What are you forging in the smithy of your soul?

Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

In the comment box below let the members of the 2008-2009 Varsity English team know how your encounters with the reality of experience are going.

Also let us know about your attempts to forge the uncreated conscience of our race in the smithy of your soul.

You might also let us know how you are doing flying by the nets that have been flung at your soul to prevent it from flight.

When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.

An Apology: No Godot

In order to make room for Galileo I had to drop something else. So Godot had to go. For that I am sorry.

It is perhaps appropriate that those who were waiting for Waiting for Godot will end the year still waiting just as Gigi and Didi end the play. On second thought, though appropriate that's also cruel and Theatre of Cruelty is Artaud not Beckett.

Appropriately, this post is absurd. Ah, yes, Theatre of the Absurd. That's Beckett.

Of course, if anyone wants to you could tackle Theatre of the Absurd or Theatre of Cruelty in Option Y.

Your Blog

1. Create a blog of your own: Go to blogger.com; follow the directions. (For a name, it might be easiest to use your first name + "apenglish". So my address might be Jamesapenglish.blogspot.com or if there were another "James" in the class maybe: JamesCapenglish.blogspot.com)

2. After you have created a blog. Post your blog address in the comment box of the project option you have chosen. This weekend (or before) I will add a link between the class blog and your individual blog, so mail me your blog address before then.

3. All of the work for your final project must be posted on your blog by the time of your final exam. (Art work should be scanned or digitally photographed and then posted on your blog.)

4. Blogs should include at least one relevant video, at least one relevant image, and at least five relevant links.

The Final Project Option i: Analyzing several works using a critical lens.

If you take this option you will create a blog devoted to analyzing several works of art (literary and non-literary) using a particular critical lens (Marxist, Freudian, Feminist, Structuralist, Post-structuralist, Russian Formalist, etc.).

1. You will write a reflection upon researching the critical lens. Show that you understand the critical lens and its significance, etc. Show how the poet lens has some relationship to the how (form) and what (content) of the literature and art you know. Develop your own thoughts about the critical lens, especially in terms of how it might help or hinder the interpretation of literature and other art. (This reflection must be accompanied by at least three works cited.) 300+ words.

2. You will write a careful, insightful explication of three works of art (novel, play, poem, film, painting, sculpture, symphony, song, photography, etc.) using the critical lens. (At least one explication must be of a literary work.) 900+ words (or 300+ each).

3. You will create a work of art of your own that makes use of the critical lens. Write a paragraph explaining the connection between your creation and the work you have done. The art & paragraph should be on your blog.

This option is new and I'm still fleshing it out.

The Final Project Option Pi: Track a motif through several works.

If you take this option you will create a blog devoted to the motif. (I will teach you how to create blogs next week.)

1. You will write an explication the use, effect, and meaning of the motif in at least three literary works. In a concluding section arrive at a bold, nuanced insight by comparing and contrasting the use of the motif in the three works. (1000+ words)

2. You will write a careful, insightful explication of how another work of art -- film, painting, sculpture, song, etc. -- makes use of the motif in a significant, relevant way. (As well as explicating the use of the motif within the single work, consider meaningful similarities and differences between its use in the non-literary work and its use in the literary works.) (300+ words).

3. You will create a work of art of your own that makes use of the motif. The work of art must be accompanied by a paragraph that discusses the use of the motif in the work you have created.

This option is new and I'm still fleshing it out a bit.

The Final Project Option Y: Groups, Movements, Schools in Drama and Fiction

Same as option X except replace poet/poem/poetry with playwright/play/drama or writer/novel (or novella)/fiction.

And for #1: instead of listing and reflecting upon ten poems, name and reflect upon one play or one novel/novella.

And for #2: instead of an explication of one poem, explicate a scene in the play or a substantial passage in the novel/novella.

The Final Project Option X: Poetry Groups, Movements, Schools

If you choose this option you will create a blog devoted to a poetry group, school, or movement.

Before writing...

