A Bit of Advice

Your last blog of the year!!!  I want for you to give some helpful advice to the AP Literature class of 2014-2015.  Be specific and think back to all of the assignment and units we have done all year.  Good Luck!

TP-CASTT the Poem of Your Choice

Select a poem to analyze using TP-CASTT.  You may select a poem from any of the following poets:
Emily Dickenson
Andrew Marvell
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
John Donne
Lord Byron
Good Luck!

Making Poetry FIT

http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/

This is a simplified approach to analyzing any poem that you might encounter in a typical AP English Lit exam.  You are going to FIT the pieces of the poem together to try and make sense of it quickly so you can complete the writing or questions that accompany it.

F is for FACTS  Read the lines.  Gather as much indisputable information about the poem as possible.  Who is the author?  What is the form?  Is there a rhyme scheme?  If so, what is it?  Who is the speaker?  What is the action?  What are the images of the poem?  Wen establishing facts, find as many as possible, even those that seem obvious. 

I is for INTERPRETATION  Read between the lines.  Once the facts have been established (e.g. it's an elegy in rhyming couplets, the speaker is a young girl whose father has just died, it takes place in a graveyard, it was written in 1714), you should begin to ask certain questions about the poem that will lead you from mere observation to more sophisticated reading moves such as inference.  Is the speaker serious or ironic?  What seems to be the overall tone?  How is this tone achieved?  Does the rhyme scheme contribute anything to mood?   In this way, interpretation build off of solid observation to produce more sure footed analysis than you might sometimes produce when attempting to read poems.

T is for THEME  Read beyond the text.  After you have used basic observations to make reasonable interpretations about a poem, they can pose the ultimate question that will render an insightful reading.  Why, after all would someone bother to write a poem on a specific topic or use an image to capture an emotion?  Why would readers value the ideas and artistry of the lines in a particular work?  Does it contain themes relevant today even though it was penned two centuries ago?  How can we know?

Read this poem using the FIT approach.  Answer the following questions:
How does form embody meaning in this poem?  Does the sonnet form reinforce Shelley's ideas?  Interpret the poem with insight.

Testing 1, 2, 3.

Write your reaction to the AP practice exam.  What was hard, what was easy?  How did you feel about taking it?  Was it what you expected?  If you had to make a plan for the actual exam, what things, what skills do you think you would improve upon.  Make an estimated guess as to what you scored on the exam.

Literary Devices Anyone?

The following poem, written by Edward Field, makes use of the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus.* Read the poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how Field employs literary devices in adapting the Icarus myth to a contemporary setting.

Icarus

Only the feathers floating around the hat

Showed that anything more spectacular had occurred

Than the usual drowning. The police preferred to ignore

The confusing aspects of the case,

5 And the witnesses ran off to a gang war.

So the report filed and forgotten in the archives read simply

“Drowned,” but it was wrong: Icarus

Had swum away, coming at last to the city

Where he rented a house and tended the garden.

10 “That nice Mr. Hicks” the neighbors called him,

Never dreaming that the gray, respectable suit

Concealed arms that had controlled huge wings

Nor that those sad, defeated eyes had once

Compelled the sun. And had he told them

15 They would have answered with a shocked, uncomprehending stare.

No, he could not disturb their neat front yards;

Yet all his books insisted that this was a horrible mistake:

What was he doing aging in a suburb?

Can the genius of the hero fall

20 To the middling stature of the merely talented?

And nightly Icarus probes his wound

And daily in his workshop, curtains carefully drawn,

Constructs small wings and tries to fly

To the lighting fixture on the ceiling:

25 Fails every time and hates himself for trying.

He had thought himself a hero, had acted heroically,

And dreamt of his fall, the tragic fall of the hero;

But now rides commuter trains,

Serves on various committees,

30 And wishes he had drowned.

Good Triumps Over Evil and Evil is Powerless!!!!!

Compare and contrast Brideshead Revisited with The Man Who was Thursday.  How are they different and how are they similar with respect to the following aspects:  the authors' styles, the content of the story, the idea of modernity, and the idea of the Church or Catholicism.  For The Man Who Was Thursday, recall that Gabriel Syme is a Catholic fighting, "the Last Crusade."

