Abandon Hopefully

We're Moving!

2011-01-06T09:35:00.000-08:00

To a new, improved, expansive and more-navigable website: the bigger, better Abandon Hopefully.

There you'll find college and scholarship links, curriculum resources, a family homeschooling blog with book reviews and other goodies, plus our (now) complete four-year literature-and-history-centered humanities program.

The new site is currently under construction, but we're adding more links and other treats daily, so visit early and often! And be sure to sign the guestbook!

Exam

2009-05-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the final exam. You may take this exam at any time between now and midnight on Sunday. The rules are that you must limit your test-taking to 2 hours, and you may not consult books, notes, or any other outside source for help in answering the questions.

When you have finished, please email your answers to me at sallytslc AT hotmail DOT com.

I. Identify or define thirty of the following in one to three complete sentences

Lady Macbeth
Petrarch
Hrothgar
Caedmon
John Milton
Banquo
Sir Gawain
Pardoner
Macduff
William Shakespeare
Grendel
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Wanderer
Samuel Pepys
Jules Verne
T.S. Eliot
Jane Austen
thane
mystery play
Weird Sisters
Charles Dickens
Mary Shelley
Nun's Priest
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Walter Raleigh
Birnham Wood
meter
Geoffrey Chaucer
Shakespearean sonnet
Petrarchan sonnet
Duncan
Wyrd
Everyman
Rood
iambic pentameter
kenning
alliteration

II. Sonnets: Identify the kind of sonnet and the rhyme scheme

1.

I FIND no peace, and all my war is done;
I fear and hope; I burn and freeze like ice;
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I seize on;
That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not, yet can I 'scape nowise;
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device, [by my own choice]
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Withouten eyen, I see; and without tongue I plain; [lament]
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;
I love another, and thus I hate myself;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain;
Likewise displeaseth me both death and life;
And my delight is causer of this strife.

2.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

3.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew.

4.

Because I breathe not love to everyone,
Nor do not use set colors for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan
Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear,
What, he! say they of me, Now I dare swear
He cannot love; no, no, let him alone.
And think so still, so Stella know my mind;
Profess indeed I do not Cupid's art;
But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find,
That his right badge is but worn in the heart;
Dumb swans, not chatt'ring pies, do lovers prove;
They love indeed who quake to say they love.

5.

I am the great sun, but you do not see me,
I am your husband, but you turn away.
I am the captive, but you do not free me,
I am the captain you will not obey.

I am the truth, but you will not believe me,
I am the city where you will not stay,
I am your wife, your child, but you will leave me,
I am that God to whom you will not pray.

I am your counsel, but you do not hear me,
I am the lover whom you will betray.
I am the victor, though you will not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.

I am your life, but if you will not name me,
Seal up your soul with tears, and never blame me

III. Chronology: arrange these writers, works, and events into chronological order (you don't have to give dates, just put them in order from earliest to latest)

1. Geoffrey Chaucer
Battle of Hastings
Caedmon
Petrarch
T.S. Eliot
Macbeth
John Milton

2. Henry VIII
The Second Shepherds Play
The Dream of the Rood
Jane Austen
Astrophil and Stella
Romans leave England

3. Edmund Spenser
Charles Dickens
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Mary Shelley
Samuel Pepys
Jules Verne
The Wanderer

4. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
William Shakespeare
Jane Austen
Canterbury Tales

5. I Sing of a Maiden
development of the sonnet
Beowulf
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

IV. Meter: copy out the following lines and mark the stressed syllables with a `, or put them in boldface (or however your computer will allow you to emphasize the stressed syllables).

1. That time of year thou mayest in me behold

2. Four score and seven years ago

3. The Creator's might and his mind-plans

4. My mind to me a kingdom is

5. Whan that Aprille with his showres soote

6. When my love swears that she is full of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies.

7. As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.

8. Nay, to fight, in good faith, is far from my thought.
There are about on these benches but beardless children.

9. The hoard-guard took heart, once more his breast swelled with his breathing.

10. Is that the reason why he tempts us thus?

You Absolutely Must Check This Out

2009-05-03T12:10:00.001-07:00

A History of English in Ten Acts

Very fun interactive. For each age, click on the beer bottle, bomb, swinging jester puppet thingy, the sword and shield, and other objects to learn about the period and its language. The "new 20th-century words" are a little tiresome: not awful, but tiresome-ish.

Great summary of our year!

Next Term Paper Assignment: Online Presentation: Your Writer's Life

2009-05-01T11:37:00.001-07:00

We're handling this paper by writing it in stages -- having outlined it, you're now drafting it section by section and presenting each section to the rest of the group, who are required to read your presentation and strongly encouraged to ask you questions about the information you present.

How to turn your outline and your research notes into a piece of writing? Some of you have done this before, and some of you haven't; either way, a brief review is in order, especially to ensure that we all know how to use outside sources in our writing without committing plagiarism.

First of all, read this. It's my lecture from last year defining plagiarism and demonstrating how to handle quotations. Includes links to Diana Hacker's indispensable site, which you MUST visit and familiarize yourself with, if you haven't already.

In writing and presenting this first section on your writer's life, you're going to be dealing with information that's largely common knowledge; that is, you can find the date of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's birth ANYWHERE. No one person owns that information. So even if you didn't know it before, and you had to look it up, you don't have to document information like that. This will probably be true of just about all the information you present in this section. You might not have known it before, but most any fact of your author's life will be common knowlege and appear in at least three sources.

The only exceptions would be those kinds of instances where nobody really knows where someone went or what he or she did during a period of time, and various people speculate about what might have happened.

So, say your author just goes missing for a period of years in his middle twenties. He leaves university, and we don't know where he is until he turns up at the age of forty writing advertisements for a mulch factory, but several sources you've read have theories about what he might have been doing during those "lost years."

What you do is that you write your own sentences about what we do know and don't worry about documenting them:

Alphonse Q. Author was born in Lithuania and attended South Lithuania Elementary School until the age of nineteen. At this time his teachers decided that he was a genius and graduated him from the third grade. From there he proceeded to enroll in medical school. After his graduation from medical school at the age of 22, he all but disappears from history for a period of roughly eighteen years.

Okay, up to this point we're dealing with common knowledge. All you have to do is tell the story. But now we're wading into uncertain waters. We've read various theories about what happened during those lost years. Here's how we handle them: we're still telling the story, but we invite other voices to contribute.

So first you write a topic sentence which sounds something like this: What, exactly, Author did during those eighteen years is a matter for debate.

That's you, signalling us that you're going to invite some other people to talk now. Or at least, you're going to tell us what they say in your own words, just as you might repeat someone else's words in a conversation without quoting that person directly: Mom SAID for you to come in the house now.

So you might write the following:

What, exactly, Author did during those eighteen years is a matter for debate. Some scholars, like Horatio Z. Professorbreath, believe that he spent the entire time trying to scrape a piece of chewing gum off the bottom of his shoe.

You got this piece of speculation from a book or article by Dr. Professorbreath, and it's NOT common knowlege. ONLY Dr. Professorbreath holds this view. So here, even though you've paraphrased in your own words, you will want to document your source. Inside the sentence, ie before the period after "shoe," you will write this: (23) to signal that you took this information from Dr. Professorbreath's book, page 23. You will give complete information about the book -- title, publisher, etc -- on your Works Cited page at the end of your paper. You don't need to mention even Dr. Professorbreath's name in your documentation here, because you've mentioned him in your sentence. Just give the page number and move on.

Continue your discussion of this debate, in the same paragraph, by integrating some direct quotations, for variety's sake, like this:

What, exactly, Author did during those eighteen years is a matter for debate. Some scholars, like Horatio Z. Professorbreath, believe that he spent the entire time trying to scrape a piece of chewing gum off the bottom of his shoe (23). On the other hand, it is argued that during some of this time, "surely he at least ate a peanutbutter sandwich" (Scholarnose 268)."We are almost certain that he went to the movies, as references to movies appear in his later work." (Expertio 910). And, as the noted critic Joe Critique has observed, "He must have slept sometime" (47). Ultimately, however, these years remain a mystery.

See how you've done that? The paragraph begins and ends with YOUR voice. It's a discussion panel, and you are the moderator. You set the terms for the conversation: we're talking about how nobody can agree on Alphonse Q. Author's whereabouts. You've already concluded that nobody really knows. You just want to let these other people have their say, so that you can demonstrate that it's all a big question mark. Sometimes you speak for them; sometimes you work their words into your sentence; sometimes you let them say their piece all on their own. But at the end of the paragraph, you remind us of what you wanted us to know all along.

Also, you can see how we've handled other instances of documentation -- the less information about your source you can work into the sentence, the more you put in the parentheses. Again, familiarize yourself with Diana Hacker's MLA documentation for humanities papers; there you'll find the proper formatting for any kind of source you can think of.

Other times in this section of your paper when you'll want to include other voices besides your own:

*you might want to quote another source as saying, for instance, that your author was good or bad at school

*you might opt to use another source's words to describe a relationship with a parent, a friend, or a spouse

*it's good to quote an outside source as saying that your subject was happy or unhappy at a certain period, content or not content with what he was doing, etc. (sometimes it's just good to hear subjective things like that from someone besides you -- if you can quote that author as saying things about himself or herself, even better).

So, to summarize, your presentation should include both your own voice (which should be the dominant voice we hear) and the voices of some of your sources, which may include the voice of the author you're writing about. Vary your use of sources, sometimes paraphrasing in your own words and sometimes using direct quotations, either as parts of your sentences or as their own complete sentences or passages. If a piece of information is not common knowledge, be sure to document where it came from.

Random Comments on Writing About Literature (For Term Papers and other occasions)

2009-05-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

On writing about a poem, and how the poet's use of language points to larger themes or ideas; or, how to close-read a couple of lines of poetry:

For example -- and I'm taking something from another poet, William Blake -- a
poem about a chimneysweep begins "A little black figure in the snow/Crying
'Weep, weep," in notes of woe." Blake is writing about how England in the
Industrial Revolution is a fallen place, and he seizes on child labor (little
boys were used as chimneysweeps, because they could fit into tight places, and
they frequently died very young as a consequence of this work) as a
manifestation of the evil and disordered state of things.

So Blake wants to suggest the little chimneysweep as both a victim and a sign of
fallenness. He makes him appear pathetic -- "a little black figure in the snow"
(he's little, a helpless child; it's cold; and to the passerby he doesn't even
look human; he's just a "figure," a shape or a number). The chimneysweep cries
"Weep! Weep!" because he's so little he can't pronounce 'sweep,' but his cries
also suggest that anyone hearing him ought to weep for him.

On writing about a non-fiction work, in this case the Diary of Samuel Pepys, in literary terms, dealing with both rhetoric and themes and the relationships between the two:

To push
things a little farther, you can treat it as a literary work and look at his use
of language and literary devices, just as if this were a novel or poem. Even in
our everyday writing or speaking, we do use metaphor, simile, images, and other
rhetorical tools to shape how our voices are heard.

So for instance, you can look at the way he writes about other people. How can
you tell whom he likes and whom he doesn't? What does he betray about himself
-- his beliefs, his political leanings, his background, his preferences -- by
the language he uses about the things he observes? What does his account of a
disaster like the plague or the Great Fire tell you about the way he sees the
world -- what is man's relationship with the world around him? What role does
God play? What about kings and rulers? How is the world ordered, in his view?

Remember how, in Macbeth, we could tell that Shakespeare believed in a natural
order of things, and in not upsetting the hierarchy -- even nature revolts, in
the form of storms, when Macbeth usurps the throne. Under James I, this would
have been the kind of thing you'd want to be writing, of course . . . if you
liked the feel of your head on your shoulders, and you wanted to keep working.

But Pepys is living in a very different time -- how does he feel about the
divine order of things, about hierarchy, etc? How can you tell these things from
his diary, even if he's not spelling them out explicity?

On questions you can ask about a novel (in this case Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

If we're going to say her work is "ideological," how is it so?
What did she believe about the way the world was ordered? Is she like
Shakespeare in Macbeth, in believing that there's a natural order and hierarchy
to things which should not be violated (remember how once Macbeth usurps the
throne, it never stops storming, because the whole universe is outraged at the
breach of order?), or does she believe that order exists to be shaken up? In
which state -- order or disorder -- are people happy and fulfilled?

So then in your third section you can apply these questions directly to Pride
and Prejudice, showing how it demonstrates her convictions about these things.
You should

*give a summary of characters and plot
*discuss these larger themes (order vs. disorder)
*compare and contrast scenes and characters associated with order with those
associated with disorder (for example, the Bennet household, Lydia and Wickham)
and show whether order or disorder leads to greater happiness and human
flourishing.

Some Random Small Notes:

*When you write the title of a book, you either italicise it (if you're using a computer); or you underline it. This is the rule for whole books like novels or diaries, magazines, collections of poetry or short stories, encyclopedias, and the like.

*When you write the title of a poem, short story, magazine article, or other shorter work contained in a larger one, you put it in quotation marks.

Thus:

Pride and Prejudice
"Paradise Lost," reprinted in Milton's Poetical Works

"Jane Austen, Marriage, and Pride and Prejudice," an article in Lady-Novelists' Life magazine.

A Literary Timeline

2009-05-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Read this very complete timeline of English history and literature from the prehistoric era to the present -- well, to 1979, which in the grand scheme of things is close enough to the present.

I've caught a few mistakes -- for example, I think the author of this timeline may mean that Oxford was founded around 1210. It definitely predates Cambridge, which began when some disgruntled scholars left Oxford and wound up in the town on the banks of the River Cam. Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhouse College, the first Cambridge college, in 1284.

And Webster's play is The Duchess of Malfi. Not Malf.

You can click on any hotlinked name in the timeline for more notes and information, though the biographies don't seem to be very complete.

I'll be back shortly with more detailed information and brief readings for the following:

John Donne
George Herbert
Robert Herrick
Andrew Marvell
John Dryden
William Blake
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Gerard Manley Hopkins

You don't have to know a huge amount about them right now, but getting a taste of them and seeing where they fall on the timeline will be useful to you in seeing how the tradition develops and ideas come in and out of vogue.

Ps -- Just for fun, since she's linked, you might want to take a look at Margery Kempe, in the Middle English period. She was a mystic who wasn't canonized; there were lots of those wandering around at the time, and looking at her life gives you a window into what the culture of the time was like, and into the kinds of excesses of piety which people sometimes indulged in, which the Church didn't actually promote, but which seemed to be very common nonetheless. Margery Kempe at one point in her life received the gift of tears -- she went about crying loudly, and apparently she made herself really obnoxious to the people around her. Once she went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and her fellow pilgrims hated her so much they wanted to have her taken off the boat. She is also the author of the first known autobiography in English, and the first such work by a woman. So in that way she's noteworthy as more than just a curiosity.