^Take notes on an inadequate and impossible lecture about poetry and the arts. (Monday and Tuesday next week).
^Choose a “group,” “movement,” or “school”. (No more than two students can share a “movement” or “school”.)
^Read as many poems as you can—at least ten—by poets within the group/movement/school.

1. Write a reflection on the experience of reading the poems.

The edict of the modern and post-modern age in poetry comes from Ezra Pound: “Make it new!” Think about how the poems employ elements of poetry in inventive ways (new, strange, disorienting, alienating, surprising ways)

Think about the treatment of language: speaker’s voice, language style, diction, syntax, sound, stanza structure, line breaks, arrangement on the page. Think about the meaning and effect of the variations from traditional forms of poetry and tradition uses of language.

Think about the content: subject matter, imagery, figurative language, narration. Look for fragmentation and juxtaposition.

Post this reflection (with a list of the poems you have read and who wrote them) on your blog. 300+ words.

2. Write a careful, insightful explication of one of the poems. Post this on your blog. To see a list of last year's blogs go here. (I will help you set up a blog in class next week.) For explication help look here. Also, look at the directions above for ideas about what to explicate/explain/interpret/unfold. You're only doing one explication so it should show an imaginative, insightful grasp of the whole and of the particulars of the poem.

When explicating write about what the poem seems to say and how it says it. With modernist and post-modernist poetry the how (or form)--the speaker's voice, diction, syntax, tone, sound, line breaks, arrangement, etc.--is often as important or more important than the what (or content)--the speaker, the occasion, the subject, the plot or events, other people or characters in the poem.

Or to put it more succinctly, Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) said that James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist) isn't "writing about something. He is writing something."
300+ words

3. Research the group / movement / school and write a reflection that demonstrates that you understand the group / movement / school, its relationship to the poems you’ve read, and to your own developing ideas about literature and language. {Notice the three parts to this: 1. show that you understand the group & what it was/is all about, its significance, etc.; 2. show how the group's ideas, values, etc. has some relationship to the how (form) and what (content) of the poems you've read; 3. develop your own thoughts about the poems you've read and the group that created them, especially in terms of what you think literature should or could do, as well as what you get from & want from literature.} This post must be accompanied by at least three works cited. 300+ words

4. Find a work of art other than a poem—painting, sculpture, musical composition, dance, film, etc.—that is somehow related to the group / movement / school. In some cases—surrealism, Dadaism, futurism for example—this will be easy because these movements occurred in the visual arts too. In other cases, you’ll have to be a bit more inventive. I can help with this. Ask me.

Write a response explicating the work of art and explaining how it relates to the poetry movement. (Notice there are two parts to this. 1. Provide a close reading of the work of art. For help explicating visual art check out step four here at my friend's blog (Mr. Gallagher of Malden High School). 2. Show a relationship between the poetry you have read (& the group / movement / school of poetry) and the art-other-than-poetry. I will also provide some examples in class. 300+ words.

5. Create a work of art—poem, painting, short film, script, etc.—that relates in someway to the poems, other art, or movement / group / school. Write a paragraph explaining the connection between your creation and the work you have done. The art & paragraph should be on your blog. (If the art is visual and you don't know how to scan it or take a digital photograph let me know; I'll help.)

Language and the Imagination: Modern and Post-Modern Poets in Context (a partial list)

{The lists are tentative and are subject to change. The nature of these groupings is often a bit arbitrary, sometimes the groupings are philosophical, sometimes the groupings are geographical, etc.}

[Proto-Modernists]

Walt Whitman

Emily Dickinson

Gerard Manley Hopkins

[Symbolist Poets]

Stéphane Mallarmé

Paul Verlaine

Charles Baudelaire

Arthur Rimbaud

Jules Laforge

[Anglo- and USAmerican Modernists]

Ezra Pound

T.S. Eliot

D.H. Lawrence

William Carlos Williams

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

Hart Crane

Marianne Moore

Wallace Stevens

Mina Loy

e.e. cummings

Austin Clarke

Hugh MacDiarmid

David Jones

W.B Yeats

Dylan Thomas

[European Modernists]

