Eng. 12 Attendance Awards

Jessica, Lana and Chelsea: attendance awards!

English Lit - 12 Fishbowl - June 16

Death

• Death of Beowulf and Grendel

• Introduction of Christianity: Burning of Beowulf's body

• Differences between Pagan and Christianity rites

• Reacting to death important: death is decided by fate (different from the other poems)

• [remember to think what is this course about?  Connection to each other, culture, history - shared experience"

• "Bonny Barbara Allan" - John turns his face to the wall - becomes a rose, she becomes a briar - their souls continue into the after life
• ["I'll love you more after death" - Sonnet 43]
• Something after death ["Death be Not Proud," "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"]
• Death is personified

• Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 - Death is personified (first time we see this)

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - his head is in his hands - Green Knight is not afraid of death - Sir Gawain (whose head will not talk in his hands) is afraid of death because he values his life

• "When I have Fears.." afraid of death - not finished

• Coming to terms with one's own mortality
• "On Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-Three" - Milton worries about his accomplishments
• "death is slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men"
• "Ode to Nightingale" - "I have been half in love with easeful death"

• Moving on together - "Because" - death becomes more inviting

• "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" - society set up in classes - but "the paths of glory lead but to the grave" - society is the same in death "animated busts and storied urns" don't change anything
• As people evolve, there's more room for sympathy and equality
• "Rime" - there are things worse than death (Life in Death)
• In Paradise Lost - Satan is in adamantine chains, darkness visible, misery never ends [look up quotes]

• Authors who are religious - views on death - have more comfort - after life

• Doubt and uncertainty are still present - example: Milton in "On His Blindness"

• Death is the one certainty in death

• Many authors come to the same conclusion despite their ideological differences
• Lack of achievement is something ("wise men") what authors worry about
• "'til love and fame to nothingness do sink" - why would an author be scared if they mean nothing?
• Wasted time and potential is a big concern
• Timelines throughout English literature - Beowulf - that thought isn't there - day by day is brutal and fast - no worries
• "Ulysses" - he wants to "sail beyond the sunset" not "rust unburnished"

• "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" - speaker doesn't want his father to give up - seems like he's having a harder time than his father.

• "Song" - reflecting on death - the speaker is worrying - thinks no one else cares - nature comforts her in the end
• Extremely religious - death almost seems like a reward ( life in death is worse - Adam and Eve suffer) - "Rime" - mariner has to repent for the rest of his life
• "A Modest Proposal" - joking about death a bit (killing children) - death of an innocent (like the albatross)

Society

• Aristotle: "he who cannot live in society must either be a beast or a god"

• People need to work together

• Beowulf and Paradise Lost

• "Disembarking at Quebec" - feels alienated from society [which is different from not needing society]

• Which characters only depend on themselves (Grendel)

• Grendel is a beast (but people fear him) - healthy respect

• Who can live on their own - tiger? Superior to society - the lamb needs others - these are not literal - they are symbols

• Tigers may live on the edge of society - but may not need it
• Ironic - in PL - Satan thinks he doesn't need God, but he spends so much time trying destroy society
• Blake: "without contraries, there's no progression" - can you have the good without the bad or do you need both?
• Satire - Chaucer - need people who are not respected to see what is expected, wouldn't know what is beautiful if never seen ugly
• "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity" - WB Yeats - tigers are full of intensity?  Sheep?

• "The Hollow Men" T.S. Eliot: sheep are the ones who are "groping on the shore" with "no direct eyes" "headpiece filled with straw"

• Chaucer - second piece we read - already trying to change society

• Beowulf - written (but Monks wrote in Christianity)

• Whenever there's a divide between rich and the poor - there's need for change

• Paradise Lost - struggle for power - hierarchy - capitalist ideals - Satan wants to overcome God [but it's not for equality]
• Shakespeare works about power

• One established force struggling against another one - schism - dichotomy - former friends/allies turn enemies

• When someone is in a position of power - change/thirst for power

• Society is a cycle

• Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, "A Modest Proposal,"

• "absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Satan

• "better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven"

