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Titre : The Great Plague
Niveau : lycée (de B1 à B2)
Langue : anglais
Objectifs
Linguistiques : compréhension d’un message oral et écrit, repérage des informations essentielles dans un texte littéraire.
Culturels : mise en place de repères culturels, historiques, sociologiques et scientifiques sur le thème de la peste.
Cette séquence est conçue pour être réalisée au laboratoire de langues multimédia. Elle s’adresse en priorité à des élèves de seconde générale et s’inscrit dans les nouveaux programmes de seconde (notion : remembrance). Les élèves de section européenne (DNL histoire géographie) pourront travailler ce thème de façon plus approfondie.
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Contenu de la séquence proposée
Document principal
Trois extraits du Journal of the Plague Year de Daniel Defoe
Documents secondaires
Sites internet comprenant des documents divers permettant d’approfondir la compréhension (vidéo, texte, images).
Déroulement de la séquence
Deux séances sont nécessaires pour couvrir la séquence.
Séance 1
La première partie aura lieu en laboratoire multimédia puisqu’elle se base sur la visite de sites internet. Au cours de ces visites, les élèves devront collecter et organiser des informations sur la peste et faire des exercices de vocabulaire en ligne.
Les sites à consulter sont les suivants :
- The London Dungeon (www.thedungeons.com/)
- History on the Web (www.historyonthenet.com/)
Remarque : à partir de cette page, on peut accéder à d’autres activités en ligne comme Plague Doctor Wordsearch, Plague Doctor Crossword et Plague Doctor Quickquiz. On peut aussi, en cliquant sur Worksheet Version of this page, télécharger et imprimer pour les élèves une feuille d’informations sur la peste et les plague doctors qui pourra être lue en dehors des heures de cours afin que les informations découvertes pendant la séquence soient fixées par une lecture autonome.
- Britain Express (www.britainexpress.com/)
- Channel 4 (www.channel4.com/)
Les élèves doivent cliquer sur les zones marquées d’un point gris pour lire des informations complémentaires qu’ils noteront dans le tableau proposé sur la fiche élève.
Puis ils indiquent ces lieux sur la Carte de la mortalité dans Londres en 1665 (http://eee.uci.edu/clients/bjbecker/) que l’on peut trouver sur le site de l'université de Californie, UCIRvine et reproduire.
Séance 2
Cette deuxième partie est consacrée à l’étude de trois extraits du Journal of the Plague Year de Daniel Defoe.
Les extraits du Journal of the Plague Year (part 2), 1722, de Daniel Defoe peuvent être téléchargés sur le site de l’université d’Adélaïde (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/), en Australie. Pour chaque extrait, les élèves ont une série de questions auxquelles ils doivent répondre en citant le texte.
L’extrait n° 1 reprend les annonces officielles émises par les autorités pour alerter la population londonienne sur les mesures de sécurité et d’hygiène à prendre. Les élèves pourront ainsi se rendre compte du décalage entre ces décisions et le mode de transmission de la peste. Ce travail permet de reprendre les contenus de la première séance.
L’extrait n° 2 relate un épisode où une mère devient folle en voyant sa fille emportée par la peste en une journée. Les élèves analyseront les symptômes de la peste et la notion de peur, d’horreur et de folie du côté de la mère.
Le dernier extrait décrit comment la peste est vécue dans les rues de Londres et notamment le problème de l’enterrement en masse des victimes de la peste. Les élèves mettront en relation les informations collectées dans les premiers extraits et les descriptions dans cet extrait.
Prolongements pédagogiques
En guise de conclusion, deux pistes :
- un quiz en ligne (www.schoolhistory.co.uk/) sur le site de School History ;
- un travail personnel : les élèves vont à leur tour écrire leur compte rendu de l’épisode de peste qui décima Londres pendant l’année 1665. Ils devront réutiliser les connaissances qu’ils auront acquises pendant les deux séances et réinvestir le vocabulaire de la leçon en commentant des gravures de l’époque.
Créer un transparent à partir de la page de couverture d’un journal de l’époque (www.library.otago.ac.nz/), sur le site de la bibliothèque de l’université d’Otago. Montrer le transparent aux élèves et leur demander d’écrire à leur tour un article à partir de la gravure téléchargeable sur le site du Museum of London (www.museumoflondon.org.uk/). Le commentaire de ce document peut être fourni également pour les aider (voir fiche élève).
