Recommended Reading List

Congratulations! Now your job is to relax / idle / explore for the summer. Here are some books that I've thought were great over the last few years.

Aimee Bender's The Girl in the Flammable Skirt - A short story collection that I really can't recommend enough. Think "magical realism."

Anything by David Foster Wallace - You can find a number of his essays online here, Where I recommend beginning with "Shipping Out," about a cruise ship. In terms of fiction, why not start with Brief Interviews with Hideous Men or his first novel, The Broom of the System. Also check out Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies or Unaccustomed Earth. Junot Diaz: Drown, a collection of stories about (young) Dominican Americans in New York and New Jersey. Make Believe, by Joanna Scott; "The Secret Integration," a story in Thomas Pynchon's Slow Learner.

Just south of the US I recommend checking out the Mexican / Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño; maybe begin with his story collection Last Evenings on Earth before moving on to his Savage Detectives. From Brazil, I can't get enough of Clairce Lispector, particularly her Hour of the Star. Also, anything by the Argentines César Aira, Jorge Luis Borges, and Julio Cortázar. In Praise of the Stepmother, by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru).

From India, check out Aravind Adiga's White Tiger and Arundati Roy's The God of Small Things. From Africa, The Book of Chameleons; Ngugi wa Thiong'o, The Devil on the Cross.

As for biographies, I just read one on Shakespeare, Will in the World, and one of the French "Symbolist" poet, Arthur Rimbaud, both of which are fantastic.

If you read one and like it, why not leave a comment below? Or recommend something that you like! Happy Reading!

Final Exams and Papers!

I just sent an email to all of you with the finalized rules and regulations for the final papers and exams; the final exam questions have also been included there. If for some reason you did not receive that email or cannot read it's formatting, please email me and I will resend it.

I have office hours tomorrow, Tuesday (6/22) in B507, from 1pm to 6pm; please stop by if you have any questions!

My summer reading recommendations will be posted here soon! Here's one of them, pasted to the side here: John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. In my opinion the best satire written in the U.S. in the last 100 years... (though several others come close; I'll post those too!).

(PS.-The title comes from Jonathan Swift)

4pm Class Start on Tuesday, and Final Paper

First off, this Tuesday's class (6/15) will start at 4pm. The readings are Part IV of Gulliver's Travels.

If you would like to write a final paper instead of taking the take-home exam (both will be approx. 5 pages, double-spaced), by Monday (6/14) please email me:

• Two paragraphs describing what you want to write about
• A possible thesis statement
• Type out 3 key quotes for your argument

The goal of your paper is to do a close reading of several key passages where you make an argument about a particular author(s) take on a theme. To begin, I recommend investigating a question that puzzles you: how does the Fool act as a comment on King Lear? Why is the body so important in Gulliver's Travels? Is Thomas More really putting forth a viable economic system in Utopia?

And don't forget, you are welcome to compare any text / film we've read / seen, provided one of the things you're comparing is Lear, Gulliver's Travels, or Utopia.

More soon!

King Lear, Acts IV & V; Final Paper FAQ

For next time, please finish reading King Lear. At the end of class, we'll watch portions Akira Kurosawa's movie, Ran (乱), a rewriting of Lear set in feudal Japan.

A few words about the final. There will be two options: either a) you can do the take-home assignment, where you choose 3 out of 4 questions to write about, for a total of 4-5 pages; or b) you design a topic yourself and write a 4-5 page paper about it.

If you're interested in the second option, I recommend thinking about a question that strikes you as interesting, but which doesn't strike you as having an immediately recognizable answer. "What is the relationship between the Fool's irony and Edgar's nonsense?" might be such a question. Or, "What is the role of women in More's Utopia?" Or, "How are animals used in Lear and Gulliver's Travels?" Or even, "What are the differences between Shakespeare's King Lear and the Emperor in Kurosawa's Ran?"

Anything we have read or watched in the second half of the course is open for discussion, but at least one key work must be a written text.

Once you come up with an interesting question or two, attune your ears and eyes so that you begin looking and listening for spots where that question arises.