• Selfish , vicious cycle - lose friends and hurt people [same as rich?]
• "To the Ladies" - Lady Mary Chudleigh - first poem by a woman in our course: "Wife and servant are the same, They only differ in the name"
• Literature changes

• ["My Last Duchess"

• "Disembarking" - women being disconnected by society: "the rocks ignore" "I am a word in a foreign language"

• Society advances, but still afflicted by "simple problems" (gender inequality)
• "Disembarking" - women sold off to husbands (like Pride and Prejudice) - people still exploit others

• People only want to change what they're directly affected by SELF INTEREST

• People rationalize
• ["greed is good" idea]

• Can  a lamb turn into a tiger?

• Tiger is solitary - hunts by itself
• "The World is Too Much with Us" - frustrations with people being concerned with "spending and getting" relates to today

• Artist stands outside of society - criticizes - explain why they don’t agree with it

• "Pretty" - nature is so nice - but people don't see the ugliness - stop following the crowd

Morality

• Based on today's standards, is it moral for Beowulf to kill Grendel (what about Anglo Saxons)

-today we would see Grendel as an outsider (not to bully) - we don't kill loners and losers - we accept people and rehabilitate

• Anglo Saxons couldn't afford to  have a weak link

• We have the energy and means to help those who are weaker

• We are sympathetic now
• We wouldn't celebrate and rejoice in Grendel's pain and misery
• [we have a court system]
• We have justice
• Do people enjoy killing? (our art - movies and TV shows say that we do) - we still enjoy violence in our fiction

• Beowulf doesn't use a weapon because he believes in equality

• Beowulf's sense of morality morphs in morality

• Chaucer's sense of morality: work hard, not duplicitous - genuine - satire is about corrupt morals - the pilgrims whom we hold to a higher moral standard (The Pardoner, Summoner, Friar, Monk, Nun) - people are supposed to trust them (compare to the Parson)

• Wife of Bath (first strong woman in our course) - woman are allowed to be independent - expectations
• We hold, for example, the government to a higher standard than our Starbuck's barista
• Religion influences morals - Sir Gawain is forgiven for flinching, punished for lying, he's able to make amends - he repents, he's human and he has flaws

• "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - morals - isn't absolved, but able to repent - Christian influence = albatross compared to Christ

• "Whoso List to Hunt" - men have different morals - the woman is a deer the men have to hunt - an object to own (necklace says "noli mi tangere," for Caesar's I am) - "owned" by King Henry VIII

• "To the Ladies" - "fatal knot" - death sentence - would rather not marry [unlike "To the Virgins" by Robert Herrick] - not much time has gone by

• Growth of society

• Female writers - things are changing - women are educated, have the vote

• "A Modest Proposal" - Swift's use of satire - English Protestants - absentee landlords rip off the poor, Irish Catholics - rich people don't care; poor people don't help themselves - don't use birth control - not doing anything to stop the problem - not helping themselves
• ["The Rape of the Lock" - rich people not using their time and money to do anything important or valuable]
• Paradise Lost - Beelzebub "foul defeat" - Satan condemns himself to Hell, but also the others - can see someone else's suffering but doesn't help or change it
• Our era of literature - personal morals "Ulysses" - he works his work, I, mine"
• Morals shift - religion - society solely based on Christianity - criticizing - science questioning - World Wars - now about what people decide is right
• Morals are not quite set ["The Lottery"]
• "On His Blindness" - "that one talent which is death to hide" - is it immoral to have a talent and not put it to use

• If it would help people, then it would be immoral

• "justify the ways of God to man"

Eng. 11 - June 12

Complete questions for "My Papa's Waltz" and "My Father Knew" for Tuesday's class.  (Last class before the exam.)

