 the layout of the Burden's farmhouse, and even the opera that Jim and Lena Lingard go to see, all of these might seem just as foreign to students as a mythical kingdom or a dwarven or an elven language. But once they can connect with the characters and the universal experiences and emotions that those characters have, it's easy to become immersed in the world of the past in just the same way that we can become immersed