Sample Partial Outline

2009-04-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

I've been asked for some clarification regarding what I want to see in an outline. I still need to work on what the third section would look like, but here is a sample of how I'd expect the first two sections -- I and II to look:

Your Section I should be biography. So you would have something like this:

I. Alfonsus Q. Author led a long and interesting life.
A. Even his early life was eventful.
1. He was born in Uzbekistan.
a. His mother was a shoemaker
b. His father sold bongo drums
c. He had seventeen brothers and sisters

B. He attended school from 1897 to 1964.
1. He was a slow learner
2. His teachers labeled him a daydreamer
3. He was poor at geometry

C. He left school at 14
1. He joined his father's bongo-drum business
2. Later he sold shoes
3. All this time he was writing his first novel.

OK, this is silly, but do you see what I mean? In the real paper, you would flesh this out by using quotations from other sources and adding more detail (and varying your sentence structure -- a whole paper of these sentences would be really monotonous). But this is enough to give you a real blueprint to work from -- by the time you've done your outline, your paper's half-written, which makes the next steps much easier.

Your second section (II) would be about your writer's literary career, and would look like this:

II. Alfonsus Q. Author enjoyed a long and spectacularly unsuccessful career as a writer.
A. His first novel, The Sound of Bongo Drums, was a failure.
1. It sold two copies.
2. His mother bought one; so did his father
3. His publisher paid him to go away.

B. His second novel, Dreaming of Shoes, was also unsuccessful.
1. This one sold three copies
2. His grandparents bought one
3. His publisher made him pay, then sent him away

Hopefully this will help folks begin to visualize what to do with their (non-fictitious) author-topics.

Exam

2009-04-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

On Friday, May 15, we will have an exam covering the year. It will be a short-answer test: fill-in-the-blanks, identification, one-sentence-type answers. You should limit your test-taking time to 90 minutes. The test will cover:

*Anglo-Saxons: Caedmon, Wanderer, Dream of the Rood, Beowulf

*Middle Ages: Chaucer, Middle English lyrics, Sir Gawain

*Renaissance: sonnets, Shakespeare (incl. Macbeth)

*writers covered in term papers: you will need to pay attention to each other's presentations on each person's author's life and work.

*literary terms covered during the year, including identification of kinds of sonnets, rhyme schemes, meter.

*I will be posting short readings and biographical information for writers not covered by term papers, to fill in our literary timeline. There will be exam questions pertaining to these readings.

Most of this information I think you all know without having to do heavy-duty review, but you will need to start now, going back over what we've covered. I will shortly post a timeline of authors and readings, so that you can move forward. These will be short, but will fill in the development of English literature to the twentieth century.

Research Paper Outline

2009-04-21T09:00:00.001-07:00

Also don't forget that by NEXT WEDNESDAY, April 29, you're submitting to me an outline for your paper.

It should look like this:

I. Biography

A. Early Life
1. fact
2. fact
3. fact
(and so on)

B. Education
1. fact
2. fact
3. fact

C. Adult life
1. fact
2. fact
3. fact

II. Literary Career
A. Early career
1. works written
2. themes and concerns
3. response to work
a. successful or not
b. critics liked it or didn't

B. Mid-Career (same as above)

C. Late Career (same as above).

III. A close look at his/her work

here, how you structure your outline will depend on whether you're looking at ONE major work, or at a series of shorter works, like poems. You could divide this section thus:

A. Work
1. plotlines
2. themes
3. what critics have to say

Or something like that. I'll have to think further about this section. As you start to put the outline together and have questions, ask them, and we'll work this section out together. Again, ask on the yahoo group, because it's very likely that everyone will have similar questions.

General Guidelines for Your Outline:

*Do not use source material in your outline. All parts of your outline should be in your own words

*Resist the temptation to write your whole paper in your outline. Each number or letter entry in the outline should be ONE BRIEF SENTENCE. You're just building a skeleton for your paper, remember.

*Every 1 has to have a 2; every A has to have a B.

*give actual information in your outline. You should NOT write: "I am going to talk about Orville Pennypacker's school days here." You SHOULD write: "Orville Pennypacker was educated at Hunsford Grammer School from 1787-1923." Or whatever. (poor Orville: third grade was hard for him . . . )

*If you have questions, ask them.

Term Papers and the Research Process

2009-04-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

Now that you have your topic, hopefully you've already started your research. For those of you who haven't done a term paper before, as well as those of you who could use a research refresher, here are some tips:

*Sources

All sources are not equal. For your paper, you will want to seek out, as much as possible, what are called reliable sources. This means that you want to read material pertaining to your subject which is reliably accurate, intelligent, and written for thoughtful, intelligent readers.

For example: what about Wikipedia? We all use it. I often link to Wiki entries. But how reliable is it, really? Entries are updated and corrected all the time. Anyone can create a Wikipedia entry, and it doesn't matter whether he's an expert on the subject at hand, or only THINKS he is. And you, the reader, can't always know whether the information you're reading is sound, or whether it's just somebody's crackpot theory. The more you know about the subject, the more you can make those kinds of judgments, but you, as a student, probably don't yet know how to judge the soundness of information about, say, whether or not Christopher Marlowe really wrote some of Shakespeare's plays.

So you want to be careful to find information you can trust. Wikipedia isn't a bad place to start for background, but you want to try to find the following:

*reliable encyclopedias, like the Encyclopedia Britannica (tends to have very high-quality articles on subjects, and a high level of reliability, even among encyclopedias)

*reliable books, by authors who are experts in the field. What you're not looking for is a title like Did Shakespeare Really Exist, and Other Renaissance Conspiracy Theories. I just made that up, but see what I mean? You don't want sensationalistic, "I'm going to tell you something NOBODY KNOWS" kind of information. The odds are that if NOBODY KNOWS IT, it probably didn't happen. Straight facts may be boring, but that's what you're looking for.

*reliable articles, in print journals or on the internet, by authors who are experts in the field. See above.

If you have trouble finding information, let me know, and I'll help you look online. For any of the authors on our list, there should be plenty of stuff out there.

*What, Exactly, Am I Looking For?

Remember that the paper we're doing is divided into three sections: biography, literary career, and exposition, or explanation, of some examples from that literary career. So you're looking for information pertaining to those three broad categories. You want facts about your writer's life. You want facts about his or her writing career, including what kinds of literature he or she produced and an overview of everything he or she wrote. Finally, you want to locate a novel or other prose work, or a fairly generous group of poems to read, plus some of what we call "criticism," which doesn't mean information about whether the works are good or bad, but simply articles or books which discuss what's going on in those works (sort of in the same way we've talked about Beowulf, MacBeth, etc.).

*How Can I Organize the Material I find?

Notecards. Folks from last year will remember this.

1. Get yourself a pack of index cards. If possible, get the multicolored kind, which has pink, yellow, blue, green, etc. all in one pack. If you have all-white ones, label them: a pile for "biography," a pile for "career," and a pile for "poems/novel/etc." Either way, you want your cards to be coded so that once you have gathered information and written it down on them, you can divide them according to the sections of your paper.

2. When you do your research, and you come across a passage in a book, article, or whatever that you think you could use in your paper, COPY IT DOWN VERBATIM on one side of an index card. No piece of information should be so large that it takes up more than one card. At most, you want 3-4 sentences. But copy it EXACTLY in the author's words. On the other side of the card, write down the source from which you took the passage, in THIS EXACT FORMAT:

Author's last name, Author's first name. Book Title, Underlined. Where Published: Publisher, copyright date. Page number/s.

If you've taken the quotation from a magazine, a book chapter, or an encyclopedia entry, do it like this:

Last name, First name. "Title of Article, Chapter, or Entry." Book or Magazine Title, Underlined. then publication info and page numbers as above.

For further, more specific information about how to list different kinds of sources, check out this page on Diana Hacker's excellent research-paper-writing site. The page I'm giving you is the "How to Do a Works Cited" page, but you'll want to follow the formats she describes. Essentially, when you go to make a Works Cited page for your final paper, all you'll have to do is copy the information straight off your cards.

Do take the time to provide all the information I've just described on EACH notecard. It may seem like a pain in the neck, but trust me. You are not going to remember where you got every piece of information you wrote down, and since you DO have to tell me where every piece of information comes from, obviously going back through all those books, articles and websites would be an even bigger pain. Do it right, pay attention to details, and you will be a happy camper.

Hacker also has more good information on finding and using sources. I HIGHLY recommend your reading around the "Humanities" section of her site. If you need to have anything clarified, just let me know on the yahoo list -- odds are that if you have a particular question, other people will have the same question.

Obviously, too, I can't check notecards. You'll need to enlist someone at home to work with you on that. This step in the research process isn't hard, just kind of fiddly, but it will make your life so much easier at the end of the day.

Macbeth: The Real Story

2009-04-08T03:54:00.000-07:00

Among other things, this might help you answer that "anachronism" question.

Shakespeare drew on the Chronicles of Raphael Holinshed for many of his dramatic plots, including that of Macbeth.

Here you will find a series of links providing the history of the legend on which Macbeth is based, excerpts from Holinshed's Chronicles relating to Macbeth, and more.

Here you can read about discrepancies between the story as Holinshed tells it, and the story as Shakespeare presents it in dramatic form.

Here you'll encounter a discussion of Shakespeare's altering of Holinshed's version of the story for political reasons -- his troupe, the Kings Men, performed for the court of James I, successor to Elizabeth I, and for a play at court you'd certainly want to communicate all the support in the world for your royal benefactor, because among other things you like having a head.

Another brief discussion about Shakespeare and Holinshed

When I asked that anachronism question, what I meant was an example of something that would have existed in Shakespeare's era, but not in Macbeth's historical era.

Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (Nicol Williamson): start of play

2009-04-05T21:06:00.001-07:00

Here's a different production. One more thing to consider: how do the witch's words "Fair's foul and foul's fair" play out in Macbeth? What is foul but looks fair, and fair but looks foul? What does it mean that fairness (goodness) and foulness (evil) are reversed and confused?

Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (Ian McKellen) "Tomorrow and Tomo...

2009-04-05T20:55:00.001-07:00

Here's an interesting comment from this video:

"That is the tragedy and the heart of the Tomorrow monologue. Hell is repetition, and this is what Macbeth faces in this moment - the horrific desperation of an continuation with no change and no end. In this moment of clarity he sees the path forward in the light of his life and, subconsciously if not directly, chooses to end that life, preferring death over the hell of existence."

Why exactly has Macbeth's life become hell? What is it that he has to live with, "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," which makes it all meaningless?

Shakespeare: "Macbeth" (Judi Dench) - sleepwalking scene

2009-04-05T20:51:00.001-07:00

Why is Lady Macbeth sleepwalking? In what ways does Macbeth also "sleepwalk?"

Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (Ian McKellen) "If it were done...

2009-04-05T20:47:00.001-07:00

For those of us who have read Julius Caesar, what do you think about this scene between the Macbeths, and the scenes between Brutus and Cassius (and Brutus's soliloquy) in which they decide to kill Caesar?

"Macbeth" - Dench/McKellen -1979, Trevor Nunn, Dir.

2009-04-05T20:44:00.001-07:00

I haven't previewed every single comment on this video, but the conversation seems interesting and worth reading, just to see what kinds of things people talk about when they talk about Shakespeare in performance. You can decide whether this performance by Judi Dench corresponds to your mental picture of Lady Macbeth.

And a Bonus Poem for Holy Week

2009-04-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

You don't have to do anything with this poem, except read and be blown away by it. It's a stunning example of the power of the sonnet, even in 20th-century verse (bonus points to anyone who can tell me which kind of sonnet this is, though!). The poet, Charles Causely, lived virtually his whole life, except for service in World War II, in Cornwall, in the west of England, teaching in a primary school. He died in, I believe, 2004.

I Am the Great Sun

From a Normandy crucifix of 1632

I am the great sun, but you do not see me,
I am your husband, but you turn away.
I am the captive, but you do not free me,
I am the captain you will not obey.

I am the truth, but you will not believe me,
I am the city where you will not stay,
I am your wife, your child, but you will leave me,
I am that God to whom you will not pray.

I am your counsel, but you do not hear me,
I am the lover whom you will betray.
I am the victor, though you will not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.

I am your life, but if you will not name me,
Seal up your soul with tears, and never blame me.

Charles Causley
From Collected Poems 1951-2000
London: Picador, 2000

Wishing everyone a blessed Holy Week and a joyous Easter.

Research Project

2009-04-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

We will be devoting a good bit of the last two months of the year to independent research projects, focused on English writers who were either Shakespeare's contemporaries or his successors. Your 10-page paper will include the following:

1. a biographical section in which you tell your writer's life story
2. a section in which you discuss your writer's work and major concerns/themes (what he or she wrote about, thought about, cared about, was obsessed by).
3. a section in which you discuss in detail one work (or, if a poet, two or three shorter poems) by your writer

No two people may research the same writer.

To write this paper, you will need both to read about your writer, and to read what your writer has written. A novel, a large body of poems, etc, will be as good an introduction to your writer as a book ABOUT that writer.

Here's a schedule of due dates for this project, which you will need to mark on your calendar:

1. Wednesday April 15: report to me which writer you have chosen
2. Wednesday April 29: submit an outline of your research paper
3. Tuesday May 5: submit the section of your paper telling the life story of your writer -- this will be like a presentation of your writer to the rest of the class
4. Tuesday May 12: submit, again as a kind of online presentation, the section of your paper describing your writer's work and major concerns/themes.
5. Tuesday May 19: submit the last section of your paper, discussing one major work, or several short poems, by your writer
6. Friday May 22: complete rough draft due
7. Friday May 29 by 5 pm: final paper due.

Those of you who have done a research paper before will be familiar with the research process, but I'll post some lectures and links related to this process for those to whom this is new territory. Working in "chunks," completing a section at at time and presenting it to the class (you will be essentially teaching your classmates about this writer, since you are becoming an expert on him/her), will make ten pages manageable even if you've never written that long a paper before.

Here's the list of writers from which to choose:

Christopher Marlowe
Sir Walter Ralegh
Robert Southwell
John Donne
George Herbert
John Milton
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Johnson
Jonathan Swift
William Blake
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
John Keats
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mary Shelley
Jane Austen
George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans -- she just used a male pen name)
Charles Dickens
Anthony Trollope
William Makepeace Thackeray
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
William Butler Yeats
T.S. Eliot

This takes us from Shakespeare's day into the 20th century in English literature, so it's quite a whirlwind tour. I'd like to have writers from every era represented, so that we can put together something of a literary timeline to correspond with the history represented here. You will want to do a little brief reading about all these writers in order to know which one you want to commit to living with for a while -- do some preliminary internet research by googling their names and seeing what you come up with by way of information about each one.