Fiche élève
General information on the Great Plague
The Black Death
Visit the London Dungeon website to read the story and complete the information.
http://www.thedungeons.com/flash/english/london/boards/plague_london.htm
a. Name of the movie:
b. Name of the city:
c. Year:
d. Name of the disease:
e. Symptoms:
f. Death toll (number of victims):
g. Atmosphere in the city:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
h. Solution found to stop spreading the disease: _________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
i. What you can do to prevent infection:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
j. Person who can help you – describe him: _________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
The plague doctors
Visit the History on the Net website.
http://www.historyonthenet.com/Stuarts/plague_doctor.htm
a. Write the names of this strange uniform on the drawing below.
b. Read the information on the “plague doctors” and write down the one that surprised or shocked you most.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Origins of the disease
Visit the Britain Express website and answer the following questions.
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/plague.htm
a. Why did people call it the Black Death?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
b. What animal carried the bacterium?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Where people died
Visit the Channel4 website and fill in the grid below.
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/fire/map.html
Place |
Number of victims in 1665 |
Major piece of information |
Westminster
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The City
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Whitechapel
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Covent Garden
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Southwark
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Then write down the names of those places on the London map your teacher will give you.
Plague in literature
You are going to study and analyze three excerpts of The Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. Read each excerpt carefully and then answer the questions below. Do not forget to quote the text.
Background information
Daniel Defoe (1660 [?]-1731), one of the first British novelists, was famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe.
Set in 1665, The Journal of the Plague Year is a fictional account of the plague that set upon London that summer. Defoe provides a terrible account of the development of the infection, its spread, and the destruction it left in its wake.
Excerpt 1
These orders of my Lord Mayor's were published, as I have said, the latter end of June, and took place from the 1st of July, and were as follows:
ORDERS CONCERNING INFECTED HOUSES AND PERSONS SICK OF THE PLAGUE.
Notice to be given of the Sickness.
'The master of every house, as soon as any one in his house complaineth, either of blotch or purple, or swelling in any part of his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick, without apparent cause of some other disease, shall give knowledge thereof to the examiner of health within two hours after the said sign shall appear.
Sequestration of the Sick.
'As soon as any man shall be found by this examiner, chirurgeon, or searcher to be sick of the plague, he shall the same night be sequestered in the same house; and in case he be so sequestered, then though he afterwards die not, the house wherein he sickened should be shut up for a month, after the use of the due preservatives taken by the rest.
Every visited House to be marked.
'That every house visited be marked with a red cross of a foot long in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual printed words, that is to say, "Lord, have mercy upon us," to be set close over the same cross, there to continue until lawful opening of the same house.
Every visited House to be watched.
'That the constables see every house shut up, and to be attended with watchmen, which may keep them in, and minister necessaries unto them at their own charges, if they be able, or at the common charge, if they are unable; the shutting up to be for the space of four weeks after all be whole.
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1. What kind of text is this?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
2. How are the symptoms described?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
3. What happened to someone declared ill? _________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
4. How were the houses of ill people identified? _________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
5. Who stayed in front of the houses of ill people? _________________________________________
_________________________________________
Excerpt 2
I remember, and while I am writing this story I think I hear the very sound of it, a certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old, and who was possessed of a very considerable fortune. They were only lodgers in the house where they were. The young woman, her mother, and the maid had been abroad on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house was not shut up; but about two hours after they came home the young lady complained she was not well; in a quarter of an hour more she vomited and had a violent pain in her head. 'Pray God', says her mother, in a terrible fright, 'my child has not the distemper!' The pain in her head increasing, her mother ordered the bed to be warmed, and resolved to put her to bed, and prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the ordinary remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper began.
While the bed was airing the mother undressed the young woman, and just as she was laid down in the bed, she, looking upon her body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens on the inside of her thighs. Her mother, not being able to contain herself, threw down her candle and shrieked out in such a frightful manner that it was enough to place horror upon the stoutest heart in the world; nor was it one scream or one cry, but the fright having seized her spirits, she fainted first, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and down the stairs, like one distracted, and indeed really was distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several hours void of all sense, or at least government of her senses, and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment, for the gangrene which occasions the spots had spread [over] her whole body, and she died in less than two hours. But still the mother continued crying out, not knowing anything more of her child, several hours after she was dead. It is so long ago that I am not certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two or three weeks after.
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1. How many people are there in this story told by Defoe? What do you know about them?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
2. Symptoms of the plague: list the symptoms of the plague in the order in which they appeared.
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
3. What is the plague called?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
4. What did her mother do to cure her?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
5. What was her mother’s reaction? List words from the text.
Fear :
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Horror:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Madness:
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Excerpt 3
The many dismal objects which happened everywhere as I went about the streets, had filled my mind with a great deal of horror for fear of the distemper, which was indeed very horrible in itself, and in some more than in others. The swellings, which were generally in the neck or groin, when they grew hard and would not break, grew so painful that it was equal to the most exquisite torture; and some, not able to bear the torment, threw themselves out at windows or shot themselves, or otherwise made themselves away, and I saw several dismal objects of that kind. Others, unable to contain themselves, vented their pain by incessant roarings, and such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard as we walked along the streets that would pierce the very heart to think of, especially when it was to be considered that the same dreadful scourge might be expected every moment to seize upon ourselves.