Eng. 12 - Fishbowl Notes

Jealousy

Envy vs. jealousy

-remember to relate to our world - human nature, generally

-difference between envy and jealousy:

• Insecurity plays a part
• Envy = a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by another's better fortune
• Jealousy = afraid, suspicious or resentful of rivalry in love or affection (or a person's advantages)

"green-eyed monster"

• Main reason I iii 329-430  for Othello to kill Desdemona:

Iago sets it up "I hate the Moor;/ And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets/ H'as done my office"

-He goes on to say that he doesn't think it's true

• Iago is jealous of Cassio, also Othello (his status, the fact that he doesn't seem to care about him, that he promoted Cassio above him, that he has Desdemona, that the Duke respects him more and it sticks in his craw that he's black)

"Virtue a fig" - Iago thinks our wills control our emotions - but he is consumed by his jealousy (I iii 320) - we find that Iago is the most driven by his emotions (he thinks he is detached)

[could find examples of Iago admiring Desdemona}

Jealous of Othello and Desdemona's love? - look at his relationship with Emilia (first interaction - he insults her)

-could you tie this into BNW - human emotions

-Brabantio is jealous of Othello - Desdemona betrays her father by eloping with Othello

• Sexual suspicion
• Job competition
• Status

-Important to try to find how the jealousy I s set up: "After some time, to abuse Othello's ear/That he is too familiar with his wife...The Moor is a free and open nature/That thinks men honest that but seem to be so;" (I iii 397-401)

"Hell and night/Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light" (I iii 405)

"Then you must speak/Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;/Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,/Perplexed in the extreme; (V ii 344-347)

Desdemona and Cassio show no sign of jealousy

III iii "Think, my lord?

By heaven, he echoes me,

As if there were some monster in his thought

Too hideous to be shown.  Thou dost mean something:

I heard thee say but now, thou lik'st not that,

When Cassio left my wife.  What didst not like?

And when I told thee he was of my counsel

In my whole course of wooing, thou cried'st 'Indeed?'

And didst contract and purse thy brow together,

As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain

Some horrible conceit.  If thou doest love me,

Show me thy thought."

Hero and Villain

• What qualities make a villain or a hero?
• Othello = tragic hero - must fall from grace (in this case, we have Iago as the nemesis) character flaw = jealousy or insecurity (his own nature)
• Ties in with prejudice - underneath Othello's good nature and gentleness = virile man who is ruled by animal instinct (darkness in Othello's heart - Shakespeare's prejudice? Or tragic hero's fall from grace?)

Hero

 -good soldier - Duke has faith in him - willing to forgive him what Brabantio accuses him of because of his heroism

Villain

Vii "Base Judean who threw the pearl away" (V ii 348)

• Insecurity gets the better of him

-How does he see himself?  "A turbaned Turk (Vii 354) - epiphany - self awareness - relates himself to a "malignant" enemy - CATHARSIS - kills himself - actual nature is revealed

-makes the realization too late - can use what he learned

• Fall from grace is egged on by Iago

• What is Othello called "the beast with two backs" "old black ram" - also baboon at some point, Barbary horse
• Othello is vulnerable - black, different culture
• Iago wrecks Othello's relationships with Desdemona, Cassio, Montano - he isolates Othello so that he can only rely on "honest Iago"

-how does Othello's race tie in with the assessment of Othello being a villain or a hero

• As a black man he feels less secure - people judge him - Brabantio doesn't want him to marry his daughter, doesn't think he can converse well, thinks Desdemona will think he's coarse

"Haply, for I am black/And have not those soft parts of conversation/That chamberers have, or for I am declined/ Into the vale of years"  (III iii 264-266)

Prejudice

• Look at first interchange between Iago and Emilia

• Age, race, gender, status
• How is Othello affected - called "Barbary horse," "thick lips," "old black ram"
• This undermined his confidence
• "beast with two backs"
• Animal imagery provided by Iago -in the end he becomes the animal they call him
• Emilia calls him the "blacker devil"
• Othello talks about his own black face when he compares himself to Desdemona
• Outsider: III iii 386 "Her name, that was as fresh/As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black/As mine own face."