Again, no two people may do the same writer, and your choices are due a week from Wednesday: that's April 15.

The Scottish Play

2009-04-05T18:26:00.001-07:00

By now everyone should have had plenty of time to read Macbeth -- actors refer to it as "The Scottish play," incidentally; it's an old actors' superstition that referring to this play by its title in a theatre brings bad luck. I don't know the story behind this supersition, but if anyone else does, or would like to find out, do share.

We're heading into Holy Week, so I'm giving you some writing to do, to be due next Tuesday, April 14, by 5 pm. No later. a combination of short answer and paragraphs. You may look back at the play while you're working on this for specific details, but please don't consult any other materials while you're answering the questions. Here goes:

Some Short Answer Questions:

1. Look up the word "anachronism" in the dictionary, and then find one example of an anachronism in the play.

2. List three "ill omens" which appear in the play.

3. List three references to blood.

4. Give an example of a scene in which the tone or mood seems different from the tone or mood of the rest of the play.

5. List three examples of prophecy or foretelling in the play.

Identify the following:

Birnham Wood
Macduff
Banquo
Duncan
Lady Macbeth
Weird Sisters
Thane of Cawdor
Thane of Glamis
Malcolm
Donalbain
Porter

Discussion: Choose three of the following questions to discuss in two or three paragraphs

1. Does Macbeth live in a universe -- the universe of the play, not our real universe -- in which free will exists, or is he a pawn of fate? Explain.

2. Aristotle defines a tragic hero as an essentially good character who suffers from a tragic flaw (usually hubris, or pride) which sets a chain of tragic events in motion. Does Macbeth fit Aristotle's definition? Why or why not? If he has a tragic flaw, what is it?

3. What role do female characters play in this tragedy?

4. What is the role of weather in this play? Give examples of moments in the play when the weather is mentioned, and discuss why this is significant.

5. Describe scenes in which blood is discussed, and describe the characters' reactions to it. What does blood symbolize or represent in this play?

6. Explain what this play has to say about kingship as opposed to tyranny, and discuss how various characters exemplify this opposition.

Again, I would like this assignment posted -- actually, let's say you'll post it AT 5 pm on Tuesday, April 14. No late work.

Thanks, everyone. We've had a flex month to read and catch up on other work, but we need to hit the road from now till the end of the year. Research paper assignments and options will be up shortly.

Sonnets: Something to Try in Lent, Or Any Time

2009-02-22T12:35:00.001-08:00

Note: This post is taken from a longer article which will appear in a spring issue of Mater et Magistra magazine.

Let’s think about poetry-writing as an exercise. We tend to think of poetry in expressive terms: it’s all about putting your emotions into words, right? Well, not exactly. At least, I think it’s about something different. I’m a poet by vocation and training, and I tend to think in terms of craft. A poem, like any piece of art, is a thing which I make out of materials available to me: in other words, words. The 20th-century poet William Carlos Williams famously said that a poem is a “large or small machine made of words.” A poem is not the writer’s soul poured out on the page, though the end result may suggest that it is. A poem, at least as it’s being written, isn’t so much an act of inspiration as of writing a word, then another word, then another.

Having a structure like the sonnet form makes it easier to decide roughly how many words will be in a line – or at least how many stressed syllables -- and what sorts of words, or sounds, each line should end with. Thinking about fulfilling that structure or form relieves the pressure every writer feels: the pressure to say something original and brilliant. Far from squelching the writer’s expressiveness, following the rules of form defuses his natural self-consciousness – think of it as becoming really absorbed in a game like Sudoku – and unlocks something in the mind which enables the writer to say things in ways which would not have been possible if he had been trying to think of them.

So let’s say that you'd like to try writing a sonnet. How will you go about it? Think of the English Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton’s adage that a thing worth doing is worth doing badly, and jump right in.

Your intent, from the get-go, is to conform to the rules of the sonnet. That’s all. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing about; in fact, you should probably aim, in your experiment, to write something as trivial and everyday and unexciting as possible, so that what you are focusing on is not an idea, or even on the meaning of the words themselves, but on working out the puzzle of rhyme and meter. In short, don’t get bogged down in trying to be poetic.

Meter is harder than rhyme; what you might do is first to reread some sonnets aloud, in a singsongy way, and then try speaking ordinary utterances in roughly iambic pentameter, as in I’m going to the store; d’you want to come? Make a dinner-table game of conversing in pentameter. Iambic pentameter is the closest poetic approximation of natural English speech, and if you practice at it a bit, you’ll soon start hearing it in ordinary utterance. Once you have the meter in your “ear,” you can experiment with writing lines in that meter. You don’t have to write anything strikingly original, beautiful, or poetic. I’m going to the store; d’you want to come would be a perfectly good first line for a sonnet. Then write a second line with the same rhythm, but a different end-sound.

I’m going to the store; d’you want to come?
I hear they’ve got a sale on rutabagas.

And so on. Your third line will have to rhyme with either “come” or “rutabagas,” depending on whether you’re writing a Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnet. And the fourth line will either rhyme with “come,” if it’s a Petrarchan sonnet, or with “rutabagas,” if you’re being Shakespearean. So for example, you might end up either with this –

I’m going to the store; d’you want to come?(a)
I hear they’ve got a sale on rutabagas.(b)
Besides, they’re raffling off a trip to Vegas –(b)
I’d like a holiday. My room’s a slum(a)

Or this –

I’m going to the store; d’you want to come?(a)
I hear they’ve got a sale on rutabagas.(b)
On second thought, you’ve got to clean your room(a)
Before we hit the highway for Las Vegas. (b)

I am making this up off the top of my head, by the way, and you will already have seen one trap it’s possible to fall into. If you use the word “rutabagas” at the end of a line, you WILL be writing about Las Vegas, whether you really want to go there or not. You’ll make your life easier by writing lines that end in slow, or rain, or be.. Also note that while it’s easy to have a line be a complete sentence, you can break lines across syntax, like this:

I’m going to the store; d’you want to come
With me today, or do you want to sit
Alone and sulk and concentrate on quantum
Physics, and dig yourself into a pit
Of abject misery, et cetera, so on . . .

This technique of breaking lines at places that aren’t natural breaks in the sentence, periods or commas, is called enjambment, by the way, and it’s a means of getting more mileage out of your available words when you’re looking for ways to rhyme.

Once you’ve set up a rhyme scheme in the first stanza, you know whether you’re writing a Petrarchan or a Shakespearean sonnet, and your task from here on out is simply to follow the form. Don’t worry about being coherent. If you run out of things to say about going to the store and wishing you were going to Las Vegas, start talking about something else. The form will hold things together; in fact, it’s taking you wherever it wants you to go. You might want to go on talking about Las Vegas, but if the rhyme scheme won’t let you, clearly it’s tired of that idea and wants you to find another. In a contest of wills between your idea and the sonnet form, the form always wins. Always. It requires you to lay down whatever plans you might have made about what you wanted to say. It requires you to let it change your mind. In the poetry dance, the sonnet leads, and you let it surprise you. You might not know what you’re saying from one line to the next, but by the time you’ve finished line fourteen, you will have said something. More importantly, you will have accomplished a sonnet. And you will have trusted the form to take you places, which is an exercise in humility.

Finally, if you make a serious study of the sonnet, you will notice that poets who write sonnets tend to write a lot of them, in cycles. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, not all on the same theme, but on a set of concerns which, if you read all his sonnets together, create the effect of the interwoven tapestry which is a mind at work. Read Shakespeare, read John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, read Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Edna St. Vincent Millay. You don’t have to spend hours over every single sonnet – pick two or three for in-depth discussion, but read an entire cycle by a given writer, because while a single sonnet is a gem, to read a cycle is to discover the whole glittering mine. Then try writing not just one sonnet, but a series yourself.

I say this mainly because the best way to write one decent sonnet is to write a lot of them. One Lent I chose sonnet-writing as a discipline: I wrote a sonnet a day for the entire forty days. Most of these sonnets were . . . well, bad. One, I recall, was about a cowhide-patterned dress my daughter was wearing; I was really scraping bottom that day. Nobody would want to read that poem, ever. I mean, fourteen lines of “well, that’s really, like, black-and-white.” But writing a sonnet a day for forty days meant that I got pretty good at coming up with fourteen rhyming lines about whatever my eye fell on. I started seeing the world in terms of fourteen rhyming lines. Those lines didn’t always make sense, and they weren’t always about much of anything. But the exercise meant that occasionally I surprised myself by writing a good poem, a better poem than I had thought I was capable of writing in that form. So don’t stop at one sonnet. Write sonnets for a week, for two weeks, for a month, for forty days. Make a discipline of laying down your will to that strict little poetic form, and it will take you places.

Sonnets and More (Thomas More, That Is, Plus Additional Poets, Monarchs, and Saints of the Tudor Era)

2009-02-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a selection of sonnets, in more or less chronological order:

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542):
Translation of Petrarch's Rima, Sonnet 134

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586):
Choose one from the Astrophil and Stella sequence

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599):
Sonnet 75, from the Amoretti (note that he uses a rhyme scheme all his own -- there is such a thing as a Spenserian sonnet, as well as a Petrarchan or a Shakespearean)

William Shakespeare (1564-1616):
Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
Sonnet 60: Like As the Waves Make Towards the Pebbled Shore
Sonnet 55: Not Marble Nor the Gilded Monuments

You will notice that virtually all the sonnets listed here have numbers in their titles: that's because most of the time their authors didn't title them at all. Later printers arranged them and numbered them for easier referencing. Otherwise they're known by their first lines.

Because poets who wrote sonnets generally wrote a lot of them (kind of like Lay's Potato Chips. You can't write just one), it's important to read through a number of a given writer's sonnets if you want to get a feel for that writer's mind. Therefore I am strongly suggesting that in addition to the sonnets listed here, you choose one of the above poets and read more of that poet's sonnets. It is easy to find sonnets by Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare: they're all really famous, they've all been dead a long time, and their texts are readily available in libraries and online. So read ALL of Wyatt's translations of Petrarch (or as many as you can find); or read ALL of Astrophil and Stella, or all of Shakespeare's sonnets. You don't have to read them all in great depth, and of course sonnets are short.

More resources:
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
All-Purpose William Shakespeare Site, with timelines, texts, and more!

English history links (transitions from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance):
Wars of the Roses.com
Wars of the Roses timeline
Timeline of the Tudor Monarchy
Time-Traveller's Guide to Tudor England
Henry VIII
Edward VI
Mary I
Elizabeth I
James I
Saint Thomas More
A Little More More
Saint John Fisher
Saint Edmund Campion
English Martyrs 1535-1681

Additional resources:
Good film to watch at this time: A Man for All Seasons, starring Paul Scofield
Good novel to read at this time: Edmund Campion, by Evelyn Waugh

February Literature: The Sonnet

2009-02-03T09:35:00.001-08:00

Note: this post is part of a longer article which will appear later in the spring in Mater et Magistra magazine.

What is a sonnet? A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem. Generally, in English, it conforms to a rhythm, or meter, called iambic pentameter – that is, if you were to read the lines aloud in a very singsongy way, and maybe beat on the table while you read them, they would sound like this: daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM. If you really want to experience the meter, in fact, you should get up out of that kitchen chair with the book in your hand and read the poem aloud while galloping around the table, galumph galumph galumph galumph galumph. (all right: you must try this. Get up and go gallop gallop gallop gallop gallop -- five gallops. Hear the rhythm your feet make? Now read one of the poems below, while galloping. You should get five gallops to each line. THAT is iambic pentameter.)

In addition to being, usually, in iambic pentameter, a sonnet also conforms to a strict rhyme scheme. Here it’s necessary to delve into history a bit. The sonnet is a Renaissance invention, hailing from fourteenth-century Italy; its name in Italian, sonnetto, actually means “little song.” It was developed by a Sicilian poet named Giacomo da Lentini, but perfected and made famous by Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, as we know him, whose sonnets to a woman named Laura were hits not only in his native Italy, but eventually in England as well, thanks to translations by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early sixteenth century. In this way the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet was imported into English. It is, of course, a fourteen-line poem, whose distinguishing feature is its rhyme scheme. A Petrarchan sonnet, though it may appear as a single stanza, is divided into two sections: an octet or eight-line section, and a six-line sestet. The rhymes in the octet follow this pattern: ABBAABBA. In the sestet the rhymes usually, though there can be variations, follow a CDECDE pattern. Here is a textbook example of a Petrarchan sonnet in English, by the seventeenth-century poet John Milton:

On His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b)
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a)
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d)
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c)
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)

See how the rhymes work? You might also notice that there’s a certain correspondence between the pattern of the rhymes and the way the poem’s “argument” is constructed. The first eight lines – well, really, the first seven and a half lines – establish what it is that the poem’s speaker is considering, namely, his blindness and the way in which it renders him, so he thinks, useless before God. God has given him one thing to be good at, and then has taken it away. This, we can say, is the “problem” of the poem.

But note what happens in the eighth line. There’s a shift, or turn, from the speaker’s articulation of his problem (we could call it his “complaint”) to a different kind of voice. We could call it the Holy Spirit, or we could think of it as the speaker’s conscience, but at any rate, this is the point at which the poem turns from problem to some kind of answer to that problem. The last six lines of the sonnet are devoted to working out a resolution to the intolerable situation established in the octet. So we can see that when we talk about rhyme scheme, we’re not merely talking about a pattern of sounds which fall pleasantly on the ear. We’re talking about an organizing principle which governs not only a sound, a voice, but the workings of the mind behind it.

The Petrarchan sonnet has been widely used in English poetry, not only by Milton but by William Wordsworth, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and in American poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Frost, among others. Perhaps confusingly, however, there is a second famous type of sonnet known as the English sonnet. The English sonnet is also commonly called – after its most famous practitioner – the Shakespearean sonnet.

Like the Petrarchan sonnet, the Shakespearean sonnet is distinguished by its rhyme scheme, which instead of ABBAABBACDECDE goes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, as in this famous poem of Shakespeare’s:

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayest in me behold (a)
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang (b)
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, (a)
bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. (b)
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day (c)
As after sunset fadeth in the west, (d)
Which by and by black night doth take away, (c)
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. (d)
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, (e)
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, (f)
As the death-bed whereon it must expire (e)
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. (f)
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, (g)
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. (g)

Notice again how the pattern of the rhymes corresponds to the structure of the argument. Where the Petrarchan sonnet takes eight lines to establish a problem and a leisurely six to resolve it, the Shakespearean sonnet spends a whole twelve lines on the problem: “You’re going to see me get old, darling and it is so not going to be pretty.” In a fourteen-line poem, then, the last two lines, a rhyming couplet, bear all the burden of coming up with some resolution: “Love me all the more because you’ll lose me all the sooner.”