If you choose to write a paper, you'll need to send me a quick one-paragraph prospectus explaining what you want to write about, with three key quotations that you will analyze; that will be due in two weeks. In the meantime, please send me any questions you have, or drop by my office hours (T 2.20-3.20), or ask for a more convenient time to meet.

Happy Weekending!

King Lear, Acts II and III

Like I said in class, please read Acts II and III to your section next week. Also, bring along three questions to turn in to me:

• One textual question: it could be something that puzzles you, intrigues you, or just sounds interesting / beautiful / strange to you.
  
• One historical question.
• And one thematic question; remember, look for things that repeat... it could deal with a character and their motivations, irony, or one of the themes we've been discussing.

Oh, and that "In Search of Shakespeare" documentary I mentioned is just a quick google search away. You might add in "1of4". Also readily available online, I'm sure: Shakespeare in Love. If you haven't seen it, it's pretty good, and borrows a lot from Shakespeare's actual work.

King Lear, Act I

Hey class, here's the questions for this week! As I'm sure you've gathered from the sonnets, Shakespeare loves disguising ideas / metaphors / feelings in his language. As you read, I recommend picking out words and ideas that seem to recur. I give four examples below--nature, animals, authority, nothing--but there are far more; keep an eye out for others!

Q1 (Carol C.): The word "nature" seems to come up again and again in Act I; Lear mentions it several times, and Edmund, Gloucester's illegitimate son, seems obsessed with it. Note the spots where the term or idea comes up, and talk about what's behind it's ubiquity. (Hint: Different characters might be interested in it for different reasons).

Q2 (Sam): What do you make of this character, the Fool? What seems to be his function in the play? Does he remind you of anyone in anything else you've read / seen?

Q3 (Alice): Do you notice any similarities, either in language or in theme, between this first act of King Lear and the sonnets?

Q4 (Mia): Look carefully at the setting and stage directions of the various scenes. How important are they? How do they affect how we should interpret what happens in the dialog?

Q5 (Jenny): Animals are just everywhere in this first act, typically as metaphors or analogies. Why? Find some spots that strike you as interesting.

Q6 (Isabella): Summarize the responses of Lear's three daughters to his request that they declare how much they love him. Who seems the most sincere?

Q7 (Ashley): In Act I, Scene 4, Kent (in disguise) tells Lear that he has the look of "Authority"; does he, really? How would you describe the King's authority over the course of this first act of the play?

Q8 (Anne): This word "nothing," like nature, seems to come up again and again and again. Why? Pick out some spots where you think something interesting might be going on.

Utopia / Dystopia: Study Questions

Check the post below for the homework (from More's Utopia and Woody Allen's Sleeper, 90min, available on YouTube). Now on to the questions!

Q1 (Demi): In Raphael's description, King Utopus said that he "suspected that God perhaps likes diverse and manifold forms of worship and therefore deliberately inspired different people with different views" (Utopia, 580). What are some of the beliefs of the Utopians? How does King Utopus's statement jive with the depiction of More in A Man for All Seasons that we watched in class this week?

Q2 (Annie): At the end of Utopia, the character of "More" says this: "when Raphael had finished his story, I was left thinking that not a few customs and laws he had described as existing among the Utopians were quite absurd. Their methods of waging war, their religious practices, and their social customs were some of these, but my chief objection was to the basis of their whole system, that is, their communal living and their money economy" (588). Why does he say this? How closely should we take the character of "More" to resemble the actual views of More, the author?

Q3 (Jason): What is the Utopians' take on the relationship between pleasure and an ethical life? And how does it compare with the ways in which pleasure is depicted in Sleeper?

Q4 (Jill): More inarguably designed his island of Utopia in response to social / political / moral problems he saw in early 16th-century England. Based on what you saw in A Man for All Seasons, what are the principle problems he tries to address in Utopia?

Q5 (Kate): Golden chamberpots?! In Utopia? Why?!

Q6 (Rachel): Why is slavery so essential in Utopia?

Q7 (Tina): What exactly is More's argument about the fictionality of Utopia in his final letter to Peter Giles, pp. 589-90?

Q8 (Vicky): If More's Utopia was designed in response to the problems and preoccupations More saw in early 16th-century England, then we can fairly safely say that Woody Allen's Dys-topia in Sleeper was written in response to certain 1973 American problems and preoccupations. Based on what you've seen in that movie, what were Americans worried about and obsessed with at that time?