[…]
One of the worst days we had in the whole time, as I thought, was in the beginning of September, when, indeed, good people began to think that God was resolved to make a full end of the people in this miserable city. This was at that time when the plague was fully come into the eastern parishes. The parish of Aldgate, if I may give my opinion, buried above a thousand a week for two weeks, though the bills did not say so many;—but it surrounded me at so dismal a rate that there was not a house in twenty uninfected in the Minories, in Houndsditch, and in those parts of Aldgate parish about the Butcher Row and the alleys over against me. I say, in those places death reigned in every corner. Whitechapel parish was in the same condition, and though much less than the parish I lived in, yet buried near 600 a week by the bills, and in my opinion near twice as many. Whole families, and indeed whole streets of families, were swept away together; insomuch that it was frequent for neighbours to call to the bellman to go to such-and-such houses and fetch out the people, for that they were all dead.
And, indeed, the work of removing the dead bodies by carts was now grown so very odious and dangerous that it was complained of that the bearers did not take care to clear such houses where all the inhabitants were dead, but that sometimes the bodies lay several days unburied, till the neighbouring families were offended with the stench, and consequently infected.
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1. Vocabulary: match the following words from the text with their definitions.
a. scourge
b. swelling
c. torment
d. roaring
e. cart
f. stench
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great physical pain
a loud, deep sound
something that causes great suffering or a lot of trouble
vehicle with four wheels which is pulled by a horse
a strong unpleasant smell
a part of your body that has become bigger because of illness
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2. Answer the following questions.
a. How is pain described?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
b. What did some ill people even do?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
c. What could Defoe hear in the street?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
d. What was plague supposed to symbolize?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
e. What was the death rate?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
f. What is the narrator’s judgement on this?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
g. How were the corpses taken from the houses to the graveyard?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
h. What happened in the end?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
3. Quiz!
To check your knowledge on the great plague, play a quiz online!
Visit the SchoolHistory website and start the game!
http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/games/fling/plague/index.shtml
4. Homework: written assignment
Look at the engraving on the Museum of London website.
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/frames.shtml?http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/MOLsite/piclib/pages/bigpicture.asp?id=359
Imagine you are a journalist making a report of the Great Plague. Use what you have learned and what you can see on the picture to describe what happened in London during that dreadful epidemic. (200 words)
Pictorial depiction of the Great Plague (1665)
The top left scene is in a bedchamber with a person laid out on the floor and a coffin. A scene on the middle right shows a mass grave site. In the very centre people are carrying coffins. On the bottom left graves are being dug and coffins being placed in them. In the middle of the bottom row is a funeral procession. On the bottom right is a scene of people possibly leaving London.
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Corrigé
General information on the Great Plague
The Black Death
a. Name of the movie: The great plague
b. Name of the city: London
c. Year: 1665
d. Name of the disease: Bubonic plague
e. Symptoms: First a bad cold, then vomiting and fever; finally, repulsive swellings in the armpit and the groin oozing blood and pus, then death.
f. Toll (number of victims): 100,000 people died
g. Atmosphere in the city: Incredible filth, unspeakable stench of rotting rubbish, raw sewage and animal entrails.
h. Solution found to stop spreading the disease: People must stay in London: escape is forbidden by the law. Families are locked in their house if only one member is afflicted.
i. What you can do to prevent infection:
- buy a sweet nosegay to smother the dreadful smell
- fill your house with smoke
- smear yourself with your own excrement
- suck the pus from the boils on the dead and dying
j. Person who can help you – describe him: A plague doctor. He looks like a huge crow: full-length cloak, thick goggles and a ‘beak’ snuffed with herbs.
The plague doctors
a.
Origins of the disease
a. Why did people call it the Black Death? Because the colour of the tell-tale lumps that foretold its presence in a victim's body and because no one survived.
b. What animal carried the bacterium? The plague bacteria were carried by fleas which lived as parasites on rats.
Where people died
Place |
Number of victims in 1665 |
Major piece of information |
Westminster |
12,000 |
When plague reached this place, the Court and most wealthy residents fled. |
The City |
4,500 |
Plague spread to the city in May and death rates rose steadily. |
Whitechapel |
? |
The area was invaded by plague in September. |
Covent Garden |
Over one fourth of all plague deaths in London. |
St Giles was the first parish to be infected on a large scale. The poor suburbs just outside the city walls were badly affected. |
Southwark |
One third of the residents died in the plague year. |
Crowded conditions meant other illnesses flourished alongside the plague. |
Plague in literature
Excerpt 1
1. What kind of text is this? These are the orders of the mayor of London that were published in the streets of London in July 1665.