I'll shortly be posting a selection of sonnets on which you can try out your reading skills. When you read them, I want you to be able to

1. Identify the rhyme scheme.

2. Hear the iambic pentameter (but understand that poets often vary the meter just a little -- all the lines in an iambic pentameter poem won't scan perfectly -- that is, every foot of every line won't be a perfect daDUM, or iamb. Saying that a poem is in iambic pentameter simply means that that's the norm.

3. Be able to say what the plot or story of the poem is, even if it's not a story in the sense of action taking place. It can still be a "story" of a thought process, or an argument, an internal wrestling with something and coming to terms with it, as in the two poems we've looked at.

4. Be sure that you know the meaning of the terms in boldface in this post: sonnet, Petrarchan/Italian sonnet, Shakespearean/English sonnet, iambic pentameter, iamb, etc.

That'll do to be going on with. We'll look more closely at a couple of the sonnets to see what layers of meaning we can discover if we delve into them a bit.

Happy reading, all! (and don't forget the February homework in the previous post!)

February Syllabus

2009-02-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

Trying something different here: I'm going to give you a month's worth of work in a block, to do at your pace. As long as it's in by the end of the month, it's on time.

Here's what we need to accomplish this month:

1. Grammar: Read Elementary Rules of Usage in Elements of Style. Rules to live by in writing.

2. Literature: The Sonnet. I will be posting links to sonnets, as well as a lecture on the sonnet. I'll also post a sonnet-writing exercise for everyone to try.

3. Composition: Ok, this paper. What I want to do is build on the paragraphs you've already written. So this paper will deal with the development of poetry in English from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Renaissance. You've already written a paragraph on one poem representing either the Anglo-Saxon or Middle-English period in poetry. What I would like to see are

1. two more paragraphs, one dealing with either an Anglo-Saxon or a Middle-English poem (depending on what you did last time), and one on the sonnet of your choice (after we've read some).

2. an introductory paragraph (by itself, after you've written the other paragraphs, in which you explain how poetry in English developed from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Renaissance and the emergence of the sonnet form. This can be a longish introduction, and you can do some research if you like (just include a "references" page with the paragraph). Your introduction should end with a thesis sentence in which you assert that the evolution of English verse is demonstrated through exemplary poems of each period (and then name your three poems).

3. Put all this together to make a five-paragraph essay, writing a conclusion to finish it. I'd like to see a rough draft around the 20th, and the final paper by the end of the month. You can post both to the yahoo group -- I've had trouble dealing with attachments in my personal email.

OK, so in February, you have grammar, literature, and composition work to do. I'll be posting the reading in literature shortly. Ask any questions on the yahoo group, especially regarding the sonnets we're reading. I'll be posting some reading-guide stuff to help you.

Happy reading, all!

More Composition Assignment for Next Week

2009-01-16T10:24:00.000-08:00

As I said, one thing we're doing by the middle of next week is coming up with three "talking points" for our paper comparing and contrasting Anglo-Saxon poetry with medieval poetry.

By the end of the week, I would also like everyone to have read this chapter in Strunk and White's Elements of Style. This is a real Bible of good expository writing, and this chapter, on basic elements of composition, is short but full of useful information. We will probably go back and read the previous chapter, which deals with sentence-level issues like punctuation, but I'd like us to be thinking now in terms of paragraphs and how to put them together.

As a writing assignment for the end of next week, and as a pre-writing exercise for our paper, I would like for everyone to choose ONE Anglo-Saxon or medieval poem and discuss it in terms of its subject matter, its use of rhyme and/or meter, and its theme - in other words, describing what is going on in the poem on these three levels.

Composition Assignment(s) and a Look Ahead

2009-01-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

A couple of notes on the composition component of this course:

*we've written one 5-paragraph essay so far, and we're about to embark on another one, this time a compare-and-contrast essay. Broadly, we'll be comparing and contrasting medieval poetry with Anglo-Saxon, and we need to come up with three categories for comparison. Be looking back at your notes and old posts, both on the yahoo group and this blog, and by Tuesday post some suggestions. I'd like us to have a working thesis by next Thursday. I won't ask for a formal outline this time as an assignment, though I will sketch something out for us to work from.

This will not be a long paper -- let's say three pages. It would be good to have a rough draft done by the end of the next week, say around the 30th (that's a Friday), with a final draft due by the next Wednesday. Due dates can be flexible, especially as some people will be going to March for Life next week, but I'd like to ask everyone, with parents' help, to try to stay as on track as possible.

*I think for this semester I'm going to aim for having some kind of written response to whatever you're reading once a week, say on Fridays (though again, I'm happy to be flexible about this). What I would like for everyone to concentrate on, in answering questions that I ask to guide your writing, is to respond in complete sentences, and preferably in complete paragraphs, so that the weekly homework you turn in is more like an informal mini-paper than like dashed-off notes. This way we can maximize the written element of this class, ie the fact that all your communications for it are written, and make regular homework into more of a composition exercise. Some of you of course tend to write longer, more discursive answers already, and that's wonderful. That's what I'd like EVERYONE to be doing, to push yourself really to be having a conversation in writing, rather than just briefly answering questions.

Second, here's a quick overview of what we'll be studying this semester:

Now to mid-February: compare-contrast essay and introduction to the sonnet, the next really important poetic form to come down the literary-tradition pike. We'll also be venturing into Shakespeare, who perfected a particular sonnet form as well as writing all those plays. We'll ALSO try our hand at writing a sonnet.

March: Shakespeare's Macbeth. Get yer kilts on, thanes, and beware of ugly women in groups of three.

April and May: independent study/term paper. We're going to end the year with a research project which will cover English literature in the 17th century, after Shakespeare. I will be posting a list of poets from this era; you will choose one poet to be the subject of your research. We'll still be doing historical background and some reading for class, but this project will be the bulk of your study for English these two months. There will be some kind of class presentation involved, and I'm thinking that the best way to do it will be to post informal write-ups about your poets on this blog. More details to come. The idea is that you will become an expert on a particular writer, and that you'll teach the rest of the group about that writer and introduce us to his work.

So that's where we are and where we're going. I'll also be posting some composition-related reading for you to be looking over for the next few days, as we begin to put our next essay together.

Some Further Notes on Reading a Poem: Meter

2009-01-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

Part the First

In the course of our last assignment, someone raised the question of how, exactly, to read a poem for rhythm, or meter. It's a good question: like rhyme, meter -- in other words, the "beat" of a poem -- is one of the essential things which to our English-speaking ear make a poem a poem and not prose. At the same time, unlike rhyme, which is generally fairly obvious to the naked eye, meter is obvious only to the trained ear.

Or so we think, anyway. Actually, if you've grown up with nursery rhymes and the poems in books like A Child's Garden of Verses, you already have meter lodged in your mind, though you might not ever have thought about it, especially.

Let's take a look -- well, let's take two looks at something which to most of our readers here ought to be as familiar as our own names:

1. A birdie with a yellow bill hopped upon my windowsill, cocked his shining eye and said, "Ain't you shamed, you sleepyhead?"

2. A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon my windowsill,
Cocked his shining eye and said,
"Ain't you shamed, you sleepyhead?"

Looking at both of these passages, which are really the same passage presented two ways, you ought to spot the obvious difference. It's so obvious I'll go ahead and say it: #1 isn't divided into lines, and #2 is. #1 reveals to us that the poem is really just one sentence. #2 demonstrates to us that there's a difference between a sentence and a line in poetry. A sentence, as we all know, is a complete thought; a line, on the other hand, is a unit of rhythm, or a unit of time, like a measure or a bar in music. It may or may not be "punctuated" by rhyme as each line is this poem is. See what I mean? The end of each line isn't the end of a sentence, but it's "punctuated" by a word that rhymes with something else.

But what do I mean that a line is a unit of rhythm, or of time? Those of you who are musicians may be grasping this the fastest, because a poem is as much like a piece of music as it is like anything else. At the beginning of a piece of music, you have a time signature, like 4/4, which tells you how many beats are in each measure, which in turn tells you how to hear the words, if there are words, and how to play the melody -- how long to hold each note, and so on. This is important, because unless you're singing chant, what "moves" the music forward is its rhythm. Gregorian chant is like prose: you basically just "speak" it in song, and its rhythms are the cadences of normal speech. "Smoke on the Water," on the other hand, does not work that way. You don't just sing, "Smoke on the water/A fire in the sky," in the same way that you'd say, "I smell smoke. Could something be on fire?" You sing it in rhythm: "Sm-o-o-oke on the wa-a-ter/A fi-er in the sky-y."

So like a piece of music that isn't Gregorian chant, most poetry has some kind of rhythm. You could dance to it, or at least tap your foot. Try saying the little verse above:

A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon my windowsill,
Cocked his shining eye and said,
"Ain't you shamed, you sleepyhead?"

Say it in as singsongy a way as you possibly can. In fact, you might try singing it, maybe to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel." While you say it or sing it, tap your foot in time to what you're saying or singing. How many times did you tap per line?

Okay, let's all assume that you tapped four times per line. Do it again, and pay attention to which words or syllables are "tap" words or syllables.

Let's all assume that you tapped on bir,with, yel, and bill, in the first line. Why would I assume that? I assume it because those are the stressed syllables, the ones you'd normally emphasize while speaking. You just wouldn't say, "A birDIE WITH A yelLOW bill" -- not very comfortably, anyway, and not without people looking at you as if maybe you needed to get out more.

Try this exercise with the subsequent lines. Hopefully what you'll discover is that you tapped on "hopped," "-pon," "win-," and "sill," in the second line, "cocked," "shi-," "eye," and "said" in the third line, and "ain't," "shamed," "slee-" and "head" in the fourth.

Let's try another Robert Louis Stevenson poem. I'm picking on these because lots of us know them, and they're very clear metrically. I'll just use one stanza for practice's sake, and here it is:

When I was down beside the sea,
A wooden spade they gave to me,
To dig the sandy shore.

Say this aloud, singsonging, and tap your foot again. What do you notice? Are all the lines the same, metrically?

Hopefully you're shaking your head no. The first two lines ought to read like this:

When I was down beside the sea -- tap tap tap tap

A wooden spade they gave to me -- tap tap tap tap

See? Four stressed, boldfaced syllables, the ones you'd naturally stress while speaking; four taps. This is what is known as a tetrameter line: literally, four-meter, or four-foot. A unit of meter (generally a stressed plus an unstressed syllable in some combination) is called a metrical foot. We'll go into greater detail later about different kinds of metrical feet, but you can generally judge how many there are in a line by counting the stressed syllables. So if you're tapping four times while you speak the line aloud in rhythm, you have a tetrameter line.

Now look at the last line:

To dig the sandy shore -- tap tap tap.

Three stressed syllables, three taps: a different meter. The first two lines were tetrameter, while this one is trimeter. So we have a pattern established in this poem, of two tetrameter lines, then a trimeter. You see it borne out in the second stanza of the poem:

My holes were empty like a cup;
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.

So when I'm asking you to read for meter, this is what I'm talking about. In our next unit, on the development of the sonnet, we'll be looking much more closely at meter and what goes on with it in a poem, and how -- like rhythm in music -- it can constitute a kind of sound effect which makes you pay attention to certain words and creates resonances of meaning that would be absent if you were just reading the line "flat," like a sentence in prose. But for now I'd like to concentrate on getting us all simply to hear it at all, because that's the greatest hurdle.

Part the Second

Let's look back specifically at the two poems I gave you to compare last week. One of the points of comparison was that of meter, because I'm interested in how the craft of poetry has developed from its earliest English origins to this later era, in which we've had the influence of French, thanks to our old friend Billy the Conqueror in 1066. A look back at your notes from our Anglo-Saxon unit should remind you that virtually ALL Anglo-Saxon poetry is roughly tetrameter. It just kind of goes "Boom-boom-boom-boom" (or tap tap tap tap). Bards chanted it, accompanied by strums on their harps (strum strum strum strum); in many ways it has a monotonous, though strangely compelling, rhythm.

Compare that with the "beat" of "I Sing of a Maiden:"

I sing of a maiden
That is makelees: (that is matchless)
King of alle kinges
To her sonne she chees. (for her son she chose)

There's a little variation here, but as I read the lines aloud, I'm tapping a regular two-beat rhythm. Sometimes there are a few extra unstressed syllables crowded in, and the line hurries along, but that's essentially the meter, I think. It's a little "dancier" and lighter on its feet than the Anglo-Saxon verse; I can imagine one singer performing the Anglo-Saxon poem, while it's easy to imagine the Middle English verse as -- and indeed it is -- a lyric, or song, or carol, which people might sing together. This is important as a kind of cultural reflection, among other things. We've moved from a sense of Christian isolation -- monks in their beehive cells, a monastic laborer experiencing a strange vision -- to a culture so steeped in and shaped by Christianity that common folk go around singing popular little ditties about the Blessed Virgin Mary, the way we might go around singing what we hear on the radio.

In terms of theme, it's worth noting, as I believe some of you have done in your homework, that Caedmon's poem seems very Anglo-Saxon in imagining God as a king in the typical protector/guardian mold. He's portrayed as a better sort of Hrothgar: He's not just giving away land and treasure, but He's making them for men. Meanwhile, devotion to the Blessed Mother in the Middle Ages is of a piece with the code of courtesy followed by knights -- you know it by the name chivalry -- by which the honorable knight is called to revere a lady's spotless virtue and protect it with his life. To learn more about codes of chivalry and courtly love, go here.

Hopefully all this will shed some light on last week's assignment, and also encourage everyone to listen with your mind's ear when you read a poem. Go back and try the reading-for-meter practice on some of the Middle-English poems we've read. And we'll be back shortly with more assignments for the week.

New Year, New Term, Let's Review: Syllabus for Week 1 of Spring Term

2009-01-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

At our house I like to call this "Epiphany Term;" we never go back to school until after a certain significant family birthday on January 6. Anyway, here we are back again, refreshed and ready to renew our love affair with the English literary tradition.

At the end of last term, we were doing a LOT of reading of medieval literature. You now have under your belt an impressive selection of readings, in fact, covering the genres of poetry, drama, and song -- all of which are pretty much the same thing, more or less, in medieval literature. We've covered a time in which the development of poetry has begun to move away from the strictly oral tradition -- that is, the handing down of legends in poetic form, which made them easier to remember and relay to others -- to written poetry, like that of Chaucer. Of course, the printing press wasn't invented until 1450, which meant that books were still rare, and that literacy wasn't terribly widespread among the general populations of European countries, so that the average person would still have been exposed to poetry as something sung or otherwise performed, and not as something read. The fact that there was no "publishing" as we know it now -- that is to say, no dissemination of identical copies of printed matter -- meant that the transmission of poetry was often more like playing the game "Gossip" than anything else: that's why we have so many different versions of "The Cherry Tree Carol," for example. So in many ways, on a popular level, poetry as an oral tradition was still alive and well.