Dystopia: Sleeper (1973)

Your homework for next week is to read More's Utopia (1516), pp. 556-63, 569-74, 579-90, and also to watch Woody Allen's dystopic comedy, Sleeper (1973):



Links to parts 1-9 of the movie should be linked to the clip if you open it in YouTube. Happy watching!

More's Utopia: Page Numbers and Study Questions

Re-reading More's Utopia, I've decided that not all of Book I is absolutely necessary to read--the descriptions of the island of Utopia are far more interesting. This'll keep your total reading for this week the same, and cut way down on next week's. So, for 5/4, please just read:

• "Thomas More to Peter Giles, Greetings" (521-24)
  
• Book I, only through Raphael's dialog with the Cardinal about thieves, slaves and the death penalty (524-35)
  
• And then from Book II, just up to the section entitled "The Travels of the Utopians" (545-56)
  

QUESTIONS:

Q1 (Sophia): How would you describe the tone of the opening letter to Peter Giles? If you had read it without knowing that Utopia wasn’t a real place, and that Raphael was a made-up character, what would you think? How does that effect the tone?

Q2 (James): What do you make of Raphael’s argument against private property? What historical events does More seem to be reacting to? (Hint: check out this passage, “Your sheep . . . that used to be so meek and eat so little. Now they are becoming so greedy and wild that they devour human beings themselves, as I hear,” p. 531).

Q3 (Emily): What do you think of Raphael’s alternative to capital punishment as a penalty for theft?

Q4 (Carrie): Why does More set Utopia in the Americas (i.e., in the “New World”)?

Q5 (Mardy): Based on what you have read about Utopia so far, what do you think would be the ramifications if certain of their laws and customs were imported to Taiwan? Pick a couple. (Bonus: Is a Utopia, or perfect society, possible?)

Q6 (Debbie): Say something about the “occupations” of the Utopians (550-53).

Q7 (Verthandi): Say something about the “social relations” of the Utopians (553-56).

Q8 (Valerie): What do you make of this Raphael Hythloday figure? How seriously do you think we should take him? (Hint: Look at the early footnote about his name; does that undercut what he says, or does it merely relieve More of responsibility for his character’s controversial ideas?)

Midterm Tips

As all of you finish up your studying, here's a few last minute tips:

1. Once again, re-reading all of the words in each of the texts might not be the best way to use your study time. Instead, go back through the texts and look for key passages that you think will be important, or that you think you could write an essay about; remind yourself of the basic order of events in each text, but only focus on what you think is important in the context of the class. Study, in other words, strategically.
   
2. Get those passages straight in your head so that you don't have to flip open the book to re-remember what they were about; the test will be timed (2hrs), and searching for the 100% perfect quote will, more often than not, waste more time than it will save you. I recommend keeping a closed book for the first half, in fact.
   
3. To refresh your understanding of the history of the texts, read the Norton introductions to them, and to the periods. Also, in the Chaucer handouts, it might be helpful to read the bits and pieces of the tales that come before and after The Miller's and the Wife of Bath's tales.
   
4. Practice reading a few sonnets you've never seen before. (Hint: For inspiration, push the Shakespeare bobble-head doll, pictured right.)
   
5. Write some sample questions, and organize the texts and quotations you might use to answer them.
6. Practice your facility with meter by reading Shakespeare's Sonnet 12 (pp. 1062-63), and marking the stresses and unstresses... then decide what that meter is emphasizing. I'll note some interesting things about the meter in the comments below.

Happy studying! If all goes as planned, we'll watch a movie in the last part of class tomorrow.

Midterm Study Sessions

Later this week I have planned a set of 5-7 person study sessions to help all of you prepare for the midterms. Tentative times are:

Wednesday, 5-6pm
Friday, 11-12
Friday, 1-2
Friday, 2-3
Friday, 4-5

Feel free to claim a spot in one of those times in the comments section below (there will be a cap of 7, for now). The basic format will be 100% informal, with you asking questions and me answering them.

