Literature meets Facebook

Follow the link to a re-telling of Hamlet through facebook. You could use this as inspiration for your latest blog writing if you like.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/7/30schmelling.html

"I would prefer not to" blog assignment due Oct. 31

What could be more appropriate at this historical moment--perhaps long set of moments--than to read and discuss Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street?"

Part of the story's mystique is the opacity of Bartleby as a character. Melville forces us to imagine the details he does not provide via the narration. For this writing assignment, I'd like you to imagine that this story is set in the present: 2008. Imagine that one of the main reasons Bartleby is so distant and aloof is that he lives his entire life online--as a virtual "second life." Specifically what you must do is explain in detail what Bartleby's facebook page looks like and why. What are his favorites? Does he have friends, and, if so, who are they? If you could look at a backlist of his status when logging in, what would they say? You're invited to have fun and be creative with this, but try to link the rationale for his page elements to moments in the text itself if you can--moments that divulge or lead us into his character.

250-300 words.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog

Maybe we'll look at this when we get to the drama unit, but for now it might provide some comic relief to midterm stress. Each of the 3 episodes is only 15 minutes long.

http://www.drhorrible.com/

http://www.hulu.com/videos/search?query=Dr.+Horrible's+Sing-Along+Blog

Some Fiction Literary Terms

Point of View Categories:
First Person
Second Person
Third Person Subjective (or Limited)--can be singular or plural
Third Person Objective
Third Person Omniscient

Unreliable Narrator

Characterization
Telling
Showing
Dialogue
Interiority
Names

Film Version: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

Faulkner Nobel Prize link for Oct. 23

Here's the link to William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Banquet Speech, 1949.
Please read this in addition to "A Rose for Emily" for Thursday's class.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html

Not an assignment, just a resource

Here's an interesting new short story written by Jay Lake for a new collection called Metatropolis and read by Michael Hogan (Saul Tigh in Battlestar Galactica) that is free to download in audio format. It's called "In the Forests of the Night" and is just for your information, NOT an assignment.


http://www.audible.com/adbl/entry/offers/productPromo2.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&productID=FR_ADBL_000570

Poetry Analysis Key Terms, so far

Scansion
Rhythm
Meter
Foot
Rhyme
Alliteration
Assonance
Consonance
End Rhyme
Stanza/Strophe
Couplet (Heroic, Closed)
Sonnet
Villanelle
Enjambment
Free Verse
Blank Verse
Haiku

Assignment Updates for the Immediate Future

1. Please post your draft on your blog today--Tuesday, Oct. 14. This will be the "before picture."

2. For Thursday, please read the Gary Snyder poems and short essay in the packet distributed in class. If you were absent today, a packet is thumbtacked outside my office door.

3. Also, for Thursday, we'll take a little time at the start of class to discuss the drafts you read and wrote comments for. So, read the comments your classmates gave you and come ready to ask for clarifications and/or suggestions.

4. Your revised essay is due Tuesday the 21st. Please post it on your blog before that date. This will be the "after picture."
If your draft is on your blog today, I'll get you some feedback before Sunday this week.

5. Remember who was in your review group. Next week you will be asked to read their revised version and post some comments--I'll explain this assignment more later.

This is just one of many Reduced Shakespeare Company videos posted at Youtube, mentioned in class by Vania--thanks for emailing the link.

Perhaps we'll return to these when we get to drama later this quarter...

Web Resource for Richard Brautigan

Trout Fishing in America is a good place to wade into the work of Brautigan for those interested.

http://www.brautigan.net/

Upcoming Assignments

For Thursday, Oct. 9th:
Read the 3 poems on the syllabus.
No blog due.

For Tuesday, Oct. 14th:
Come to class having written a 900-1100 word small essay. Pick one of the poems we've already read--But NOT "This is Just to Say" or "Casabianca". Start assembling some claims about the poem you choose, trying to select claims and evidence that relate to each other. Also, this writing should include an introductory paragraph that develops a thesis to which these claims and evidence are working.

Bring 2 hard copy print-outs of your writing to class!!!!

In class, we'll do a writing workshop, in which you'll give responses to peers' papers. And then we'll do some work on new poems to see what you can do without any Internet support.

I'll have you revise your writing after the workshop for a blog post, and you'll get details about this in class.

William Blake archive, including images

I encourage you to spend some time noodling through the William Blake Archive Online to see what his poems looked like as he published them. You can use the Search function to look up specific images or specific poems, and there are often several versions of a single poem.

http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/search.html

Richard Brautigan's "Love Poem"

Of the poems assigned for Thursday, Brautigan's is not in our text book.
So, here it is:

"Love Poem"

It's so nice
to wake up in the morning
all alone
and not have to tell somebody
you love them
when you don't love them
any more.

Oct. 7 Writing Assignment: On Pound's poem

One response to Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is to ask whether this miniscule thing is really a poem. After all, it’s so short that it seems like we may not be able to do much with it: what’s to discuss? Your task is to write a 300-400 argument that this is definitely a poem and that there are several aspects of it to discuss. You can draw upon the concepts we’ve covered so far: line, stanza, rhythm, rhyme, meter, imagery, and symbolism. You might even give scansion a try and see if you can develop some ideas about the poem based on its syllable stress patterns and/or metrical feet. And, since this is a very image-rich poem, why not post 2 pics with it, to mimic the 2-lines couplet form Pound uses.

Imagery, of a rapping squirrel

I didn't want to just dangle before you the promise of a rapping squirrel and then take it away. Below you can find Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"--an outstanding poem for imagery analysis--and a video that the Cumbria Tourism Board commissioned to make the Lake District of England appealing to the younger generation.

Feel free to leave comments here on the poem, the video, or how they work together...

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

By William Wordsworth, 1804.

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Images: Diving into the Wreck, Casabianca, Design

Here's my contribution of one image for each poem.