In homework towards the end of the term, I asked you to consider what changes have taken place from the Anglo-Saxon era to the Middle English, and I'd like to start our semester by revisiting that idea in greater detail. We need to get at what we really mean when we say that "it sounds different," for example. How does it sound different? Specifically what new elements have developed? To help us think about these questions, let's take a look at two passages of poetry, one from the Anglo-Saxon period, one from the Medieval (both in modern English translations, however -- I won't be that mean to you today!).

Here, first, is our old friend Caedmon and his Hymn:

Now we must praise heaven-kingdom's Guardian
The Creator's might and his mind-plans,
The work of the Glory-Father when he of wonders every one,
Eternal Lord, the beginning established.
He first created for men's sons
Heaven as a roof, holy Creator;
Then middle-earth mankind's Guardian,
Eternal Lord, afterwards made --
For men earth, Master almighty.

Ok, here's a Middle English lyric, and I'm going to give it in Middle English, but with translation notes:

I sing of a maiden
That is makelees: (that is matchless)
King of alle kinges
To her sonne she chees. (for her son she chose)

He cam also stille (he came as still)
Ther his moder was (where his mother was)
As dewe in Aprille (as dew in April)
That falleth on the gras. (that falls on the grass)

He cam also stille
To his modres bowr (to his mother's bower)
As dewe in Aprille
That falleth on the flowr.

He cam also stille
There his moder lay (where his mother lay)
As dewe in Aprille
That falleth on the spray (like a spray of flowers, I believe)

Moder and maiden (mother and maiden)
Was nevere noon but she: (there was never none but she)
Wel may swich a lady (well may such a lady)
Goddes moder be (God's mother be).

OK. I want you to look closely at both these poems. I want you to notice that not only do they sound different, but they employ different devices which create those different sounds. By the end of the week, I would like for you to give me a written comparison of these poems in terms of:

* rhyme or non-use of rhyme
* meter or rhythm -- how many stressed syllables in a line
* other sound effects: similar vowel or consonant sounds in a line, for example
* repetition of sounds; other repetitive patterns
* how you would imagine each poem would be performed -- this is kind of tricky, and I'm not even entirely sure what I'm asking. But we've seen some examples of Anglo-Saxon music and Medieval music performed, via videos, and I'm interested in how each poem "sounds" in your mind's ear, whether you can imagine what instruments might accompany it, whether people could dance to it, etc.

* theme: both of these poems are religious in theme, though they deal with different aspects of Christian theology, obviously (Caedmon with creation; the lyric with Mary the Mother of God). What I am wondering is how each poem reflects the important ideas of its culture. How does Caedmon's vision of God and creation correspond to the way the Anglo-Saxons saw the world? Likewise, how does the medieval lyric correspond to, say, ideas related to knightly honor (hint: it's obviously not about a knight, but how were knights encouraged to view ladies?).

So . . . let me know what you think about all this. And welcome back.

The Angel Gabriel [Old Basque]

2008-12-15T07:12:00.001-08:00

This is an English (modern) translation of an old Basque version of "Angelus ad Virginem." The Basque people inhabit the Pyrenee-mountain region between France and Spain.

The Clancy Brothers - When Joseph Was an Old Man

2008-12-15T06:58:00.001-08:00

Here's the Irish-folkie version.

Mary Hopkin Cherry Tree Carol

2008-12-15T06:54:00.001-08:00

Here's a groovacious (but pretty) 1970s-folk version of "The Cherry Tree Carol." I'll try to find a more authentically medieval version, but you can hear the words clearly in this one.

Angelus ad virginem

2008-12-15T06:48:00.001-08:00

Here's one very simple version of "Angelus ad Virginem." This is not hard to learn and sing, once you wrap your lips around the Latin words -- they move kind of fast!

Middle English Christmas

2008-12-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

For the last week of the term, here are some Middle English poems and carols for your enjoyment. When we come back in January we'll be working on another paper, but I think we'll just round out the term with some fun stuff for now.

Here is the Middle English translation of this Latin carol dating from the 13th century. I'll post a couple of videos of choirs and ensembles singing it -- it's beautiful!

Here is the text to "Adam Lay Ybounden," which you've already heard on the video.

Also read this article about "The Cherry Tree Carol." It's a big longish, and you won't understand everything in it (but that's okay; don't let that stop you), but it will give you an idea of how a lot of medieval poetry that we know today evolved out of things like mystery plays and folk usage, so that many different versions of a given story or idea would have sprung up and been continued by people in different places. You don't have to real ALL the versions of the carol, but do get an idea of the story line.

By the end of the week I'd like

1. a summary of each of these carols -- tell me the story
2. an explanation of which one you personally liked best, and why
3. what seems especially "Middle Ages" about each of these
4. in what ways these texts seem different from the religious poetry of the Anglo-Saxons (Caedmon's Hymn, Dream of the Rood)

And for some historical context, here are some links to information about Christmas in the Middle Ages:

A Medieval Christmas

Medieval Christmas Traditions

Tales of Christmas in the Middle Ages

You might find it fun to teach your family about some of these customs and make them part of your Christmas celebrations.

Also, as it turns out, sadly, our family won't be back in town over the Christmas holidays. If you'd still like to present a medieval character, you guys could either do this in your families, or get together for a party over the holidays and come dressed as your favorite medieval figure -- and write us and let us know how it went!

A joyful Advent to all!

Adam Lay Ybounden

2008-12-13T19:40:00.001-08:00

A modern setting of a Middle English carol. Words to follow.

The Tallis Scholars - William Byrd - Vigilate

2008-12-05T21:12:00.001-08:00

More Sir Gawain

2008-12-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

One person has reported having trouble accessing the e-text I posted in this week's syllabus. As an alternative, you might try one of the modern translations at Luminarium. Just try to read the same sections assigned from the other site.

Syllabus for the Week of December 1

2008-12-01T05:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome back from Thanksgiving, all, and gird your loins for the final push till the end of the term. This week we'll turn our attention from medieval drama to another great genre of Middle English verse: the poetry of chivalry, and specifically the retelling of the legends of King Arthur, which had been around for centuries, but which gained great purchase in the Middle Ages, for reasons we'll explore in a later post.

So for this week, let's readSir Gawain and the Green Knight

You'll find the entire work here Read the Historical Prologue, Christmas in Camelot, The Green Knight Arrives, The Green Knight's Challenge, Gawain Takes Up the Challenge, and A Beheading and a Departure.

Have a glance at the first page of this Middle English rendering of the story, edited by none other than J.R.R. Tolkien. You don't have to spend a lot of time over this, but do look at the first three to five lines and compare them with the modern English translation, which has tried to keep some sense of the sound of Middle English poetry.

Here are some questions to consider and write about for the yahoo group by Friday:

1. Briefly retell the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

2. Consider the idea of the hero, which of course we've dealt with many times before. Based on your reading of Sir Gawain, list some attributes of a medieval hero, and point out how he differs from an Anglo-Saxon hero.

3. Describe your mental picture of the world Sir Gawain inhabits: describe what is beautiful about it, and also what you might find not so beautiful in it. Is it a world you would want to inhabit? Why or why not? (if "beautiful" doesn't seem like the right word to you, try "noble," or "admirable," or "desirable.")

4. We have not talked much so far about Middle English poetry as poetry. You've now read selections from The Canterbury Tales and some Middle English drama, which of course was also in verse.

Here's one question to speculate about: why was all "literature" (ie writing that wasn't merely practical, as in legal documents, letters, etc) in verse, do you think?

Here's another consideration: look carefully at the lines in Sir Gawain, and go back and look at the lines in The Canterbury Tales.What do you notice about the sound of them? Try clapping out the rhythm (clap on the stressed syllables). How many "beats" in a line? What other poetic devices do you notice in this poetry? (alliteration, assonance, metaphor, simile, rhyme, etc).

How does Middle English poetry differ from Anglo-Saxon poetry?

Tell me all this by Friday, and we'll be good.

Creation and the Fall of Angels

2008-11-14T11:43:00.001-08:00

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find an un-weird video of a medieval mystery play. I think this must have been somebody's class project. At any rate, you get an idea of the text of the "Creation and Fall of the Angels" play from the York Cycle. They've modernized the language in some places, but on the whole they're pretty faithful to the play. You can also see how much fun this particular play would have been to put on. Trying to remember which lucky guild got to do this one . . .

Mystery Play

2008-11-14T11:23:00.001-08:00

From this video you get some idea of how a medieval mystery play would have been performed. This play is being performed in the streets of York, where one of the great surviving cycles originated.

Syllabus for the Week of November 17

2008-11-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

Over this weekend: Read the Nun's Priest's Tale. For Monday, respond to the following questions:

1. As a character, how does the Nun's Priest compare/contrast with the Pardoner?
2. What's the basic plot of the Nun's Priest's tale?
3. Can you tell at all what kind of poetry/story this tale is meant to be making fun of?
4. Why should people, hearing this story, feel uncomfortable?
5. Compare and contrast this tale with the Pardoner's, considering the following:
-- humor
-- ideas about human folly
-- views on human nature in general (are people good or bad?)
-- the reliability of the person telling the tale, and his fitness (or lack thereof) to be making moral pronouncements

For Tuesday and Wednesday: From our pilgrims to Canterbury we're going to shift gears slightly to look at another aspect of Church-influenced culture in the Middle Ages: the development of drama.

First, read about this overview of medieval drama.

Then read about "cycles" of mystery plays in medieval English towns.

Explore this site, which features the stories of the various plays, plus images from contemporary performances.

Read this adaptation of the Second Shepherd's Play from the Wakefield Cycle of mystery plays. Also have a glance at this site to see what it would have looked/sounded like in Middle English.

Thursday and Friday: read about the morality play Everyman.

Then read the play itself, in a modern translation.

Finish over the weekend if necessary. We'll take Thanksgiving week as a catch-up week, then be back the next week with chivalry, courtly romance, the Arthurian legends, and various Medieval lyrics and carols, to take us into Advent and Christmas.

Off-Topic: A Good Blog to Visit

2008-11-10T04:32:00.001-08:00

My online friend Macbeth Derham has a homeschooling blog which you might find interesting: her teenagers are up to lots of cool stuff, including fencing and being in Shakespeare plays, sometimes in their front yard. Her "Required Online Reading For My Teenagers" feature, in a dark-blue block in the righthand sidebar, would make good required online reading for anybody's teenagers.

Visit her world

Ave Maria

2008-11-09T20:04:00.001-08:00

Josquin was the acknowledged master of early medieval polyphony -- voices/melodies interweaving and crisscrossing, rather than singing in unison. This glorious sound is your musical heritage.

Capriol - medieval music in Utrecht church

2008-11-09T20:00:00.001-08:00

Sorry, can't get enough.

medieval music #3:

2008-11-09T19:56:00.001-08:00

more lovely medieval music.

Medieval Music - Harp

2008-11-09T19:51:00.001-08:00

Grammar Spice Translates Chaucer

2008-11-09T19:35:00.001-08:00

The Canterbury Tales Prologue in Middle English

2008-11-09T19:25:00.001-08:00

Syllabus for Nov. 10-14

2008-11-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

Monday and Tuesday: Here are some useful links you should read, on Middle English, the Middle Ages, and other good stuff related to Chaucer:

A rollicking guide to Middle English pronunciation. Don't squint over this too much, or worry about understanding every word he says -- just go with it. And looking at a passage from Chaucer, like the first section of the Prologue, for instance, try to pronounce a few lines according to his directions.

A not-bad little summary of the Prologue, with some reflections on the paradoxical -- that is to say, the contradictory -- natures of many of the characters.

Food and drink in medieval England

Tour Canterbury Cathedral

Another great medieval (and modern-day) English pilgrimage site: The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

No written assignment Monday or Tuesday. I'm still looking for an audio clip of the first section of the Prologue -- from "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote" to "That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke" -- so why don't we put off reciting it for another week?

For the end of the week: read The Pardoner's Tale and post a summary on the yahoo group. (hint: don't put this off until the last minute. It's not short).

Some Pilgrims Introduced

2008-11-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

Last week I assigned my class each a pilgrim or two to introduce to everyone else. I had also assigned a couple of students who only got one pilgrim to fill us in on the general plot. Here are some of these responses:

My mom pointed out to me that my homework was pitiful and I'm inclined
to agree with her so here is my new and improved homework.

First of all a prologue is a preliminary discourse; a preface or
introductory part of a discourse, poem, or novel. The first part of
prologue to the Canterbury tales is based on a road in England. A
knight is traveling along the road and he is soon joined by a monk who
was going on a pilgrimage. As they travel along, they meet other
people from different walks of life, ranging from a friar to a
summoner. They are all going to Canterbury for different reasons. This
prologue introduces the many characters and their personalities. The
second part of the prologue shows all the travelers in an Inn where
the narrator explains how they all met. Then the next day they all
depart for Canterbury.

(Tell your mom your homework is not pitiful. But thank her for being vigilant.)

So First the Narrator was in Southwark, at Tabard, and he was going
on a pilgrimage to Canterbury to see the grave of Thomas a Becket,
who was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and martyred in 1170.
Now while he was in an inn (probably on his way to Canterbury) he
ends up joining a large group of diverse people who also were going
on a pilgrimage to the same place as he. As Narrator of the prologue
and the whole book he his telling the reader(s) about each and every
person in this assorted group of people. Meaning who they were and
what their degrees were. The order in which he divulges each person
begins with, the Knight, then the Squire, a Yeoman, a Nun or
Prioress, another nun, a Monk, a Friar, a Merchant, Oxford Cleric, a
Sergeant of the Law, a Franklin or landowner, a Haberdasher, a dyer,
a carpenter, a weaver, a carpet-maker, a cook, a doctor, the wife of
Bath, a Parson, a plowmen, a Miller, a Manciple, Reeve, a Summoner,
and finally a Pardoner. He is very observant the whole time and while
reviling these people's personalities he is not being judgmental but
only saying the truth and using the kindest of words. He the
continues to inform the reader(s) of how they acted and behaved in
the inn that evening before setting off together for Canterbury. Now
the Narrator shows that he in a very courteous and truthful man in
all his deeds as he explains his reasons for saying the things he has
and will say. He then proceeds to describe the Host at the Inn and
how he proposes a game to play on their journey. This game is that
each person tells "two stories on the outward trip to Canterbury"
(lines 779-780) and then two more stories on their way back. The
object of the game was to tell the best story and who ever did would
get a free dinner paid by his or her fellow companions. The Host also
volunteers to go along with them to be judge of the stories and to
declare a winner. So they all agree to this and the fallowing day
they set off to Canterbury and draw straws (or something related to
them) to see who will go first.