2. How are the symptoms described? “blotch or purple, or swelling in any part of his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick, without apparent cause of some other disease”
3. What happened to someone declared ill? They were “sequestered” in their house and the house had to be shut up for a month.
4. How were the houses of ill people identified? “every house visited be marked with a red cross of a foot long in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual printed words, that is to say, "Lord, have mercy upon us," to be set close over the same cross”.
5. Who stayed in front of the houses of ill people? They were “attended with watchmen”.
Excerpt 2
1. How many people are there in this story told by Defoe? What do you know about them?
This is the story of a rich woman and her nineteen-year-old daughter. (cf. “a certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old”) As they came back from a trip, the young woman caught the plague. A third person, the maid, is mentioned.
2. Symptoms of the plague: list the symptoms of the plague in the order in which they appeared.
“two hours after they came home the young lady complained she was not well; in a quarter of an hour more she vomited and had a violent pain in her head.” In the following paragraph, we learn that she had “the fatal tokens on the inside of her thighs”. Finally, the gangrene which occasions the spots had spread [over] her whole body, and she died in less than two hours.
3. What is the plague called?
The plague is called “distemper”.
4. What did her mother do to cure her?
She warmed the bed so that the girl would sweat. It was the ordinary remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper began.
5. What was her mother’s reaction? List words from the text.
Fear: threw down her candle, shrieked out, a frightful manner, fainted, ran all over the house
Horror: place horror, scream, cry, fright having seized her spirits
Madness: distracted, screeching and crying out void of all sense, never came thoroughly to herself again
Excerpt 3
1. Vocabulary: match the following words from the text with their definitions.
a. scourge: something that causes great suffering or a lot of trouble
b. swelling: a part of your body that has become bigger because of illness
c. torment: great physical pain
d. roaring: a loud, deep sound
e. cart: vehicle with four wheels which is pulled by a horse
f. stench: a strong unpleasant smell
2. Questions
a. How is pain described? Pain is equalled to torture: “The swellings grew so painful that it was equal to the most exquisite torture”
b. What did some ill people even do? They took their own lives: “threw themselves out at windows or shot themselves, or otherwise made themselves away”.
c. What could Defoe hear in the street? He heard “incessant roarings, and loud and lamentable cries”.
d. What was plague supposed to symbolize? A punishment by God: “God was resolved to make a full end of the people in this miserable city.”
e. What was the death rate? “The parish of Aldgate buried above a thousand a week for two weeks”; “the parish I lived in buried near 600 a week by the bills, and in my opinion near twice as many.”
f. What is the narrator’s judgement on this? “death reigned in every corner.”
g. How were the corpses taken from the houses to the graveyard? They were taken by carts.
h. What happened in the end? Sometimes all the people of the same family died in the house, so that “the bodies lay several days unburied, till the neighbouring families were offended with the stench, and consequently infected.”
Ressources en ligne
Documents sur la peste (médecine)
L’encyclopédie Wikipedia
Informations générales sur la peste.
http://en.wikipedia.org/
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Informations médicales sur la peste bubonique.
www.cdc.gov/
English Department at the University of Pennsylvania
Des données statistiques sur ce site universitaire.
www.english.upenn.edu/
Teacher’s paradise
Un compte rendu scientifique clair pour le travail en amont de la séquence de cours.
www.teachersparadise.com/
Interviews de Justin Champion (PDF, 29 ko) et de Vanessa Harding (PDF, 31,5 ko). Channel 4 a interviewé deux spécialistes sur l’épidémie de peste de 1665 dans le cadre d'une émission en 2002 sur ce thème.
www.channel4.com/
Références littéraires
L’université d’Adélaïde
e-texte du Journal of the Plague de Daniel Defoe.
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Texte en ligne.
www.geocities.com/
Activités pédagogiques
National Archives
Activités à faire en ligne à partir de gravures, de textes et de documents manuscrits de l’époque.
www.learningcurve.gov.uk/
atschool-eduweb
Activités à faire en ligne ou à imprimer directement (exercice lacunaire, tableau à compléter à partir de chiffres sur les victimes de la peste).
http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/
School History
- Activités à faire en ligne à partir d’une page de journal de l’époque
- Activité sur les symptômes de la peste (PDF, 16 ko)
- Activité à partir d’extraits du Diary of Samuel Pepys (PDF, 172 ko) sur le site school history.org
- Document sur Samuel Pepys (PDF, 48 ko)
www.schoolhistory.co.uk/
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