Therefore, when you come, you'll need to do two things:

• Bring three questions about the readings we've done, one of each of these types:
  

One Detailed Textual Question (e.g., In Sonnet 65 what does Shakespeare mean by "the wrackful siege of battr'ing days"?; or, What is iambic pentameter, and what is an alexandrine?);


One Thematic Question about a Text (e.g., Why is the Green Knight green? or, Why does Julian of Norwich keep repeating that Christ told her that "Sin is behovely, but all shall be well"?);


One Big Question about History or the Connections between our Texts (What, again, does feminism mean? or, Why did the sonnet become so popular in England during the 16th century?)

• Also, bring along your Norton Anthology, and the photocopies of The Canterbury Tales.
  

See you all tomorrow!

The Faerie Queene: Week 7

The readings for this week will be from Edmund Spenser's unfinished allegorical romance, The Faerie Queene (1590):

Read: the "Letter of the Authors," pp. 716-19;
Book II, Canto 12, pp. 857-67;
and Book III, Canto 6, pp. 867-79.

It is also essential to read the editor's introduction (pp. 714-16), since it goes far to explain the poem's goals and narrative structure, which are complex.

Q1 (Joanna): In his "Letter of the Authors," Spenser tells Sir Walter Ralegh that The Faerie Queene is a "continued Allegory, or darke conceit." First, what is an allegory? Second, what is a poetic conceit? And lastly, from what we've read in Books II & III, pick out a few moments that seem to you particularly allegorical. (Hint: the Norton editors' intro could help you here. Also, bonus: why does Spenser call his poem a "darke conceit"?)

Q2 (Mandy): In the beginning of the "Bower of Bliss" episode, we hear about "a place pickt out by choice of best alive, / That natures work by art can imitate" (Book II, Canto 12, ll. 372-3). Find some places throughout the canto where "art," imitation, and illusions are discussed. What do you think the canto leads us to believe about the value of art? (Bonus: what about the fact that Spenser needs to use art to tell us this?)

Q3 (Carol J.): In the "Letter of the Authors," Spenser makes it clear that his poem is in some sense a political allegory; the Faerie Queene, for instance, is allegorical of Queen Elizabeth's public rule and private virtue. This political aspect of the poem has led some critics to suggest a connection between Book II's "The Bower of Bliss" and the colonial condition of the Irish people; (a condition Spenser knew well because he lived in Ireland, helping England impose a brutal regime upon the Irish). Take a look at this excerpt from Spenser's essay "A View of the State of Ireland" (click on the link). What connections can you draw between Book II, Canto 12 and the essay? (Hint: Lines 703-83 in that canto might be a good place to start.)

Q4 (Christine): Comment on something in the Bower of Bliss that you found interesting (or confusing, or paradoxical), or come up with a question for me. Use some quotations from the text.

Q5 (Matt): If the "Bower of Bliss" is the realm of Art and Illusion, then perhaps the "Garden of Adonis" is the dominion of Nature; it is "so faire a place as Nature can devise" (l. 255). How does Nature and how do natural things seem to work in this episode; what sorts of principles seem to guide them? Give some examples. (Hint: you can choose examples from the actual description of the Garden, or from the opening of the canto which describes Belphoebe's miraculous conception, ll. 19-81).

Q6 (Mark): Compare and contrast the initial description of the creation of forms in the "Garden of Adonis" (ll. 280-320) with the description of the "huge eternall Chaos" (ll. 321-342) that fuels that production. How are the two aspects of earthly creation related? Are they polar opposites, or do they share any qualities? Are they necessary to each other? Why does the one contain more "positive" associations and descriptions, and the other more "negative" ones?

Q7 (Renée): The "Garden of Adonis" and the "Bower of Bliss" possess an astounding number of similarities. To name three examples: they each are described as being intensely beautiful; each is somehow related to the "infinite" (Book II, Canto 12, l. 550 & Book III, Canto 6, l. 307, for example); and each have a powerful woman amorously engaging with a (more mortal) lover. (The Witch and the young man in the "Bower of Bliss," and Venus and Adonis in the "Garden"). Why then is the "Bower of Bliss" destroyed by Sir Guyon and the "Garden of Adonis" let be? What's the difference between the two? Do the differences strike you as real differences?

