suggest. Much of his poems are simple, clear, often romantic, and just beautiful. He is a master at weaving words into striking phrases, sentences and verses that are of exceptional classical beauty and sometimes appear to be nostalgic and even escapist."

JANE AUSTEN (1775 – 1817)

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire. She was one of eight children of a

clergyman and grew up in a close-knit family. She began to write as a teenager. In 1801 the family moved to Bath. After the

death of Jane's father in 1805 Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother moved several times eventually settling in Chawton,

near Steventon. Jane's brother Henry helped her negotiate with a publisher and her first novel, 'Sense and Sensibility',

appeared in 1811. Her next novel 'Pride and Prejudice', which she described as her "own darling child" received highly

favourable reviews. 'Mansfield Park' was published in 1814, then 'Emma' in 1816. 'Emma' was dedicated to the prince regent,

an admirer of her work. All of Jane Austen's novels were published anonymously. In 1816, Jane began to suffer from ill-

health, probably due to Addison's disease. She travelled to Winchester to receive treatment, and died there on 18 July 1817.

Two more novels, 'Persuasion' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published posthumously and a final novel was left incomplete.

ICT CORNER

ICT and SPEAKING CORNER

Look up a literature website. Find different folklores from different countries. Who is your favourite? Choose one and tell your friends

about it.

http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/

http://www.literaturepage.com/read/grimms-fairy-tales.html

Freddy's Fabulous Frogs (A Tongue Twister Tale by S.E. Schlosser )

Fabian Frogmorton stole Freddy's frog Fats on the Friday of the town of Flowerpot's Fabulous Frogs Contest. Freddy was furious. Fabian Frogmorton had cheated Freddy out of the Fabulous Frog Award last year. Fabian had fed Freddy's frog flies just before the Fast Frog Frolic, the final race in Flowerpot's Fabulous Frogs Contest. Freddy's frog had been too full to frolic, so Fabian's frog had finished first.

Freddy reported the theft to Flossie French, the teacher in charge of Flowerpot's Fabulous Frogs Contest. "Fabian Frogmorton registered Fats as his frog." Flossie French fussed. "Can you prove Fats is your frog?" Since Freddy couldn't prove he'd found Fats in the pond last Friday, Flossie French couldn't do anything about the theft. Freddy was frantic. He did not want Fabian to win Flowerpot's Fabulous Frogs Contest for the fourth Fall in a row.

Freddy had to find another frog. During lunch, Freddy went down to Felix Frasier's creek. Freddy was still fuming about Fabian, and he did not see the tiny frog until the frog jumped away from him. It was the highest hop, made by the teeniest frog that Freddy Friedman had ever seen!

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But let’s read first about our own myth….