• Misogyny
• II i "You are pictures
• "You rise to play, and go to bed to work." (II i 115)
• Othello hits Desdemona (shocked his fellow Venetian - this is racist and sexist!) - Grantiano
• "lusty moor"
• Cassio makes fun of Bianca IV i  (which ends up setting up Othello to think Desdemona really did sleep with Cassio)
• Why a courtesan?
• Othello believes Desdemona slept with Cassio because he feels emasculated, but also he easily thinks she would be disloyal
• Brabantio feels Desdemona is his property - Iago says Brabantio has been robbed
• Emilia says it's a husband's fault if wives do fall  (IV iii 85)
• III iv - Emilia calls men "stomachs"

• Religious Intolerance
  -Othello calls "circumcised dog"

• Cassio is not called a whore for sleeping with Bianca or Desdemona - but both are called whores

• Desdemona is dishonest or disloyal to either her husband or her father (can't win)
•  

Eng. 11 - June 9 - Secrets for Studying the Scottish Play

10 marks = character questions
15 marks = plot questions
5 marks = Shakespearean language
15 marks = paragraph questions
5 marks = dramatic devices
30 marks = identify and explain quotes

Best ways to study: go over your questions and dramatic devices sheet.  (I will not directly test on Aristotelian terms of tragedy) go through the play and pick out important quotes.  Think about how they add to either characterization or structure of the play.

Important Tip: After studying by yourself, study with a partner to test each other on quotes.

*don't spend too much time with Shakespearean language, this is testing how you can understand words in context.

These are your last marks for the course before your final.

Eng. 12 - Studying for Final

Prose - factual - multiple choice
Poem - multiple choice/mini essay
Short story - multiple choice/ synthesis essay comparing either prose and SS or poetry and SS
Personal Essay - remember all I've taught you about writing

Review: short story elements, poetic devices, class notes on writing, blue sheets on personal writing improvements

Get lots of sleep and eat a good breakfast!

Good luck!  Relax! (It's better for writing.)

Eng. 9 - Studying for Final

Editing Section - study all of our editing exercises - go over your green sheets, go over your writing improvements and class notes

Short Story Section - study your short story notes

Writing - review all advice I've given you personally and the class

Poetry - study the poetry handouts (try to figure some of these poems out on your own: techniques and themes


The final: MC section on Editing, Short Fiction and Poetry (you will be reading a poem and a short story)

Writing: Personal Composition - 3 paragraphs - try to make your writing stand out by choosing good vocabulary

Lit 12 - Studying for Final (Breakdown of Marks)

Breakdown of Final Exam:

20 marks - identifying 4 quotes - explaining significance in the context of whole work
15 marks - discussing literary techniques of quotes
10 marks - mini essay of specific time period
10 marks - mini - essay question of large topic
15 marks - sight reading poem
30 marks - full essay discussing whole course with a focus on three literary works

100 marks (20% of grade)

Eng. 11 - Studying for finals

Final Exam:

 editing - find the mistake in the sentences - study your editing sheets and your sentence corrections - class feedback for writing, apostrophe notes.

poetry - review poetic devices - make sure you understand page 4 of the poetry package - practice by going over poems we didn't study in the package - be familiar with all poetic devices

prose - review elements of short fiction (7 sets of notes)

writing - go over your essays, essay notes, essay package and writing improvements - make a note of my individual advice

get a good night's sleep and eat a healthy breakfast.

Eng. 9 - June 8

Studying for AMSND:

Literary Devices
Literary Device examples
Character Questions
Plot Questions
Larger Questions

Scottish Play Notes - June 8 - Eng. 11

Fate vs. Freewill

• No freewill?
• [M. chooses to kill Duncan, tell his wife etc.]
• Would M. have killed Duncan without his prophecy?
• Lets his freewill be overcome by fate
• "this super natural soliciting…" (I iii 130)

• "if chance will have me king, chance will crown me king" (I iii 143)

• Dies because Macduff kills him
• Prophecies were tricks

• [**Fleance does not become king]

• Didn't have to kill Duncan if he believed in fate [what's the rush?]
• Was it his fate to kill Duncan?
• [he didn't have to do anything to become Thane of Cawdor]
• Hecate is angry because the witches told M. his fate [took away his freewill?]