Q8 (Josie): Comment on something you found interesting (or confusing, or paradoxical) in the "Garden of Adonis" episode, or ask me an extended, quotation-rich question about it. Talk about whatever you like.

Week 6: Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe Questions

Here's the questions for this week's readings, Julian of Norwich's A Book of Showings (Norton, pp. 271-83), and The Book of Margery Kempe (283-93, 294-97).

Q1 (Carol C.): Read this typical piece of Church Doctrine, from Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica (Part III Question 26, Articles 1 & 2), and contrast both its style and message with the style and message of Julian of Norwich's A Book of Showings. Give quotations both from Aquinas's and Julian's text. (Hint: Because Aquinas's argument, or "catechism," concerns Christ as Mediator between God and Man, it might help to focus on Chapters 58-61 & 86 in Julian).

Q2 (Sam): One of the principle intellectual and rhetorical tropes that Julian uses in her text is "paradox." What sorts of paradoxes do you see in her text? Why do you think she uses paradox so often? (Hint: While wikipedia is typically an insufficient and unreliable source for information, this particular entry on paradox is pretty clear.)

Q3 (Alice): Come up with a question for me about Julian of Norwich, or write a comment about something in her text that you found interesting.

Q4 (Mia): Critics often cite Julian of Norwich as an extremely astute and creative religious thinker, not merely because she is a woman, but because of her particular style which anticipates C17 poets like George Herbert. What do you think is original about her thinking or her style? Does the fact that she's a woman affect her religious or political views?

Q5 (Jenny): Who do you think is a more innovative interpreter of Christian doctrine, Margery Kempe or the the Wife of Bath? Why? (Cite quotations from each...).

Q6 (Isabella): Some people think that The Book of Margery Kempe is the first "autobiography" written in English. Would you call her book an "autobiography"? Or do you think it is closer to some other genre? Cite some examples from the text for why you think so.

Q7 (Ashley): Compare and contrast the writing styles of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich. Which writer do you prefer? Cite some examples to explain why.

Q8 (Anne): Come up with a question for me about Margery Kempe, or a comment on a topic you found interesting.

Week 5: The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

Last week's comments were splendid; thanks to everyone who posted! Here's the questions for the Wife of Bath's Tale; keep on quoting and citing those details from the text. If you didn't get a copy of the translation in class, they're outside my office door (B507) for pick-up whenever you like. They're in a little black box--just be sure you take the one that says "Fragment III (Group D) - The Prologue of the Wife of Bath's Tale" at the top.

Q1 (Jill): Before we hear her in her own tale, we are given the Poet's description of the Wife of Bath in the General Prologue. Translate, in your own words, lines 447-478 (pp. 229-30 in the Norton). What details do you think are important for the development of her character?

Q2 (Eleana): So far in this class we have seen examples of several different genres of literature: the Old English Epic (Beowulf), Romance (Sir Gawain), and the "Fabliau" or Satirical Romance (Miller's Tale). How would you characterize the genre of the Wife of Bath's Prologue (pp. 219-240 in the handout)? Does it parody anything? Does it remind you of anything else you've ever read?

Q3 (Jason): In the first lines of her Prologue, the Wife of Bath says "Experience, though noon auctoritee / Were in this world, is right ynough for me / To speke of wo that is in mariage" (ll. 1-3). Aside from relating her own experiences, how does the Wife attempt to prove her authority in the subject of marriage and the relations between men and women? Does she reference anything--(or manipulate our understanding of it)? (Hint: Remember, the two traditional sources of authority in late-fourteenth-century England were the Church, and church doctrine, and the Court, and its literary traditions.)

Q4 (Demi): After her ribald Prologue, we might expect the Wife of Bath's Tale to be more like the Miller's fabliau. But instead, we get a tale about "the'olden dayes of the King Arthour" (l. 863, Norton; p. 240, handout). Admittedly, it is not your ordinary courtly romance, but why do you think she tells that particular tale in that particular form?