C.P. Cavafy

Rainer Maria Rilke

Georg Trakl

Fernando Pessoa [and his heteronyms]

Berltolt Brecht

Anna Akhmatova

Tomas Tranströmer

Vladimir Holan

Wisława Szymborska

[Latin American Modernismo/Vanguardia]

César Vallejo

Nicanor Parra

Ruben Darío

Nicolás Guillén

José Lezama Lima

Pablo Neruda

Octavio Paz

Jorge Luis Borges

Ernesto Cardinal

[Dadaist Poets]

Tristan Tzara

Hugo Ball

Kurt Schwitters

[Surrealist Poets]

Guillaume Apollinaire

Robert Desnos

Louis Aragon

Andre Breton

Paul Éluard

Pierre Reverdy

Paul Celan

[La Generacion de 27]

Federico Garcia Lorca

Jorge Guillen

Rafael Alberti

Pedro Salinas

Vicente Aleixandre

[Italian Futurism]

F.T. Marinetti

Farfa

[Russian Futurism]

Vladimir Mayakovsky

Velemir Khlebnikov

[Portuguese and Brazilian Futurism]

Alvaro De Campo (one of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms)

Mario De Andrade

[Harlem Renaissance]

Langston Hughes

Arna Bontemps

Paul Lawrence Dunbar

James Weldon Johnson

Claude McKay

Jean Toomer

[Objectivism]

Lorine Niedecker

George Oppen

Charles Reznikoff

Louis Zukofsky

Carl Rakosi

Basil Bunting

[Beats, San Francisco Renaissance, and Post-Beat Poets]

Jack Kerouac

Allen Ginsberg

Gregory Corso

William Burroughs

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Bob Kaufman

Kenneth Rexroth

Anne Waldman

Diane DiPrima

Joanne Kyger

Richard Brautigan

Charles Bukowski

Ed Sanders

Gary Snyder

Philip Whalen

Jack Spicer

Robin Blaser

[Negritude Poets]

Aimé Césaire

René Depestre

Léopold Senghor

[“Black Mountain”/Projective Verse Poets]

Charles Olson

Robert Duncan

Robert Creeley

Denise Levertov

LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka {also, Black Arts Movement}

John Wieners

Ed Dorn

Cid Corman

Larry Eigner

Jonathan Williams

Paul Blackburn

Joel Oppenheimer

Hilda Morley

[New York School Poets: first and second generation]

Kenneth Koch

Frank O’Hara

James Schuyler

John Ashbery

Anne Waldman

Ron Padgett

Barbara Guest

Ted Berrigan

Alice Notley

Kenward Elmslie

Bernadette Mayer

Eileen Myles

David Rattray

[Black Arts Movement]

Amiri Baraka

Nikki Giovanni

Sonia Sanchez

Larry Neal

Gwendolyn Brooks

Eldridge Cleaver

Jayne Cortez

Henry Dumas

Mari Evans

[Ethnopoets and Deep Image Poets]

Gary Snyder

Jerome Rothenberg

Diane Wakoski

David Antin

Clayton Eshleman

Pierre Joris

Armand Schwerner

Nathaniel Tarn

Robert Kelly

Robert Bly

James Wright

Galway Kinnell

Linda Parker/Crane

[Confessional Poetry]

Sylvia Plath

Adrienne Rich

Anne Sexton

Robert Lowell

Sharon Olds

John Berryman

W.D. Snodgrass

Delmore Schwartz

Theodore Roethke

[Language Poets]

Ron Silliman

Jackson Mac Low

Hannah Weiner

Susan Howe

Fanny Howe

Clark Coolidge

Lyn Hejinian

Michael Palmer

Charles Bernstein

Leslie Scalapino

[Misty Poets]

Bei Dao

Gu Cheng

Duo Duo

Yang Lian

Mang Ke

Shu Ting

[“Multiculturalism”]

[Martian Poets]

Craig Raine

Christopher Reid

[USAmerican Neosurrealism]

James Tate

Bill Knott

Andre Codrescu

[Flarf]

[Post-language Poetry]

[New Formalism]

[Gloucester Modernist and Avant-Garde Poets]

Jeremy Ingalls

Gerrit Lansing

Vincent Ferrini

Charles Olson

Linda Parker/Crane

CONGRATULATIONS VARSITY ENGLISH!!!!!!!

