Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 7540

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'Despite his grandmother's strictures on reading, Davies read widely. His first attraction was to the penny dreadfuls of his day, which he read in secret... The school books he read contained poems that stirred him deeply. One of the school texts he used contained long passages from "The Lady of the Lake" with a prose commentary attached. And then there was a favourite schoolboy poem starting with the resounding line: "The Soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers", with a refrain that the boys loved to chant at play. There were extracts from Shakespeare, the usual lyrics, and a few heavily didactic poems intended to inculcate morality in the boyish heart'.
Century: 1850-1899
Date: 1885
Country: Wales
Time: n/a
Place: city: Newport
specific address: school
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:William Henry Davies
Age Child (0-17)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 3 Jul 1871
Socio-economic group: Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder
Occupation: iron moulder's son, later poet
Religion: Christian
Country of origin: Wales
Country of experience: Wales
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: William Shakespeare
Title: [extracts in school textbook]
Genre: Drama, Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: reproduced in school textbook
Provenance: read in situ

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 7540  
Source - Print  
  Author: Richard J. Stonesifer
  Editor: n/a
  Title: W.H. Davies: A Critical Biography
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1963
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 21
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Richard J. Stonesifer, W.H. Davies: A Critical Biography (London, 1963), p. 21, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=7540, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)