Q5 (Kate): On pages 235-39 of your translation (lines 672-834, Norton) the Wife of Bath makes fun of all the "anti-feminist" literature that her fifth husband was reading, and then confronts him about how awful it is. And yet, the Wife of Bath herself sometimes is depicted as a stereotype of a particular sort of woman. Do you think that The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale successfully criticizes and satirizes the anti-feminist literature collected in Jankin's Valerie and Theofraste (line 677), or is it simply an example of such literature? In other words, is the tale feminist (pro-woman), anti-feminist, some of each, or neither? Cite some specific examples.(Hint: the footnotes about the different texts in Jankin's book might help you; the translation you have doesn't have any notes).

Q6 (Tina): Same as Q5. What do you think?

Q7 (Rachel): What exactly is the Wife of Bath's description of how marriage works? Is a good marriage possible in her eyes? How? And, finally, do you think that the power structures that she finds in marriage are necessary to any marriage, or just certain marriages? Why?

Q8 (Annie): A different version of the Wife of Bath's Tale is called Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, in which the Knight is Sir Gawain, and the magical woman is Lady Ragnell. Does this Knight resemble Gawain from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? What do each of them learn? Why do you think Medieval poets would think this Knight is like Gawain?

Q9 (Vicky): At the end of the Wife's tale, does the magical woman regain her "maistrye" ("mastery"; line 1242, Norton; p. 250 in the handout)? Is the "maistrye" that she and the Wife of Bath describe the sort of thing that more than one person can hold in a relationship?

Chaucer: "The Miller's Tale," Questions

Here's the study questions for the first part of our reading of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, "The Miller's Tale" and "The General Prologue" (ll. 717-860). Last week's response to Sir Gawain were even better than I could have hoped! In your answers this week, remember to try to include as many quotations (with line or page numbers) and concrete details as you can. (One nice thing about this blog is that it can act as a study aid for your midterm and final exams!)

Question 1 (Debbie): Based on what you have read of "The General Prologue" and the Prologue to "the Miller's Tale," describe the setting in which these tales are told. Pay particular attention to the sorts of people telling the tales and listening to them. How does the setting (and the people) differ from that depicted in the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?

Question 2 (James): The Canterbury Tales are reported to us by a narrator (who we eventually learn is called "Geoffrey Chaucer"). Based on what he says in "The General Prologue" (ll. 717-860) and in the Prologue to "The Miller's Tale," how would you describe the narrator as a character? What sort of person do you imagine him to be? (Bonus: what sorts of artistic freedoms do you think Chaucer might have won himself in telling his tales through other characters? Hint: in the late 14th century, poets were supposed to write either courtly romances, or poetry in support of the Church.)

Question 3 (Valerie): Before we hear the description of the Miller in the Prologue to his tale, the narrator describes him in "The General Prologue." Read lines 547-68 of that description (in the Norton, pp. 231-32), and translate it into your own words. Most of the tougher Middle English words will be translated in the Norton, and the ones that aren't you can look up here. The write a quick few sentences about why you decided to translate it how you did. Feel free to translate the passage into verse or prose, and have fun with it! (Hint: that funny word "eke" just means "also").

Question 4 (Mardy): Based on the description of the Miller in the "General Prologue" (ll. 547-68), the Miller's Prologue, and the very beginning of the "Reeve's Tale" (in your handout, pp. 98-99), what do you think the effect is of having this tale told by the Miller? Does it change our attitude towards it? And what's a Miller, anyways?! How does his social class and character clash with or complement that of the other characters, either those in his tale or in the audience (e.g. of the Host, or of the Monk, or the narrator)?

Question 5 (Sophia): Read the anthology's paraphrase of "the Knight's Tale" (Norton, p. 238), the very end of that tale printed in your handout (pp. 78-79), and the description of the Knight from "the General Prologue" (Norton, lines 43-63, p. 219-220). What parallels do you think there might be between the two tales? And what contrasts? Why do you think Chaucer decided to have the Miller's tale follow right after the Knight's tale?

Question 6 (Verthandi): Compare and contrast some of the characteristics of Absolon, from "the Miller's Tale," and Sir Gawain, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. How are they similar? How are they different? Do we learn a "moral" at the end, like Gawain (supposedly) did? (Hint: do you think Chaucer is satirizing anything? What?)

Question 7 (Carrie): What do you think is the tale's take on marriage? Does it resemble what you would imagine marriage to be like in Medieval times? Does it have anything to do with social class or economics?