Celtic captain Stephen McManus says, "Danae fret. Yer scours'll be greit. Yer all campiones es fer es I ken seh."

Thanks Stephen.

GHS Varsity English Goes to the AP Literature Finals

On Thursday, May 7 bright and early in the morning the Fishermen Varsity English team will play in the College Board AP Literature finals. We started struggling a bit toward the end of the regular season but we're committed to the final preparations necessary for success in the playoffs. (The last two sentences constitute ___. A. a Bildungsroman B. a conceit C. a dynamic character D. a stream of consciousness E. a rhyming couplet)

Preparations:

1. The AP Multiple Choice Questions packet must be complete by Monday, April 27.

2. Read another work of "literary merit" of your choice by Thursday, April 30. Here's a list of books the school owns that you might consider: Slaughterhouse-Five, The Color Purple, Beloved, The Awakening, Equus. Here's a list of books that some of you have already read outside of class: Twelfth Night, The Things They Carried, Lolita, My Name is Asher Lev, On the Road, Moby-Dick (the school has copies of this), Heart of Darkness (the school has this too). I recently read Under the Volcano. Christopher Farmer recommends Ernest Hemingway; I've read The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms. Read anything that you would feel comfortable using on a "Question 3" prompt on the AP test. Let me know what you're reading (or have very recently read) by writing the title and author in the comment box as soon as you know.

3. By Friday, May 1 complete the "Preparation for Question Three" handout for King Lear, the work of "literary merit" you have chosen, and two other books from this year (your choice of Invisible Man, Wide Sargasso Sea, Translations, Jane Eyre, A Portrait of the Artist, the two plays you read before Christmas, As I Lay Dying, and Galileo). That's four by May 1. (Then between May 1 and May 7 you'll complete two more--for a total of six.)
Here's the form:

Advanced placement: Preparation for Question Three

Novel & Play Review Sheet

Title: ____________________________ year published: ______ genre: ________

Author: _________________________________ (b. ________; d. ________)

Relevant background of author:

Relevant literary terms, philosophical terms, historical context, etc.

Characters (round/flat, dynamic/static) and characterization (direct, indirect: through what s/he says, what others say, what s/he does and looks like, etc.)

• Protagonist:
• Other significant characters:

How do the characters form a larger design? (Foils, parallels, other interrelationships)

Plot

conflict(s): internal/external; vs. self, vs. another person, society, vs. nature, vs. supernatural, vs. machine

development, pacing, resolution, patterns

Setting (time/place, type, purpose)

Tone (type, how conveyed)

Point of view (type(s))

Style & Diction (level, registers, figurative language, dialog, sentence structure, use of detail)

Themes (& how are they conveyed: through character, plot, setting, tone, point of view, style, etc.)

4. Be in class as often as possible. We will practice for the exam every day from the end of vacation until the exam day (Thursday May 7).

*

& while I'm reviewing here's what we've already done during term four.

1. You blogged in response to some aspect of any performance of King Lear.
2. You blogged in response to one or more poem by Fernando Pessoa's heteronyms.
3. Galileo work: 1. summary/response to scenes 12-14; 2. summary, analysis, quotation analysis of an assigned scene; 3. new character in (or affected by) your assigned scene*; 4. write a response to the way the scene you were assigned was performed -- what did you notice? how did the way the scene was depicted affect the meaning of the scene and play -- (or if you didn't see the Galileo performance: describe the scene has you would stage it and why).

[* Go to the scene you have been assigned. After reviewing the list of characters in the play, choose a character (not already involved in your scene) who you think might have a strong reaction (or interesting reaction) to something that is said or something that is done during your scene.
* Imagine what attitude the character you have chosen would have toward the scene. Why? What emotions does he or she feel? How might your character express that attitude and those emotions through an action?