Do your best.  Remember, a blog is a conversation and we often get our best ideas by talking or communicating with one another.  Good Luck!
Mrs. Messineo

Major Themes and Symbols in Hamlet

Intro to literary criticism

Provided is a link to an introduction to literary criticisms.  I would like each student to choose and explain a literary criticism and apply it to Hamlet.  For example, if one were to interpret Shakespeare's Hamlet from a Marxist perspective, it might look something like this:
 
Application in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
While Hamlet might not seem to be a likely text for a strong Marxist reading given that its protagonist is a man of privilege and that the play takes place in a fictional version of 16th century Denmark, Hamlet can be interpreted through a number of different Marxist theoretical approaches. A Marxist critic might take a particular interest in the manner in which Hamlet subverts Claudius’s rule by engaging in acts of subterfuge, manipulation, and revolution in order to overcome his oppressive rule over him. A critic may also argue that Hamlet’s actions serve to demonstrate a way by which an oppressive ideological regime can be countered and overcome. A Marxist theorist might argue that Claudius killed his brother King Hamlet in order to gain political, social, and economic power, and hence might be viewed as a figure who is corrupted by his desire for social and political power. Hamlet himself steps outside of the standards, rules, and norms established and encouraged by the ruling class that he was once a part of in order to resist its oppressive ideology. Such a critical viewpoint might serve to argue that Hamlet is at least partly about Hamlet’s own sudden separation from and realization of the ideological faults of the political structure he is or was a part of. Also, a Marxist theorist might take interest in the plays focus on characters who belong to the ruling class and the lack of "voice" given to common people in the play. One may argue that Shakespeare—who, himself, was born to a commoner and was himself very much a member of what we would today call the "working class" or "middle class"—is issuing an attack or critique of the oppressive and morally corrupt ideology of the ruling classes throughout Hamlet. Furthermore, a Marxist critique of Hamlet might take special interest in the famous grave digging scene of the play, and point out how Shakespeare positions the gravedigger—who is the only common or non-privileged character given a prominent voice within the narrative—as a source of wisdom capable of recognizing intrinsic truths about existence and the nature of the events that have come to pass within the story that the high-ranking and privileged characters in the play, including Hamlet himself, are unable to realize partly because of their own class positions. While a Marxist theorist would probably not argue that Shakespeare was himself quite a proto- Marxist, he or she might argue that in Hamlet, Shakespeare was anticipating and recognizing ideas concerning class distinctions and attitudes that were further developed by Karl Marx over 300 years later. By the way, Karl Marx was crazy and as Catholics, we do not agree with his actions or thoughts.  He started the communist revolution.  He also thinks that the only thing that really matters is "stuff". 

Life?

 Suicide is an important theme in Hamlet. Discuss how the play treats the idea of suicide morally, religiously, and aesthetically, with particular attention to Hamlet’s two important statements about suicide: the “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt” soliloquy (I.ii.129–158) and the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy (III.i.56–88). Why does Hamlet believe that, although capable of suicide, most human beings choose to live, despite the cruelty, pain, and injustice of the world?

6 Word Memoir Riddles

How is this for fun?  Choose 4 characters from AP Literature and write their 6 word memoirs.  You must choose at least one character from Hamlet, but the rest are up to you.  When you comment on your classmate's post, take a guess about whom the memoirs are written.  Be creative!  Have fun!  And do not give us the answers.  You can reveal your characters in class on Monday.

The Brangwens Family!

The following passage is from D. H. Lawrence’s 1915 novel, The Rainbow, which focuses on the lives of the Brangwens, a farming family who lived in rural England during the late nineteenth century.  Read the passage carefully.  In your blog, analyze how Lawrence employs literary devices to characterize the woman and capture her situation.  Do not be afraid to look up some literary devices.  If you do not start using the terminology, you will forget it.  Think back to our poetry unit.  And if you saved it, you should have a nice list of literary terms from the beginning of the year.  If not, they are easy to find on line.  Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was enough for the men, that the earth heaved

and opened its furrow to them, that the wind blew to

dry the wet wheat, and set the young ears of corn

wheeling freshly round about; it was enough that they

5 helped the cow in labour, or ferreted the rats from

under the barn, or broke the back of a rabbit with a

sharp knock of the hand. So much warmth and

generating and pain and death did they know in their

blood, earth and sky and beast and green plants, so

10 much exchange and interchange they had with these,

that they lived full and surcharged, their senses full

fed, their faces always turned to the heat of the blood,

staring into the sun, dazed with looking towards the

source of generation, unable to turn around.