The Manciple came from the Inner Temple. He was very cautious, and
careful when it came to buying food supplies and was also very
learned in this art. He new the market so well that it didn't matter
if he paid cash or not because he would never end up in a bad spot
plus he was very smart with his money. He wasn't very learned but was
very smart in his trade and beat out any man who might compete with
him.

Ok, I had looked through the entire thing and couldn't find the squire so I looked again and found him on the 79th line. It just says that he had been following the knight so ummm there you go.

The lawyer is really greedy and he's obsessed with money and he makes fun of others who don't have as much as he does and he really doesn't share anything with anyone. So lawyers really haven't changed much over time...

Merchant:

Okay I think the merchant doesn't like his wife and I think that he loves some other woman. He's only been married to her for two months and he says she's evil and horrid but it didn't say much about him and his character...

The Knight: In the Prologue, it talked about how the Knight was a
wise and worthy man who won many battles and travled many places. He
never gloated about how he was, and was looked upon as a great man.
But even though he was a great warrior, wealthy, wise, ect ect.. He
was still not happy. He also had a son.

The Knights Tale can be found, starting at line 42 and ending at 79.

The Shipman: Hes called the Sailor in the Prologue. He wasnt the bst
dressed man, nor was he the wealthiest, though he was considered a
good fellow. He was a great/good sailor, for his ship had nearly
sailed in all the waters near-by.

here are all the characters.
1. There is a poor man on his way to Canterbury.
2. There is a knight seeking glory.
3. There is a Ranger just wandering.
4. There is a maiden looking for love.
5. There is a monk who wants to spread the faith and serv the church.
6. There is a fat lord who seeks knowledge??????????
7. There is a Champion who is incredibly strong.
8. There is a Bard who love to play the harp.
9. There is a very intelligent merchant who is also rich.
10. There is a Clerk who reads philosphody.
11. There is a squire who is the son of the knight
12. There is a man of law he is wise and old.
13. There is a Miller who seems content to fallow the narrator.
14. There is the narritator he is #1
15. There is The Prioress a lead nun who is modest and dosen't talk
much.
16. Manciple os one of the group.
17. the ship man is also part of the group who sometimes steals from
the captain.
18. The phiscian the best of his class.
19. The host is the learder of the group.
20.the plough man he is a farmer and a good man.
21. The reeve who does well in his job but steals from his master.
22.the nun's priest who is a little to fond of himself and is
convinced that he has holy relics.
23. The servant of the knight who is strong and loyal.
24.The cook for the (25.) Guildmen who is witty.
25. The second nun of whom little is known.

I must tell thee that I, Though I tried to do it without help, needed
help to resolve who was who, and I was dimayed to find I had missed
all but 11 out of 24... some of the listed were listed twice for my
first assumption was wrong and I soory that to say that even after I
received help i could not even find those who I knew were there.
Although I was able to find some people without help I hope you
accept my humble apologies.

The second nun was roman born and meek of heart and I would say that
she is loyal to God and is very kind.

The summoner was a man much like a constable of today. He was the one
that notifies people that they need to report to the king.

O.K. I was supposed to present the Pardoner. For anyone who doesn't
know, a pardoner was someone who could give you absolution for your
sins in return for a monetary offering to the Church--and sometimes
to them personally. But in reality, pretty much all pardoners just
wanted money and the one in the Canterbury Tales is no different. He
was more than likely a conman trying to earn some money and is scolded
when he tries to get the host to kiss some of his "relics" which, to
no one's surprise, are fake. His tale is that of three men who kill
eachother over money after living a life of sin. This is no doubt a
subtle advertisement for the Pardoner's services.

I was also supposed to present the Guildsmen, but from what I've read,
they don't tell a tale and are represented as one unit.

Week 9: Into the Middle Ages

2008-10-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

We're entering a new era in English literature. In fact, we're entering a new era in English history, too, via a moment when one culture with which we've become familiar over the past few weeks was suddenly and literally superseded by another, which altered the English language, and the literature it generated, forever.

But first, let's backtrack just a little. Here's quick overview of cultural and linguistic changes in England from prehistoric times up to the moment we want to enter now:

Before A.D. 43: Celtic Britain

People: Britons (a blanket term given to the peoples discovered living in Britain, or Britannia, at the time of the Roman conquest) of various tribes living in fortified villages/"hill forts." Tribes frequently at war with each other.

Language: various Celtic dialects. The only Celtic languages surviving today in Britain are Welsh and Scots (in Ireland, Irish Gaelic; Brittany, in France, also maintains a Celtic identity).

Religion: pagan/druid, with great feasts which roughly corresponded with, and some of whose practices were eventually Christianized into, All Saints, Christmas/Yule, Easter, and Pentecost.

Literature: no written language or literature than we know of, though if you want to know some Celtic myths, go here and scroll down to Irish and Welsh myths, which are about the only stories which have survived from ancient Celtic culture.

43 A.D: The Romans

People: In 55 B.C., Julius Caesar came for a look-see at Britain, but didn't stay. In 43 A.D. the emperor Claudius ordered a full-scale invasion, and this time the Romans stayed. The Celtic tribes were no match for the kind of organized assaults mounted by the precision-trained Roman legions, though there were a number of bloody uprisings, most notably that of the tribe of the Iceni, under their queen, Boudicca (or Boudicea, or various other spellings), and the Romans never did succeed in conquering Scotland. Instead, under the emperor Hadrian, they built a wall across the whole north of Britain and settled along it in fortress towns, and south of it in regular old civilized towns, as if they were going to stay there forever.

Indeed, they did stay long enough to intermarry extensively with the Britons, and for many Britons to adopt Roman customs and integrate into the Roman frontier society which existed in Britain. It's speculated that a number of the grand Roman villas which have been discovered in Britain belonged not to Romans who had migrated to Britain to rule it, but to Romanized native Britons who had risen to positions of wealth and power.

Religion: The Romans brought their pantheon of classical deities with them to Britain, but as was customary, they also incorporated local gods and goddesses into their religious practices. Thus, at the city we now know as Bath, the "patron goddess" was Minerva Sulis: Minerva, the Roman goddess of war, mingled with the local Celtic goddess Sulis. In fact, in that day the town was known as Aquae Sulis. Also, as Christianity became more widespread, it also spread into Britain, brought by Christian Romans who settled there.

Language: The Romans brought Latin with them, of course, and many place names, including London (Londinium), reflect their influence. Latin would have been the language of the educated and literate, the language of official business and trade, the language of authority. Anything written down in this period would have been in Latin, and much of what we know about this stage in English history comes from Latin inscriptions, epitaphs, etc.

AD 383: The Legions Begin to Leave

The Romans did not overtake Britain in a day, any more than Rome itself was built in a day; and they did not abandon it overnight, either. As the Empire on the continent struggled with invasions by Germanic tribes, gradually more and more divisions of the Roman army in Britain were called back to the Continent. The first divisions left in A.D. 383; the last troops left in A.D. 436. At the same time, as we've seen before, Britain was having its own problems with Germanic invaders, namely the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. So while Roman culture didn't leave England with the legions, it was increasingly beset by these very persuasive seafaring warriors. First they came to plunder; increasingly they came to stay. Roman culture, with nothing to defend or uphold it, gradually faded into the Germanic pagan culture of the new arrivals until, by the time Pope St. Gregory the Great saw the English boys in the slave market in Rome, in the 6th century, there was virtually nothing left of it.

5th-11th centuries: Anglo-Saxon England

We know a lot about this already, of course, but here are some dates:

429: Picts and Scots, who had been invading southern England as the Romans pulled out, driven back up north into Scotland by Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

457: Battle of Crayford, in which the Saxons, under Hengest, defeat Britons, and abandon Kent, in southeast England, to the Jutes

477: founding of the kingdom of Sussex, or South Saxons

495: founding of the kingdom of Wessex

500: British victory over Saxons at Mt. Badon, Dorset (in southern England)

Legend has it, by the way, that a band of united Celtic Britons under a king named Arthur resisted the Saxon incursions into Britain until Arthur's death in the Battle of Camlan in 537.

(though most of Britain would not be Christianized for another hundred years, in 563 St. Columba established himself on the Isle of Iona in western Scotland and began Christianizing the Picts.)

From this time on, southern and eastern England was made up of small independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which frequently warred with each other. Each kingdom had its own dialect, but the languages were all related, and we now lump them all together under the terms "Old English" or "Anglo-Saxon." In truth there wasn't one single language by that name, just a family of dialects.

597: sent by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, St. Augustine of Canterbury arrives in Thanet, in Kent, baptizes King Ethelbert of Kent (married to a Christian princess from France, as it happens) and founds a Benedictine monastery in Canterbury, thus brining Christianity, ecclesiastical Latin, and monastic culture to England.

Throughout the 600s: Anglo-Saxon kingdoms Christianized; churches and monasteries built; Celtic Christians begin to affiliate with Rome

664: Synod of Whitby: northern England/Yorkshire adopts Roman Catholicism (had been Celtic Christians); founding of St. Peter's, York, a boys' school (you can see now how quickly that Beowulf world was disappearing)

672: birth of Venerable Bede

686: Sussex, last pagan kingdom in England, converted to Christianity

700: Psalms translated into Anglo-Saxon; transcription and illumination of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

766: York a great center of learning under St. Alcuin

787: First Danish invasion of Britain (repeat of Saxon invasions hundreds of years earlier, only this time there are monasteries, which make for rich, ripe targets, and many manuscripts and other treasures perish in these attacks)

late 700s: various Anglo-Saxon kings conquer and merge kingdoms; Britain not united, but kingdoms are becoming fewer and larger; less fragmentation and internal warfare. so that culture can flourish more.

834: more Danish raids (during the first half of the 800s, they're also sacking places in Germany and elsewhere on the continent)

866: The Danes establish a kingdom in York

As the Vikings encroach more and more on Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and culture, their language encroaches as well, and there are place-names which reflect the influence of Viking settlement: visit this site to learn more. However, as with religion, it appears that the culture the Vikings invaded ultimately influenced them more than they influenced that culture. They were far more Saxonized and Christianized than the Anglo-Saxons were Vikingized or re-paganized.

871-899: Alfred the Great, king of a united England (though he gives East Anglia to the Danes) -- champion of learning (establishes a school at Winchester), establisher of a militia and navy, instituter of fairs and markets, all-around Great King.

899-924: Edward the Elder king of England

925-940: Athelstan king of England (kings of Wales, Strathclyde in modern-day Scotland, Picts and Scots all submit to him)

940-946: Athelstan's brother Edmund I king of England

941: Danes make war on Edmund

946-955: Edmund's brother Edred king of England

955-959: Edwy, son of Edred, king of England

959-975: Edgar the Peaceful king of England

975-979: St. Edward the Martyr king of England

979: St. Edward murdered at Corfe Castle; Ethelred the Unready crowned king

988: more Viking raids

991: Battle of Maldon; Danes defeat Byrhtnoth of Essex

992: Treaty between Ethelred and the Normans (duchy in southern France; Normandy becomes famous in 1066 and again in 1945, with the D-Day invasions) "Norman" is French shorthand for "North-man" -- the Normans were descended from Vikings themselves, and Ethelred's wars with the Danes in his own land caused some friction with the Norman court, which was close enough to England to be a threat . . . as indeed it later became. This treaty staved off any open hostility for the time being.

993: Vikings ravage Yorkshire

1007: Ethelred, still Unready, pays the Danes 30,000 pounds not to attack for two years.

1011: Danes take Canterbury

1012: Ethelred pays them 48,000 more pounds

1013: Danes rule England; Ethelred evacuates to Normandy

1016: Ethelred dies; the Danish Canute, who has been busy taking over places like Wessex, formally ascends the English throne and goes on to battle the Swedes, thrash the Norwegians, divide England into four earldoms, and go on pilgrimage to Rome. What a guy.

1035: Canute dies and is succeeded by his three sons, who divide England between them: Harold, who gets England; Hardicanute, who gets Denmark, and Sweyn, who gets Norway.

1040: Harold dies, is succeeded by his brother Hardicanute.
(incidentally, in the same year, King Duncan of Scotland is murdered by one of his thanes, Macbeth, who then becomes king. This will be of interest to an obscure little scribbler of the Tudor era).

1042: Hardicanute dies and is succeeded by the son of Ethelred, Edward the Confessor. After a run of Danes, we're back to a sure-enough Anglo-Saxon king.

1066: Edward the Confessor dies. His successor is Harold, Earl of Wessex, who with his brother Tostig has been kicking the Welsh around.

Now, this succession thing is not straightforward at all. Edward the Confessor lived a life of continence, as they say, with his queen, Edith, and left no heir. To read how this situation played out, go here.

To make a long story short, Harold winds up with the crown, but not for long. The Normans, under Duke William of Normandy, invade and defeat the English at the Battle of Hastings. Harold gets an arrow through the eye, and William takes the crown.

Now, the Normans are FRENCH. They speak FRENCH. They act FRENCH. And they are in CHARGE. Anglo-Saxon culture, which has flourished for 500 years in England, becomes the culture of a defeated underclass. Anglo-Saxon becomes the underclass language. Just as Latin, in the time of the Romans, was the language of learning, wealth, authority and power, so French became that language in England. Unlike the Celtic dialects, Anglo-Saxon was a tenacious-enough language, born of a coherent-enough culture, that many of its words survive in the English we speak today. But the arrival of the Normans instigated a linguistic revolution, and the eventual result was a whole new English: Middle English.

(for an outline detailing the evolution of Middle English -- and this took a couple of centuries -- visit this site.)

Week -- Is This Week 8?

2008-10-22T03:51:00.000-07:00

We've been turning in Beowulf essays this week, and I thought that possibly everyone could use a bit of a breather to catch up in other subjects. We're ready to enter the next era in English language and literature -- the Middle Ages, and poetry in Middle English -- but let's save that for Monday, when I'll be posting a handy historical timeline, and we'll be looking at a major military event whose effects on all aspects of English culture were profound and enduring.

Literature we'll be dealing with in this period includes the following (I'm not linking to the e-texts in this post; I'll provide links as I assign the reading):

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400): the Prologue (which we will memorize) and selections from the Canterbury Tales.

the Arthurian legends, whose roots are in Celtic culture at the time of the Roman Empire's collapse and the Saxon invasions, but which really gained purchase in the Middle Ages, serving a new and maybe improved heroic ideal. Specifically we'll be reading selections from Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1160), in whose History of the Kings of Britain Arthur first appears, and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, the most famous medieval retelling of the legend.

Medieval mystery plays (those of you who did drama with me at First Friday two years ago might remember mystery plays!)

Various Middle English lyrics

We'll be leaping into all that next week, and it will carry us through to Christmas, which is appropriate: some of our loveliest carols date from the Middle Ages, so we'll end with those. Maybe while our family's back in town over the holidays we can get together and have a medieval Yule feast with some caroling.