1. Write down the character you have chosen. (For example you might choose to put the Pope (in disguise) into the Carnival scene. Or you might choose to have the children in the final scene hear about the ideas Galileo expresses in scene one. Or...)
2. Write down where the character is when s/he reacts to something said or done in your scene (you could add the new character to the scene or have the character hear about it at another time and place).
3. Write down who the character is with when reacting.
4. Write down what the character does to express her/his reaction (For Pope Urban hearing about Galileo's recantation might take off his official vestments and pray quietly in a corner, whereas Sagredo might try to continue making his breakfast but end up cutting himself while slicing fruit.)
5. If there's time act out your ideas for a classmate. Do this in pairs.]


Final Notes:
I want everyone to do well on the AP test and to get an A or B during fourth quarter. EVERYONE! I was depressed by some of the grade calculations I had to do this past weekend and I am sure some of you are no happier about the calculations. However, I was happy to respond to a lot of thoughtful insights about literature, the poems, and Lear. I spent perhaps too much time writing comments but I did it, so please make sure you get the comments I wrote about your literature essays and blog responses.

Assignments Update: Due Dates, Directions for Galileo Scene Work, and a Place to Respond to One of This Week's Poems

I. Galileo work: Finish the work on the Galileo scene by tomorrow, Friday April 10. In case you didn't get a chance to write it down here's the assignment.

PART ONE: CHECK THAT YOU HAVE READ TO THE END.

Write a summary and reaction (either personal or analytical) to the end of the play (scenes 12 through 14).

PART TWO: CREATE A STUDY GUIDE FOR GALILEO BY BERTOLT BRECHT

I will assign you one scene. Your scene is ____.

1. You will write a summary of the scene. (You can use the summaries at the beginning of the scenes in King Lear as a guide.)

2. Write an analysis of the scene.

• Think about what is implied by the way it is written.
• Think about the ways the techniques – direct characterization, indirect characterization (in dialogue, in stage directions, in character descriptions), foil characters, verbal irony, etc.; action, interaction, physical and intellectual and emotional conflict, foreshadowing, dramatic irony, situational irony, etc.; images, objects, symbols, figurative language, etc.; – contribute to the themes and effect of the scene.
• Think about the relationship of the scene to the work as a whole.

3. “Important Quotation Explained”: Choose a quotation. Write down the quotation and a paragraph or so explaining the quotation’s significance.

II. Write a response to one of the poems from this week's packet. You can post your response here. Post before you go away for vacation. (I know I said post by Sunday, but that's when I had forgotten that this is an important weekend for many families. Enjoy your families before you go off to Big Time University and elsewhere.)

Spring Cleaning (part two)

Finishing Term Three
Anything you want included in your term three grade must be turned in by pumpkin time tomorrow (April 7). If you have post anything today or tomorrow you must also give me a handwritten note saying what you have posted; otherwise, I probably won't see your work.

(Grades for term three: 1. "What is literature?" blog posts, "Literature Essay" draft and revision, As I Lay Dying microblogging, As I Lay Dying passage discussion, As I Lay Dying group work, As I Lay Dying timed essay, blog posts on a story ("Darkness" "...Grotesque" "Love" "How They..." "Searching..." or "The Dreamer") and two poems (first week here and second week here), and 6. three King Lear blog posts.)

Beginning Term Four (Galileo, King Lear, and poems by Fernando Pessoa)

1. Read Galileo by Bertolt Brecht by class time on Wednesday. (We'll have a quiz on the reading.)

2. By Wednesday pumpkin time comment (in the comment box at the end of this post) on some aspect of staging King Lear. (I asked you to pay special attention to a character whose lines you read during class time, so you might be interested in commenting on the depiction of that character. But then again you might not. You might be more interested in commenting on how a key scene was depicted. Or you might be interested in commenting on lines that were omitted. Etc.

In class we watched scenes from a version directed by and starring Brian Blessed. Some of you watched the Royal Shakespeare Company production shown on PBS. (For more of Sir Ian McKellen look at the video bar on the right. Click to watch excerpts.) You might also be interested in looking at Lawrence Olivier as Lear (in the video bar on the right), James Earl Jones as Lear (in the video bar on the right), or a famous Russian version that was recommended to me by a professor I met at a party last week (in the video bar on the right).

