Miss Stacy and Literary References
Anne of Green Gables Week 3
Once again, there is a lot that happens in this week’s section of Anne of Green Gables. One of the most notable for me is that the students of Avonlea get a new teacher.
“In the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend. Miss Stacy was a bright, sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning and holding the affections of her pupils and bringing out the best that was in them mentally and morally.”
There is no doubt in my mind that Miss Stacy is one of the reasons that I became a teacher.
Image below is Miss Stacy and Anne from the 1985 miniseries by Sullivan Entertainment.
Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert
Marilla scoffs at some of Miss Stacy’s methods, especially when Anne tells her that they are to put on a concert.
“It’s just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time that ought to be put on your lessons,” she grumbled. “I don’t approve of children’s getting up concerts and racing about to practices. It makes them vain and forward and fond of gadding.”
But when she and Matthew see Anne (the star of the night in her puffed sleeves) perform The Fairy Queen by Edmund Spenser, she changes her mind.
“Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them,” said Matthew proudly.
“Yes, she did,” admitted Marilla. “She’s a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice, too. I’ve been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there’s no real harm in it after all.”
Vanity and Vexation of Spirit
When Anne accidentally dyes her hair green instead of black, she quotes a line that sounds like Shakespeare but is from Marmion by Sir Walter Scott.
“Oh, Marilla, what shall I do?” questioned Anne in tears. “I can never live this down. People have pretty well forgotten my other mistakes—the liniment cake and setting Diana drunk and flying into a temper with Mrs. Lynde. But they’ll never forget this. They will think I’m not respectable. Oh, Marilla, ‘what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’ That is poetry, but it’s true.”
An Unfortunate Lily Maid
When Anne and her friends “play” Elaine in the 1985 miniseries, Anne recites these lines from The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
The broad stream bore her far away,
And as the boat-head wound along
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Singer Loreena McKennitt has created a beautiful song of The Lady of Shalott. You can listen to it here. And you can hear Malcolm Guite read it here.
An Epoch in Anne’s Life
As Anne brings the cows home one September evening, she once again quotes Marmion:
“The stubborn spearsmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood.”
What do you think of Miss Stacy?
Are there any literary references you noticed?
I would love to know!
~Stephanie
Just now reading this post. I love Miss Stacy. Watching the movie growing up it always felt so uplifting when she came to the school, bringing inspiration and brightness, especially after Mr. Phillips. ;)
I think it is really great the way there are so many literary references woven into Montgomery's writing. She certainly inspired a greater interest in poetry for me when I was young. I loved reading The Lady of Shallot. And I know it's only in the movie, not the book, but I memorized The Highwayman when I was about 12 because I found Anne's recitation of it so thrilling.