From Outline to Draft

2008-10-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

Now that you've made an outline for your paper, to act as a road map for what you're going to write, it's time to get busy actually writing. Here are some things to consider when putting flesh on the bones of your essay.

Think first and foremost about your reader. Who is your reader? Well, me (duh). But in order to write an effective paper, you need to pretend that you're writing for someone other than me: someone who's bright and literate, but has never read the work you're writing about and knows nothing about its context. You have to supply information in order for this person to understand what you're talking about.

So here you're writing about the heroic ideal in Beowulf. For what you have to say to make any sense to a reader, you need to supply some crucial background information, preferably in your introductory paragraph. You cannot assume that a reader will remember who the Anglo-Saxons are, what Beowulf is, etc; it's up to you to refresh the reader's memory at the outset, so he or she will be with you the rest of the way. Therefore you'll need to think of your introductory paragraph as containing maybe seven sentences (ending with your thesis sentence) which provide all information necessary to equip your reader to understand everything else you're going to say.

Think also of your body paragraphs -- which now exist as points II, III, and IV on your outline -- as containing from seven to ten sentences of varying lengths and constructions (ie, not all subject-verb), which develop what you've already written in your outline. The topic sentence for each point, which you already have in your outline, should begin each of these paragraphs. You may include direct quotations from the poem in the body of your paper. Each of your three points should be composed of ONE paragraph only -- remember that you're going to end up with FIVE paragraphs total, no more and no less.

Your conclusion may be a shorter paragraph of maybe three to five sentences which essentially sums up what you said throughout the paper and ends with the sentence I gave you for your outline.

This is a rough draft, so we will not worry about punctuation and surface grammar issues too much this time around. There are, however, some rules for academic writing, especially writing about literature, which you will need to begin to make a habit of observing:

* It's a convention of academic writing to write about literature in the present tense. Beowulf does things: he crosses the sea; he fights Grendel; he confronts the dragon in old age. Every time you open the book, he's doing it all over again, in the eternal present, so you write that it all happens, not that it happened.

* It's also a convention of formal academic writing to avoid using first or second person pronouns. Do not address a "you" in the paper, as in "as you can see." If you find yourself writing that phrase or anything like it, stop at once, or else delete it before anyone sees you. Ditto "I." I'm sorry, but in academic writing, you as a writer do not exist. You certainly do not say, "I think," or "I felt that," or "in my opinion," or anything else which would allow you as a personality to intrude on the action. Think of yourself as a scholarly kind of ghost standing by to tell us all about heroism in Beowulf.

Got that? No I, no you.

*Avoid colloquialisms (look it up). Say "mother" instead of "mom," "father" instead of "dad," "warrior" instead of "sword-dude," etc.

*You will also want to be sure that you double-space your paper, even your draft. It's just much easier to read that way. Put your name and the date at the top right-hand corner of the first page, and include a title, like "The Heroic Ideal in Beowulf, centered two spaces below your name and the date, and two spaces above the start of your text.

*No fancy fonts or special effects. Just plain type. Period. I am not impressed by three-dimensional letters or transliterations into Japanese. Keep it simple.

I'll follow this up with more details about writing a final draft, but this will do for now. Please submit drafts to me via private email (click on "email" under my name anywhere on the yahoo group, and that should do it), as attachments.

Thesis Sentence and Outline for a 5-Paragraph Essay on the Heroic Ideal in Beowulf

2008-10-10T03:58:00.000-07:00

For the last day or so on our class yahoo group, we've been discussing categories of heroism, specifically Anglo-Saxon heroism (as opposed to what we might consider heroic now), as demonstrated in Beowulf. Our aim has been to choose three about which we would have enough to say to produce a substantial essay on the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal.

After all this pre-writing -- for us, this has meant brainstorming about manifestations of heroism and finding specific passages in the poem which suggest things like fighting prowess, courage, and so forth -- the first step towards actually producing said essay is to write a thesis sentence. This one sentence, which will be the last sentence of the introductory paragraph, is the guiding principle for the entire essay. It lays out the overall theme you're dealing with -- in our case the heroic ideal -- the work you're dealing with (Beowulf), and three points concerning the work's demonstration of that theme.

So -- and I'm really just boiling down everyone's thesis sentence from the group, but I'm also establishing in what order we're all going to be dealing with these heroic attributes -- here is the thesis sentence we're all going to be working with:

Beowulf manifests the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of fighting prowess, generosity, and courage.

Note that I put Beowulf in italics. This denotes the title of a book or larger work of literature: a novel, a collection of stories or poems, a play, an epic, book-length poem. We've been brainstorming about Beowulf as a character, but for our purposes it might be useful, and give us more to say, to open out our scope just a little to encompass the poem as a whole, and all its characters. Then, for example, when we want to talk about the good chief as a generous ring-giver, we can also talk about Hrothgar. What we want to do with each of our heroic-attribute paragraphs, is point to Beowulf, the protagonist/main character/hero, as the ultimate flowering of Anglo-Saxon heroism.

Everybody with me? Good.

Also note that I'm not formatting my sentence with numbers, or bullet points, or anything like that. We're writing an essay, not a power-point presentation; besides, used properly, the good old English language can organize itself without outside help.

Once we have our thesis, we can proceed to map out our essay by means of an outline. Remember that we're writing an essay composed of an introduction ending in a thesis sentence, three body paragraphs developing the three points in our thesis sentence, and a conclusion. Now, in real life, people follow all kinds of processes for essay-writing, and there are infinite ways to outline a paper. Many people actually write a draft, THEN look at it in its messy form and write an outline rearranging what they've already written, then rewrite. Believe me when I say that I KNOW that outlining formally and at this stage in the process does not come naturally to everyone. Nevertheless, for the sake of exercise, we're going to pretend that it does.

We compose our outline using a system of Roman numerals (I, II, III, etc), capital letters (A,B,C), Arabic numerals (1,2,3), and, if needed, lower-case letters (a,b,c). This system enables us to establish broad categories and then develop them with subordinating ideas -- that is, ideas that fall under a given broad category. You can even put sub-subordinating ideas and sub-sub-subordinating ideas under the subordinating ideas. This gives you a way to create a road map of the paper you're going to write, so that when you go to write it, you don't get lost in the midst of it. From Point A to Point B to Paragraph V, you know where you're going, and what goes where.

You begin with a Roman numeral I. This Roman numeral I stands for your introductory paragraph, which you obviously haven't written yet. You will be writing it later, but for now it's enough to let your thesis sentence stand in for everything else:

I. Beowulf manifests the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of fighting prowess, generosity, and courage.

Now, to map the body of the essay, you simply follow the three points in your thesis sentence, IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR IN THAT SENTENCE. So your Roman numerals II, III, and IV will re-echo the thesis. For each Roman numeral, you want to write a topic sentence, like a little thesis for that paragraph, which restates the thesis in terms of the point that paragraph is going to deal with. Here's how they'll look:

II. First of all, Beowulf demonstrates the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of fighting prowess.

III. The poem also elucidates (great word which means "brings to light") the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of generosity.

IV. Finally, Beowulf reveals the Anglo-Saxon vision of heroic courage.

Note how I've varied the language a little from topic sentence to topic sentence, choosing different verbs, varying my word choice for the subject, and not always using the phrase "heroic ideal," which is going to get done to death in this essay as it is. I've also chosen some transitional words and phrases -- "first of all," "also," "finally" -- to help my readers stay oriented in my essay.

For your essay, incidentally, I'd like you to use, verbatim, my thesis and topic sentences. Think of these as both mile markers on your journey, and also as tone-setters -- you want to sound, throughout, like the kind of person who uses words like "manifests" and "elucidates" comfortably in conversation. In fact, that's a good way to think of the tone you're striving for: not stuffy or super-wordy, just comfortably authoritative. I realize that that's easy for me to say, since I've spent roughly 25 years being comfortably authoritative (or at least pretending to be), and you're 14, or 15, or 16, or 17 years old, and you haven't been working on it all that long. Got to start somewhere, that's what I say.

At this stage, we have the larger framework of our essay worked out. We know our thesis sentence, we have three topic sentences for our three body paragraphs, and we know we've got to have a conclusion, which will sound something like this:

Beowulf, therefore, is the ultimate poetic manifestation of Anglo-Saxon heroism.

Yeah, that'll do us for now. Just as our thesis sentence is the last sentence in our introductory paragraph, so we'll think of this sentence as the final sentence of our conclusion, and thus of our whole paper.

So far our outline looks like this:

I. Beowulf manifests the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of fighting prowess, generosity, and courage.

II. First of all, Beowulf demonstrates the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of fighting prowess.

III. The poem also elucidates the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of generosity.

IV. Finally, Beowulf reveals the Anglo-Saxon vision of heroic courage.

V. Beowulf, therefore, is the ultimate poetic manifestation of Anglo-Saxon heroism.

Notice that we have a sentence outline: all our points are stated in complete sentences, which is a HUGE help when we go to write the actual essay. Not only is the work of organizing done, we've already even cast a lot of our ideas into usable words which we can transfer right into the essay. The great temptation, of course, is to write the whole essay in the outline, and we don't quite do that. There will be plenty of transitional sentences and "developing/fill-in-the-blanks" kinds of sentences that we won't have room for in the outline, but our aim is to create a fully-articulated skeleton -- not just a bunch of random dry bones -- which we can later clothe with flesh and give breath to (go read Ezekiel if this metaphor grosses you out).

So we've gotten a good start on our skeleton -- but are we finished? You already know the answer. No, we are not. And I'm through doing the writing for you, too. You have thesis and topic sentences to get you started; what I'm going to do now is give you the rest of the outline format and tell you what goes in the blanks. It will be your job to write the sentences to fill those blanks in.

I. Beowulf manifests the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of fighting prowess, generosity, and courage.

II. First of all, Beowulf demonstrates the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of fighting prowess.

A. Write a sentence about how fighting prowess is generally valued in the world of the poem.
1. Write a sentence stating in your own words one example of fighting prowess demonstrated by someone other than Beowulf.
2. Write another sentences stating in your own words another example of fighting prowess demonstrated by someone other than Beowulf.

B. Write a sentence about how Beowulf, specifically, demonstrates fighting prowess.
1. Write a sentence stating in your own words an example of Beowulf's fighting prowess.
2. Write another sentence stating in your own words another example of Beowulf's fighting prowess.

III. The poem also elucidates the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal of generosity.

A. Write a sentence in your own words dealing generally with the value of generosity (especially treasure-owning and "ring-giving") in a leader, as this value pervades the world of the poem.
1. Write a sentence stating in your own words some evidence that in the poem's world, a leader is valued for his generosity.
2. Write another sentence stating in your own words some more evidence that in the poem's world, a leader is valued for his generosity.

B. Write a sentence which asserts that Beowulf, the protagonist, also fulfills this part of the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal.
1. Write a sentence which gives, in your own words, a specific example of Beowulf's generosity.
2. Write another sentence which gives, in your own words, a second specific example of Beowulf's generosity.

IV. Finally, Beowulf reveals the Anglo-Saxon vision of heroic courage.

A. Write a sentence which defines "courage" as it's understood in the world of the poem; this should include some mention of Wyrd and the value of making the most of facing one's fate.
1. Write a sentence which describes in your own words some evidence, not dealing with Beowulf specifically, that this form of courage is valued in the world of the poem.
2. Write a sentence which describes in your own words some more evidence, not dealing with Beowulf specifically, that this form of courage is valued in the world of the poem.

B. Write a sentence asserting that Beowulf is the ultimate example of the Anglo-Saxon understanding of courage.
1. Write one sentence giving an example, in your own words, of Beowulf's courage from early in the poem.
2. Write one sentence giving an example, in your own words, of Beowulf's courage from the middle of the poem.
3. Write one sentence giving an example, in your own words, of Beowulf's courage from late in the poem.

V. Beowulf, therefore, is the ultimate poetic manifestation of Anglo-Saxon heroism.

OK, so there's our basic outline. For now I've dispensed with little a's and b's and sub-sub-categories; I think it's enough to work things out to this point. Clearly when it's time to write a draft of the paper, you will fill in lots of blanks -- you can follow up examples in your own words with quotations from the poem, for example. Right now I want to concentrate on having you render examples from the text into your own words, ie paraphrasing them.

As you can see, outlining is a useful skill. You could take the outline we've just written and use it as the basis for a very well-organized oral presentation -- in fact, from now on, when we do presentations, I'm going to require an outline. This is, in fact, like a power-point version of the argument you're soon going to render into essay form. The final written essay will be like the presentation you would actually give -- with more to say than appears in the outline, just as what you say in a presentation is more than the notes you've scribbled down to remind yourself what to say.

So get to work making your outline, and we'll convene again on Monday to discuss what happens next.

Weeks 6&7: The 5-Paragraph Essay

2008-10-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

All righty. It's the compositional plunge you've all been waiting for. So far this term we've done some sentence-writing, some riddle-writing, some lines-of-poetry writing, and a lot of conversational-type writing as we've renarrated (ie, told in our own words what we know about) things like "The Dream of the Rood" and Beowulf. But now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to get serious.

Some of you, of course, have gotten serious this way before. Can we talk about 10-page research papers? So this will be by way of review for you. For others, it will be new territory, and we'll walk through the process step by step, slowly, in detail. Because -- and bear with me; I'm about to write a sentence fragment for rhetorical effect -- because once you learn how to write a 5-paragraph essay, you can do pretty much anything that college could possibly throw at you, except maybe math.

What is a 5-paragraph essay? Well, it's an essay. And it has five paragraphs.

Next question?

I guess I could be nice and tell you what those five paragraphs entail. The structure of a five-paragraph essay goes like this:

I. An introductory paragraph, which ends in a thesis sentence. More about that later.

II-IV. Three body paragraphs which develop the ideas introduced in your thesis sentence. More about that later, too.

V. A conclusion which more or less restates the thesis, though not in the same words. As you may have guessed, I'll have more to say about that later as well.

What we are aiming for in this assignment is an essay of probably about three pages long, which conforms to this structure. Easy for me to say, right? But you may be wondering how to get there from here. Not to worry: didn't I say we would take it slowly?

Here's how slowly we'll take it --

Monday: look back at Beowulf and think about the Anglo-Saxon hero. Think of as many Anglo-Saxon heroic attributes as you can, and post them to the group. By the end of the day we'll have chosen three that we're going to work with as a class. Not that you couldn't write about others, but this time around, we're all going to focus on the same ones.

Tuesday: look back at Beowulf again, and note places in the poem where the heroic attributes we're talking about are particularly revealed. On the discussion group, post a kind of chart or rough outline which looks like this:

Heroic Attribute #1 (name whatever it is)
*quotation or paraphrase from the poem showing this attribute.
*another quotation or paraphrase from the poem showing this attribute
*a third quotation or paraphrase from the poem showing this attribute

Do this for all three attributes that we've chosen, and post this to the group.