Whatever aspect of the staging of the play you comment on and whatever version (or versions) of the play you comment on make sure you discuss how it is significant in terms of the effect and meaning of the overall work. 300+ words should suffice.

3. Turn in a Galileo permission slip signed by parents and teachers by class time on Thursday.

4. Respond to one of this week's poems (all by the heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa) before you go off for April vacation. (I'll open up a comment box for this on Wednesday.)

5. Begin filling out the "Preparing for Question Three" handout using King Lear and three other works of literary merit that you have read either in class or out of class. (I'll hand this paper out before vacation.)

6. Begin working on the "AP Multiple Choice Questions" packet. (I'll hand this out before vacation.)

7. Choose a novel of literary merit (whatever that means) to read before the AP exam. (More on this before vacation.)

Gloucester and Poetry on TV this Sunday...no foolin'

Polis is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place
April 5, 2009
7pm, WGBH Boston
Channel 2

King Lear makes an appearance in this film. If you catch it--it's not hard to catch--and can explain the context I will reward you royally.

Watch and post a response...& I will reward you...

More Poems: Cavafy, Donne, and Wieners

"Ithaka" and "The City" by C.P. Cavafy
"The Triple Fool" by John Donne
"The Acts of Youth" and "Billie" by John Wieners

Comment on at least one of the poems by pumpkin time on Friday, April 3. Your comment could take several different forms:

* You might show how the poem addresses a theme (or makes use of an image or technique or relationship or ... that has been developed elsewhere too -- in the existential short story or non-fiction piece you have already written about, in King Lear, in As I Lay Dying, etc.

* You might explain how the way the poem is written contributes to its meaning and effect.

* You could respond in the form of say-play-imply (or say-play-suggest, if you prefer) or SOAPStone + theme or TPCAST + theme.

* You might respond to the poem personally. (Make sure you show an understanding of the poem as you respond to it.) Do you relate or connect? To what? Why?

* You might write a poem or brief play in response to the poem. (Again, as long as the literary work shows an understanding of the poem. Append a little note to the end of your creative piece explaining how your poem or play makes use of the original poem.)

First name and last initial.
The name of the poem(s) you will focus on.

existence, the self and others in poems

"They Don't Have to Have that Look" by David Rattray
"The Ache of Marriage" by Denise Levertov
"Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" by LeRoi Jones
"In the Waiting Room" by Elizabeth Bishop

This week I've handed out several poems to augment our exploration of the self, existence, and the self's relationship with others. Your comment could take several different forms:

* You might show how the poem addresses a theme (or makes use of an image or technique or relationship or ... that has been developed elsewhere too -- in the existential short story or non-fiction piece you have already written about, in King Lear, in As I Lay Dying, etc.

* You might explain how the way the poem is written contributes to its meaning and effect.

* You could respond in the form of say-play-imply (or say-play-suggest, if you prefer) or SOAPStone + theme or TPCAST + theme.

* You might respond to the poem personally. (Make sure you show an understanding of the poem as you respond to it.) Do you relate or connect? To what? Why?

* You might write a poem or brief play in response to the poem. (Again, as long as the literary work shows an understanding of the poem. Append a little note to the end of your creative piece explaining how your poem or play makes use of the original poem.)

Begin your post this way:
First name and last initial: JCook
The name of the poem(s) you will focus on: "They Don't Have to Have that Look" by David Rattray, "The Ache of Marriage" by Denise Levertov, "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" by LeRoi Jones, "In the Waiting Room" by Elizabeth Bishop

I am interested in reading what you have to say about these poems.

King Lear on TV tonight!

Here's what the WGBH website says:

"Actor Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings, X-Men) returns to the Royal Shakespeare Company after a 17-year hiatus to perform the title role in this production of William Shakespeare's King Lear, widely considered one of the playwright's most enduring and haunting works. The tragedy begins with Lear proposing to split his kingdom among his three daughters (Frances Barber, Monica Dolan, and Romola Garai) according to how much each can profess her love for him, and spirals forward to dramatize the king's deception, betrayal, and eventual descent into madness."