Question 8 (Emily): Like Mark did last week, read through these questions, and read the tale, and write a question for me to answer. It could be about the historical setting, the plot, the kind of poetry Chaucer was writing... anything you are wondering about! (This is a very very strange tale!) Just make sure it doesn't overlap too much with the questions above.

Study Questions: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Parts III & IV

Here are the study questions for Week 3's readings, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (pp. 185-213). The instructions are the same as in the sample (see below). And again, I will not be grading whether or not you have invented an ingenious reading of a difficult text. These questions and answers are designed to prompt a discussion, not to evaluate you; it's the beginning of a process of talking about a piece of literature, not the end. Just read the text carefully, and think through the question, and write a thoughtful response that incorporates concrete details and quotations from the text. If you do that, you're all set!

Q1 - Josie: In an aside in lines 1549-50, the narrator tells us that the lady (the lord's wife) "tested [Gawain's] temper and tried many a time, whatever her true intent, to entice him to sin." What sin(s) do you think she is enticing him to? (Hint: the Cardinal Sins are typically listed as pride, wrath, envy, greed, lust, sloth and envy.) And what tactics does she use to entice him?

Q2 - Matt: In lines 1616-18 we hear that "the boar's head was borne before the same man that stabbed him in the stream with his strong arm right through." And in 1353 we watch the lord's men "hew" off the deer's head at the end of the hunt. Why do you think these gruesome scenes are described in such detail? And why are they told in alternation with the episodes involving Gawain's escapades with the ladies in the court? Are the lord's hunting scenes symbolic of anything?

Q3 - Carol J.: What moral lesson does Gawain (and maybe all of Arthur's court) learn when the Green Knight reveals who he really is? Based on the examples of Gawain and the Green Knight, and their descriptions of chivalry, courtesy and bravery, how should a knight behave?

Q4 - Christine: Some critics have suggested that the Green Knight is in fact a figure of Christ. Why might they think this? Is there any evidence in the text that points to a comparison between the two? (Hint: think about some of the poem's own references to Christ; what kind of person is he described as in the poem?)

Q5 - Renée: What role(s) do women play in this poem? How much power do they possess? Did your perspective on the women change over the course of the poem? How? (Maybe pick one or two scenes to focus on).

Q6 - Mark: Come up with a question for me to answer; it can overlap with some of the discussion above, but should be about something you are wondering about in the poem. It could be about the plot, the symbolism, the historical background, or anything you choose. (Your question will obviously be shorter than the other answers, but you should put the same amount of thought into it).

In your answers, post a comment that says "This is Your Name answering Whatever Question." Feel free to ask questions in your response, and to add in your own opinions and reactions. For instance: "I think that Gawain is a slothful kind of character... But what I really wonder about is whether he is also... Perhaps that is even more important than..." Or: "While I personally think that the Green Knight is awesome (or awful), the narrator seems to think he is..."

A Couple More Things about the Syllabus

Hello Everyone, in class yesterday I forgot to talk about the grading scheme for the semester, which will go like this:

• 35% In-Class Midterm Exam, consisting of short answers about the readings we have done, and a couple longer essays. As the exam approaches I will have more details about this, though don't forget that the works we are reading IN class (for example the sonnets with which we will begin each day) may also be part of the exam.
  
• 45% Final Exam - Format to be determined, though it will likely have longer essays than the midterm.
  
• 20% Participation, Homework, and Attendance; this will include the Blog Comments. And like I said in class, I will not be grading you very strictly on the comments. Nor will I be grading you on the quality or nuance of your discussion in class. Rather, as long as you talk consistently in class, and write comments to the blog that show you've done the reading and thought about the question, I will check you off as having done it.

If you have any questions, I'll be happy to talk about them on Tuesday. And check back here for your Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight questions soon!

Comments: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sample Questions

Here are a couple sample questions for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Parts I & II (your reading assignment for Tuesday, 3/16; pp. 160-185 in the Norton).

Your official assigned study questions will begin the next week (3/23), but for now I would like you to simply try writing a comment in this post's "comment" section to test out how it works. Check out my instructions for that in the email that I sent to you. And again, if you'd like to get your first assigned study question out of the way, please feel free to write a paragraph or two in answer to these sample questions!