-Lady M. persuades him "When you durst do it, then you were a man" (I vii 49)

 - M. wants his prophecies to come true - makes the decision when Malcolm becomes Prince:

"The Prince of Cumberland!  That is a step/ On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap/For in my way it lies"  (I iv 47-49)

-[killing Banquo, killing Macduff's family…]

[-what is Shakespeare saying about freewill?  What's he saying about fate?  Can we apply this to our world/lives]

-"the seed of Banquo kings"  (III i 70)- M. does not take any responsibility

-compare M. to Macduff - he avenges his family

• Hearing the owl screech in Act II during Duncan's murder

** M. would definitely think about becoming king - not hard to guess since he's next in the hierarchy of power

Temptation vs. Morality

• Witches symbolize temptation

• Banquo/Macduff represent moral characters

• Lady also symbolizes temptation
• Does M.'s morality come back?

• [he doesn't want to kill Duncan according to I vii soliloquy]
• How does he go from "if chance will have me king, chance will crown me king without my stir" (I iii)
• [then Malcolm is named Prince of Cumberland]

• Lady prays to the "dark spirits" on purpose, she underestimates what will happen "a little water clears us of this deed"
• Morals - he couldn't have had strong ones if "be a man" convinces him to do something
• [what is it inside of us that makes us do bad things?]

 - as M. kills people, he loses sight of what's right and wrong [is it true that once people commit a crime,  it gets easier to commit another one - could substitute "sin" for "crime]

• Doesn’t care about his own life "I have almost lost the taste of fear" (V v 9)
• The crown is symbolic of temptation
• Once he gets the crown, how come he continues to commit crimes?
• He becomes more evil and violent once he has the crown (MORALITY)
• [can we connect POWER with MORALITY?  Is there a connection?]
• "Do you not hope your children shall be kings?" (I iii 118)
• The ends justifies the means
• Giving into temptation doesn't quite work out - you get what you give - the wrong route
• Earning something - Malcolm (order is restored - born into kingship]
• The Thane earned Thane of Cawdor by being noble, honest, and brave - to contrast - Macdonwald is executed for betrayal
• Witches use GREED against the thane [these days, is greed seen as bad?  Don't we celebrate all the rich people in the world and try to emulate them?  Don't they run the world?]
• M. Trusts his wife
• Later III iv M. is not moved by the question "Are you a man?"
• CHANGE AND PROGRESSION throughout the play

Betrayal and Loyalty

• The Thane knows that betrayal is evil
• Could compare characters in play
• Thane betrays himself, the country, his occupation, his own morality
• [is the Lady loyal?]
• The Thane chooses POWER over LOYALTY
• [Macduff's loyalty?]

-[ what or whom are we loyal to?]

-[what are our priorities? Eg. Macduff leaves his family to save the country]

-Thane is most loyal to the witches - at the end "The fiend that lie like the truth" (V v 44)

• [proof that the Thane is loyal to the witches: "I bear a charmed life, which must not yield/ To one of woman born."  (V viii 12,13)
• Interesting idea - why doesn't Banquo tell on Macbeth?  [loyalty? "If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,/ It shall make honour for you" (II i  25,26)]
• [Banquo's soliloquy: "May they not be my oracles as well./And set me up in hope?" (III i 9,10)

TECHNIQUES: could take theme and compare and contrast characters

-comment on general statement about human nature (expand argument to outside world)

SPECIAL SHEETS: Essay package, "Literary Pointers," "Essay Writing Sheet," "Blue Sheet," "Class Improvements," "Green sheets"

Eng. 9 - June 3

Midsummer Night's Dream!

Eng. 12 - June 2

Have all scenes completed for Wed. June 3

T. 4 - discussion/movie
F. 5 - movie

M. 8 - scenes
T. 9 - fishbowl
W. 10 - essay
T. 11 - Test

Eng. 9 - June 2

Have all questions for Act IV finished

T. J. 4 - movie
F. J.5 - movie

M. J. 8 - Projects Due
T. J. 9 - AMSND Test

Eng. 11 - June 2

IV/V Questions: Wed. 3

T. 4 - movie
F. 5 - movie

M. 8 - Fishtbowl
T. 9 - Essay
W.10 - MacTest