• Wed Mar 25 8pm, 2/HD (That's tonight!)
• Thu Mar 26 1am, 44 (These other times are a bit absurd, no?)
• Thu Mar 26 1am, 2/HD
• Fri Mar 27 3am, 44
• Mon Mar 30 1am, 2/HD
• Mon Mar 30 3am, 44

If you watch the film you can write a 300 word or so response, review, critique that can replace on of the blog posts.

Spring Cleaning...

Happy Spring! The vernal equinox is finally here.

O.K. Here's what's going on.

1. REVISED LITERATURE ESSAY. If you used a letter last week to postpone turning in the revision of your Exploration of the Concept of Literature Essay (that's the best name for it I've come up with yet) then your revision is due on Monday, March 23. Remember to turn in the draft I commented on and a reflection on your revisions--along with the revision.

2. BLOGGING ABOUT KING LEAR ACT ONE. You were to have blogged about Act One of King Lear by Monday night (March 16). If you didn't do so do it now!

3. BLOGGING ABOUT EXISTENTIAL READINGS. I mentioned casually that I want you to post your first comments about the readings you chose last week by the end of this week. Now, more officially, I'll remind you to blog by pumpkin time on Monday, March 23. By the way, those who have written already have done wonderfully, provocatively, chillingly well. I feel lucky to have you all as students.

4. READING KING LEAR THROUGH ACT THREE & BLOGGING ABOUT IT. On Friday (March 20, Happy Spring! Vernal Equinox!) we'll finish reading act three in F-block. So if you're not here on Friday (Good luck MUNners!) then catch up over the weekend. I'll open blogging on acts two and three on Monday and the blogging period will close Wednesday night, March 25 at pumpkin time.

5. MORE BLOGGING ABOUT EXISTENTIAL READINGS. As mentioned above next week I'll hand out poems and such related to the existential readings you've already completed. Blog about these (especially in relation to the stories I gave you last week and/or As I Lay Dying and/or King Lear). I'll open blogging on these other readings at the beginning of the week and the blogging will close on Friday night, March 27 at pumpkin time.

6. READING KING LEAR THROUGH THE END & BLOGGING ABOUT IT. Next week we'll finish reading King Lear. Blogging about the last two acts of the play will close on Monday, March 30 at pumpkin time.

So to summarize the due dates (all deadlines are pumpkin time):

King Lear act one NOW! if you haven't done it already.
Literature Essay (if you used a letter) due Monday, March 23.
Existential story blogging due Monday, March 23.
King Lear acts two and three blogging due Wednesday, March 25.
Existential poems, etc. blogging due Friday, March 27.
King Lear acts four and five blogging due Monday, March 30.

King Lear (All Posts)

I've changed my mind.
I thought I was going to have you post your comments over here at last year's blog so you could interact with their comments. Though I still invite you to take a look at the act one comments, I just noticed that I hadn't fine-tuned a motif-based approach until act two. So we'll stick to posting comments on this blog for now -- at least for act one. In fact, accepting a request from some of you, we'll do all the King Lear blogging here. Above you'll find links to last years act 1 and acts 2 and 3 comments. Here's a link to comments on acts 4 and 5 from last year's class.

So here are the directions and notes:

1. Consider (& take notes on) the motifs (some are images & some are concepts) below...
* what is said and what is true;
* sight (eyes, blindness) and other senses (touch, smell {noses}) [especially as related to truth and understanding];
* fools, madness, and wisdom; duty and betrayal;
* naturalness and unnaturalness (this motif is especially slippery, flickering, and otherwise ambiguous in King Lear);
* animals and humans;
* storms and calms;
* age and youth;
* parents and children;
* rank and status;
* nothingness, loss, nakedness...& self...

[* New for '09 eating, appetites, consuming. Eating is, after all, a way of filling the nothing within.
* Also new for '09: fates, planets, stars.
* & sexuality, lust, etc.
* Oh, & as ever in tragedies, blood; the blood that means related and the blood that is violence.]