15 But the woman wanted another form of life than

this, something that was not blood-intimacy. Her

house faced out from the farm-buildings and fields,

looked out to the road and the village with church and

Hall and the world beyond. She stood to see the far20

off world of cities and governments and the active

scope of man, the magic land to her, where secrets

were made known and desires fulfilled. She faced

outwards to where men moved dominant and creative,

having turned their back on the pulsing heat of

25 creation, and with this behind them, were set out to

discover what was beyond, to enlarge their own scope

and range and freedom; whereas the Brangwen men

faced inwards to the teeming life of creation, which

poured unresolved into their veins.

30 Looking out, as she must, from the front of her

house towards the activity of man in the world at

large, whilst her husband looked out to the back at sky

and harvest and beast and land, she strained her eyes

to see what man had done in fighting outwards to

35 knowledge, she strained to hear how he uttered

himself in his conquest, her deepest desire hung on

the battle that she heard, far off, being waged on the

edge of the unknown. She also wanted to know, and

to be of the fighting host.

40 At home, even so near as Cossethay, was the vicar,

who spoke the other, magic language, and had the

other, finer bearing, both of which she could perceive,

but could never attain to. The vicar moved in worlds

beyond where her own menfolk existed. Did she not

45 know her own menfolk; fresh, slow, full-built men,

masterful enough, but easy, native to the earth,

lacking outwardness and range of motion. Whereas

the vicar, dark and dry and small beside her husband,

had yet a quickness and a range of being that made

50 Brangwen, in his large geniality, seem dull and local.

She knew her husband. But in the vicar’s nature was

that which passed beyond her knowledge. As

Brangwen had power over the cattle so the vicar had

power over her husband. What was it in the vicar, that

55 raised him above the common men as man is raised

above the beast? She craved to know. She craved to

achieve this higher being, if not in herself, then in her

children. That which makes a man strong even if he

be little and frail in body, just as any man is little and

60 frail beside a bull, and yet stronger than the bull, what

was it? It was not money nor power nor position.

What power had the vicar over Tom Brangwen—

none. Yet strip them and set them on a desert island,

and the vicar was the master. His soul was master of

65 the other man’s. And why—why? She decided it was

a question of knowledge.

Line

Hamlet's Speech Writer

Write a dramatic speech advising Prince Hamlet on what his course of action should be as a Christian prince and the rightful  heir to the throne of Denmark.  You may assume the character of Horatio or Marcellus in your work or of some unnamed courtier.  Extra credit if you write it in iambic pentameter. 

Time to Think About It

Well, it is time to face the music and choose a topic for your literary specialist assignment.  In your blog this weekend, I want to you talk out some ideas about the project.  You may also pose questions or concerns in regards to the assignment. 

A Letter Never Hurt!

The Secret is Love

This is a happy little article about the beauty of Catholic Education.  For your blog this weekend, I would like you to write a thank you note to your parents for giving you the privilege of attending a Catholic School.  Read this article first, then write and give your parents the thank you note by Sunday at 1.  Good luck.  We will use the honor system, but remember, Jesus is watching! 

The Black Walnut Tree

The Black Walnut Tree

 

 

Carefully read the following poem by Mary Oliver. Then write a well-organized blog in which you analyze how Oliver conveys the relationship between the tree and family through the use of figurative language and other poetic techniques.

The Allegory of the Cave

The Allegory of the Cave

So, here is the written and narrated version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  Since you are all young, energetic, intelligent and future college grads, how does this theory apply to you?  Figure out what it means and apply it to yourself as a future leader of society.

Literary Fiction

Well,  here goes.  This story is literary fiction.  It is not a "long" short story, nor a happy one, but Flannery O'Conner certainly has something to say here.  After reading the story, seeking information about the author and/or the time and setting might help on lock some clues about the author's message.  You may also find it's meaning through analysis of the work itself.  So, read the story and tell me what it is "about".  Avoid plot summary and instead focus on the story behind the story.  Why would O'Conner write something like this?

A Good Man is Hard to Find