Sample Question #1

Contrast how the poet sets the scene of Camelot in Sir Gawain in lines 1-85 to the description of the hall in Beowulf, roughly lines 491-661. Give a few specific details or quotations to show how the two scenes are different. Based on what the poets emphasize in their descriptions, what do you think the two different cultures value?

Sample Question #2

Contrast the entrance of the Green Knight in lines 130-231 to the descriptions of the arrival of Grendel in Beowulf, lines 702-835. Use specific details and quotations in your response. What do the descriptions of the two villains tell us about the differences between the two cultures? How is war or battle portrayed; how is it waged and begun? What do the two cultures fear?

Not every question will be a compare-and-contrast one, obviously. But these questions should give you a taste of the sorts of things you might be thinking about as you read.

Happy reading!

Course Syllabus

After combing through the Norton Anthology for several weeks, and combing through all of your surveys and recommendations, I have arrived at a definitive syllabus for the semester. (Note: the picture above is from the Grand Academy of Lagado in Gulliver's Travels... an academy of ridiculous professors that Jonathan Swift makes fun of. I swear I have no membership in such an academy. Really. I swear I don't.)

I have also decided on two activities that we will do each class:

• First, we shall read a short lyric poems at the beginning of every class; up until the midterm, nearly all of them will be sonnets. Over the course of the quarter you will get a solid foundation in that form, as well as in several other forms of poetry.
  
• On your surveys many of you noted that one thing you hoped to learn this term was how to analyze a piece of literature, and so I will model how I begin to interpret a piece of literature that I'm unfamiliar with. So in each class, YOU will comb through the Norton Anthology and pick out a short work that I have never read--(there are more than you would expect). I think that watching me think through a short work each week will help you: a) in your at-home readings each week; b) in your assigned blog comments; c) in your exams; and d) in your future literature classes. Plus we won't have to spend a week just on sonnets.
  

And now on to the syllabus:

Part I: Chivalry and the Role of Women
T 3/16 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Books I & II
T 3/23 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Books III & IV
T 3/30 - Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: General Prologue (ll. 717-860)
Miller's Prologue and Tale
T 4/6 - Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
T 4/13 - The Book of Margery Kempe
T 4/20 - Christopher Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"
Sir Walter Ralegh, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"
Edmund Spenser, from The Faerie Queen

T 4/27 - In-Class Midterm Exam

Part II: Islands, Sovereignty, & Satire
T 5/4 - Thomas More, Utopia
T 5/11 - Thomas More, Utopia
T 5/18 - William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I
T 5/25 - William Shakespeare, King Lear, Acts II & III
T 6/1 - William Shakespeare, King Lear, Acts IV & V
T 6/8 - Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part 1. A Voyage to Lilliput
T 6/15 - Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part 4. A Voyage to the Country of the Houynhnms

Exact page numbers will be posted here each week. Portions of some works will be cut out, and others will be supplemented with translations. Thus, for example, at home you will read translations of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but in class we will discuss and reference the original Middle English to get a feel for the poetry.

Happy reading! Study questions will be posted here for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight soon!

Welcome to A Truly Golden Handbook

The phrase "A Truly Golden Handbook" comes from the subtitle to Thomas More's Utopia (1516), a book we'll be reading in a few weeks. And this blog is designed to be just that: a truly golden handbook for everything that you will need for this course. (And our wonderful classroom will be the utopia, ha ha).

What you will find here will be not only the page numbers for the week's readings, but also a set of study questions. One of you will be assigned to answer each question, which you will do in the comments portion of the posting. Since there are 33 of you in the class, and there will be roughly 5-6 questions each week, over the course of the semester you will answer 3 questions. Try for two paragraphs per answer.

You will write these comments by clicking "comments" at the bottom of the posting, and then sign in using your Gmail account. In your reply, say:

This is Your Name answering Question Number XYZ. And then write your answer to the question. Again, two paragraphs should usually suffice; and, if you have something to say and you're not assigned to that question, wait for the assigned answerer to answer, and then feel free to make a comment. But of course, please be polite!

Welcome once again to English I-2; I hope you find this handbook golden!

-Prof. Warren