All of the aforementioned motifs interact, weaving in and out of each other to form a matrix of association. So when Lear denies Cordelia her inheritance, he doesn't say "get away from me; you're no longer my daughter" (in Elizabethan English and iambic pentameter). He evokes several motifs and images: "Thy truth, then, be thy dower" "For by the sacred radiance of the sun... by all the operation of the orbs" "paternal care" "property of blood" "gorge his appetite" "avoid my sight" (1.1.120-139).

Also be on the look out for inversions: the natural becoming unnatural, the truth that is false, the sight that is a lie, the fool that is wise, etc. & look out for parallels. ("Monster" is tagged on Cordelia and Edgar in Act One.) Look out for motif-words with ambiguous multiple or shifting meanings (especially "nature"). Listen for playfulness and for echoes. Figurative associations often haunt the literal meanings. And repetitions often reveal the play's obsessions.

2. Comment on at least two interrelated motifs. Your comments should refer to at least two specific passages (at least one passage for each motif). Demonstrate your understanding of the play so far by linking the motifs and the passages to each other and to the overall events and themes. Again, we're using close attention to small particulars to illuminate the whole. At the beginning of your post include your name, name the motifs, and quote the passages (include act.scene.line). Your insightful well-supported commentary comes next.

Comments on act one are due by pumpkin time on Tuesday, March 17, 2009. (Sláinte!)
Comments on acts two and three are due by pumpkin time on Wednesday, March 25, 2009.
Comments on acts four and five are due by pumpkin time on Monday, March 30, 2009.

"Darkness" (2007) by Andrew Sean Greer

You might think about the questions: how do external changes affect our relationships with each other? What happens when authors use fantastical-allegorical elements alongside realistic elements in a story? How does the catechistic (question-answer) form of the story influence the effect the story has on the reader?

You might respond analytically by showing the relationship between how it's written and what it means. You might evaluate the story: does it succeed in what it seems to try to do? Do you like it? Respond to the short story personally: can you relate? How? Compare the story to others you've read. You might think about As I Lay Dying and King Lear (or other literary works or films). Respond by extending the story in someway: a sequel and prequel. Write a letter or poem or script in response.

Show that you have read the story, have thought about it, and have understood something about it (or even have made of use of it in some way).

"The Book of the Grotesque" from *Winesburg, Ohio* (1919) by Sherwood Anderson

You might think about the questions: How complex a thing is a self? What, in Anderson's work, is a "grotesque"? How does empathy work? Do we carry others around inside us, so to speak? What is the relationship between how we look to others and how we feel and what we think and what we carry around within?

You might respond analytically by showing the relationship between how it's written and what it means. You might evaluate the story: does it succeed in what it seems to try to do? Do you like it? Respond to the short story personally: can you relate? How? Compare the story to others you've read. You might think about As I Lay Dying and King Lear (or other literary works or films). Respond by extending the story in someway: a sequel and prequel. Write a letter or poem or script in response.

Show that you have read the story, have thought about it, and have understood something about it (or even have made of use of it in some way).

"Love" (1960) by Clarice Lispector

You might think about the questions: How do the particular small things Laura witnesses trigger an existential crisis? What is the nature of her existential crisis? Can you explain it? Can you relate to it? What new understanding accompanies the crisis? Do you share that understanding? How do the many paradoxes and oxymorons used by Lispector effectively convey the crisis? What about the end? What happens to the crisis? Why? Can you explain what happens within Laura from the time she gets home to the time she goes to bed? Were you disappointed? Pleased?

You might respond analytically by showing the relationship between how it's written and what it means. You might evaluate the story: does it succeed in what it seems to try to do? Do you like it? Respond to the short story personally: can you relate? How? Compare the story to others you've read. You might think about As I Lay Dying and King Lear (or other literary works or films). Respond by extending the story in someway: a sequel and prequel. Write a letter or poem or script in response.

Show that you have read the story, have thought about it, and have understood something about it (or even have made of use of it in some way).