Wednesday: no new homework, but continue to think about the heroic ideal in Beowulf

Thursday: Write a thesis sentence which follows the following format:
Beowulf manifests (or exemplifies or demonstrates or embodies) the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal through (attribute #1), (attribute #2), and (attribute #3).

Arrange your list of heroic attributes so that you begin with the one about which you have the least to say, and end with the one about which you have the most to say.

Friday: I'll post a sample outline for you to imitate, and on Friday and over the weekend, I want you to write an outline for the paper you're going to write. Don't worry if this sounds unclear now. It will make more sense when you're actually looking at the outline, and you have both your notes from the week and your thesis sentence before you.

Monday: Post your outline to the group

Tuesday: Begin writing a rough draft of your paper

Wednesday: Keep writing your rough draft

Thursday: Email your rough draft to me via my private email (you can access this on the yahoo group -- just click "email" under my name)

Friday: I'll send your drafts back with comments. If you have questions, ask them on the group -- chances are, other people will have the same questions and will be helped by a general discussion of issues that arise. Once you get your draft back, your homework is to write a second, final draft which will be due on Monday by the end of the day.

This Week's Syllabus is Coming . . .

2008-10-05T15:46:00.001-07:00

but whoa, check out what we did this weekend!

Week 5: Grammar

2008-09-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

This week we're going to be dealing further with sentence issues. The first week of classes I had everyone take a couple of online grammar quizzes, which I think were probably good exercises in grammatical humility, if nothing else, and write some two-word sentences. This may have seemed a simplistic assignment, but what it revealed to me was that we probably needed to work a little further on the basic concept of the sentence before moving on, as the term progresses, to more complicated stuff. As much writing as we do in this class, it's just imperative that everyone be able to write a simple sentence with confidence, and to know that it's a sentence (or that it's not, and if it's not, to fix it).

The sentences you guys wrote fell into two basic two-word categories: sentences with subjects, and sentences with what we call "understood" subjects. Now, before we push further with this, let me back up a second and review with you all what a sentence actually is. It is a complete thought. That is, it has something which is DOING something (the subject), and something which is DONE (the verb). Without these two things, alas, you have no sentence. Another term for "sentence" is "independent clause," which just means a complete thought that can stand on its own. As we'll discover later, you can combine independent clauses in all kinds of ways to express more complex thoughts, but as a basic unit, by itself, an independent clause equals a sentence. Anything else by itself is a fragment.

For example, if I had written just now, "What is a sentence? A complete thought," the second thing I wrote would not have been a sentence, but a fragment. Of course we talk this way all the time. "Whatcha doing?" "Playing 'Guitar Hero.'" We'd feel silly saying, "I am playing 'Guitar Hero,'" though we all know that that's what's meant by our tossed-off fragment of an answer. In real life, we're surrounded by context which makes things obvious. Of course I'm the one playing "Guitar Hero," if I'm the one you were speaking to, and playing "Guitar Hero" is manifestly what I'm doing, because you can see me doing it, which makes me wonder why you asked in the first place, but even as the ways of God are ever mysterious, the ways of man are ever baffling. Anyway, in real life, we don't have to speak in complete thoughts all the time, because circumstances fill in the blanks for us.

In writing, especially formal, expository writing, we can't assume a set of circumstances, shared by our readers, which will render what we say clear to them without our making extra effort to be clear. The most basic element of clarity is the complete sentence. And as I said before, the complete sentence has two components: subject and verb.

So let's look back at the sentences you wrote for me about a month ago. I had assigned a set of two-word sentences, and these fell, as it turned out, into two categories. The first category was the simple sentence, which just means basic subject-verb construction:

She went.
I ran.
We talked.

These are all complete sentences, as you can plainly see; each one has a subject and a verb -- and nothing else. In their simplicity and stripped-down-ness, they are nonetheless complete thoughts, with something doing something and something done. Each one is like a perfectly balanced little seesaw. They are also, as you may notice, what we call declarative sentences. This means that their function is simply to tell us something, to declare it.

In the second category were the imperative sentences, or commands. Here are some examples:

Stop that.
Go there.
Do it.

Now, these look more like fragments than the first sentences, because you can't see a subject, only an action, ie a verb. But think about the perfectly balanced seesaw again. These seesaws are more balanced than you think: it's just that there's an invisible person sitting on one side, and that person's name is "you." What a speaker really means when he yells, "Stop that," is "You stop that!" This is something we all understand when someone issues a command. We know he isn't talking to himself. We may not be sure whether he means us or not, but we know he means somebody, some you. Therefore, even though the subject doesn't appear in the sentence, we all know it's there, and the sentence is complete.

"Stop" may comprise a complete sentence; "stops," however, does not. "WHO stops???" we all want to know, because we've just been given a maddeningly incomplete thought. The world is full of such thoughts, in fact. In the olden days, I used to teach English in a big public high school where the administrators were very fond of making announcements over the P.A. system all day long. They frequently said amusing things; one in particular maddened the English teachers, at any rate, because he invariably spoke in sentences with no subjects -- that is, in fragments. "Teachers," he would address us, "want to remind you that we have a faculty meeting this afternoon . . . " Imagine an entire cadre of English teachers all turning as one to address the loudspeaker: "WHO wants to remind us??" There's something a little wimpy about a sentence with no subject, not even an understood one; he didn't want us blaming HIM for the faculty meeting, I guess.

There are other kinds of fragments, chiefly the kinds which all need to be attached to some kind of complete sentence but too frequently are not. Instead, they are cut adrift like boats on a stormy sea, to find their own way, which they can't. In fact, here's an example for you:

Instead, they are cut adrift like boats on a stormy sea, to find their own way (complete sentence). Which they can't (fragment). But wait, you say. "Which they can't" HAS a subject and a verb! Why isn't it a sentence? Hm, well, I could say, "You tell me," or simply "Tell me," but why don't I make this easier for all of us right now and tell you to look carefully at that first word, which. If which signals the beginning of an interrogative sentence, ie a question, then you can have a complete thought which begins with it. Otherwise, it's the kind of word (and we'll get to precisely what it is later on) which exists to link one idea to another. It's a little like a trailer hitch. You can have a nice two-wheeled cart which, if you gave it a shove, would proceed nicely downhill on its own. But if you put a trailer hitch on it, the front end goes clunk, and it's not going anywhere unless you attach it to something else.

In real life you can ask the riddle, "Why did the Sea-Geat cross the whale-road?" and the answer would be "To get to the other side," without anybody's jumping on you for uttering a sentence fragment. You cannot, however, WRITE "To get to the other side" in a formal paper and not have me jumping on you for writing a sentence fragment. Cumbersome as it may seem, you MUST write, "He crosses it to get to the other side." THEN, and only then, do you have a complete thought in writing.

For the rest of today (Tuesday): read this little chapter on sentence fragments and take the "Repairing Sentence Fragments" quiz at the bottom.

For Wednesday (I know, I know, but you had Monday off): read about run-on sentences and take the "Fragments and Run-ons" quiz at the bottom (I think it's the last one). If you get more than one or two wrong, go back and review both chapters and any links embedded in those chapters -- I know there's on in the run-on chapter about connections between independent clauses which would be worth reviewing -- and then take the quiz again. If you have questions about why you got something wrong, post them on the discussion group.

For Thursday: read the chapter on clauses and take both the FIRST quiz on recognizing independent clauses and the clause-function quiz at the bottom of the page. Again, if you miss more than one or two, go back and review, and then retake the quizzes until you can ace them. Post any questions you have on the discussion group.

For Friday: write a paragraph of seven to ten complete sentences, on any subject you like. Note that I am asking for a PARAGRAPH, not a list of ten sentences. Your paragraph should have a recognizable topic sentence, preferably as the first sentence; it should also incorporate simple sentences (basic subject-verb construction) and sentences which combine independent clauses with each other, independent clauses with dependent clauses, and independent clauses with at least one kind of phrase. Again, this is a PARAGRAPH I'm asking for, ladies and gentlemen, not just a bunch of sentences. Write it and post it on the blog. Public floggings for anyone employing a sentence fragment, even on purpose for rhetorical effect.

Syllabus: Week 4

2008-09-20T06:03:00.001-07:00

This week is a catch-up week. There's no new reading assignment, though I would STRONGLY suggest that everyone reread Beowulf and be thinking about what constitutes an heroic ideal for the Anglo-Saxons.

Otherwise, we have presentations due this week. Co-op students will present on Wednesday during history class: you will be talking for 5-7 minutes on the Anglo-Saxon-related topic of your choice. I think I know what everyone's doing by this point (or almost everyone); if you haven't yet told me what you're going to be talking about, please do so asap. If you're not a co-op student, please plan to do a presentation for your family along the same lines -- teach them something new and exciting about Anglo-Saxon culture.

We'll spend next week (Week 5) working on grammar. The next week, we'll be revisiting the Anglo-Saxons as we begin to put together our first 5-paragraph essay of the year.

Some Things to Consider While Reading Beowulf

2008-09-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

First, look at the lines! Lo, they alliterate.

This translation makes much of the alliterative aspect of Anglo-Saxon verse: notice the repetitive consonant sounds which, with the fairly regular 4-stress rhythm of the lines, like these from the Prologue --

LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!

-- give you a good idea of what Anglo-Saxon verse is meant to sound like, and how it "hangs together." In modern English (by which I mean English from Shakespeare forward), poetry depends on rhyme, largely, for an organizing principle (or, in "free verse," on some balance between words and white space, or on how much you can say before you have to pause for breath), but in Anglo-Saxon poetry, as I've said before, it's all about the repetition of consonant sounds, and that bam-bam-pause-bam-bam beat. (Remember that a pause in the middle of a line -- as in "who house by the whale-path (pause) heard his mandate" -- is called a caesura)

Note the kennings, too, in this passage: people-kings, spear-armed (as though their arms themselves were spears), whale-path.

By this time you ought to be able to glance at a passage from a poem and say at once whether or not it's Anglo-Saxon.

When reading a poem, it's good to follow this protocol:

I. Read the poem through once, without stopping, to try to get a sense of what's going on, what the story is.

II. Reread the poem, this time doing the following:

A. pay attention to issues of prosody (like meter/rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, etc)

B. pay attention to words you don't know, or words you do know which don't seem to make sense as they're being used in the context of the poem. For instance, in this passage, you'd probably want to look up "atheling" and "welkin," and possibly "waxed," if "waxed under welkin" doesn't make sense to you.

C. ask yourself if there are particular images which keep appearing -- we would call this a "recurring motif," as some of you may recall -- and what this recurring of images might mean. If a particular kind of thing keeps showing up, then it's bound to be important in some way to the writer/speaker, and/or to the story. So ask yourself how and why it's important, and what's revealed about the story or the characters through the repetition of certain images.

D. In the same way, look for patterns of events -- is there a certain kind of action which keeps recurring? What does the repetition of that action or event reveal about the story or characters, or about what's important to the writer/speaker?

All these would be some good questions to revisit and discuss on the yahoo group tomorrow and Friday. Keep telling me what's going on in the poem, in terms of story, but let's also start delving into some of these poetic things, which will help us to derive more layers of meaning.

About Beowulf

2008-09-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

For background information, this Quickie-pedia entry is reasonably thorough: you get a thumbnail sketch of the plot, plus a little context. Beowulf is a story much older than any surviving manuscript; like the Iliad, it derives from a legend handed down orally from about the sixth century and finally committed to writing two to five hundred years later. It's the foundational epic of its culture: just as the Iliad is about being Greek, Beowulf -- though its hero is actually Scandinavian -- is about being Anglo-Saxon. As you read, you might think about how that's true, and what the epic has to say, specifically, about what it means to be an Anglo-Saxon hero.

Week 3: September 15-19

2008-09-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

Monday: Share your Anglo-Saxon lines with the group. Extra bonus Brownie points if you used kenning, too. Read Monday's blog post about Beowulf, and start reading Beowulf. You will want to follow this link, then look at the lefthand sidebar, choose "Modern Text," and then select a chapter. Plan to read the Prologue through Chapter V by the end of the day Tuesday.

Also, why don't you all tell me on Monday what topics you're doing for your presentations on the 24th?

Tuesday: read Beowulf, comment and ask questions on the discussion group. Be the first person to tell me what's going on from the Prologue to Chapter V!

Wednesday: co-op and catch-up day.

Thursday and Friday: finish Beowulf and consider how Beowulf himself is a typically Anglo-Saxon hero, and how the poem overall is typically Anglo-Saxon. In discussion group, compare Beowulf, both as a hero and as an epic, with heroes and epics of ancient Greece and Rome. Whose world would you rather live in? Why? Who to you truly epitomizes heroism? How is your view of heroism different from that of your average 7th-century Anglo-Saxon?

For next week: work on project due at co-op next Wednesday. No online class next week -- we will see each other at co-op. If you're not going to be at co-op for whatever reason, prepare a presentation to give to your family. Everyone will post a synopsis of his/her presentation on the discussion group for all to enjoy.

Week after next: We will take some time to work on grammar in Week 5. But don't forget about Beowulf, because we'll also spend Week 6 revisiting him as we write . . . the dreaded . . . 5-paragraph essay. (No, seriously, don't dread it -- it'll be great. You know it will.)

Commentary on "The Dream of the Rood"

2008-09-12T09:20:00.001-07:00

This has been a hit in the online discussion group: I had the class read the poem twice, sharing things which they observed about it on both first and second readings. For the uninitiated, what we have going is a yahoo group which operates in conjunction with this blog, and students are posting writing assignments and also informal responses to questions and prompts on that group.

We've had lots of good discussion about this poem, and I wanted to share one particularly thorough student response:

So, the Rood is the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. I actually
really liked this poem.
One of the things I noticed was that aside from changing the main
view from the dreamer telling about his vision, to that of the cross,
recounting the events of and after the crucifixion, it also changes
moods. At about line 76, it goes from a dark sad almost morbid poem it
takes a more triumphant, reassuring position. Then it changes back to
the dreamer at roughly 122. I also noticed that the Jesus in this is
portrayed as sort of a quiet, doomed champion. I remember reading
something about the Anglo-Saxon hero was someone who just accepted
Wyrd, even when they knew it was out of their hands, they still kept
on. I think they portrayed Christ like that in this poem. Maybe it was
because Christ didn't resist and "was like a sheep led to the
slaughter." I think that that trait among others was what really
helped the Anglo-Saxons to sort of "identify" with Christ. Like, when
we say "Christ-like" we usually mean loving, compassionate, forgiving,
trusting etc., etc. But I think that maybe His strength and courage
was what they might have noticed at first. "Then I saw mankind's Lord
come with great courage when he would mount on me." Also the line:
"The young here stripped himself-- he, God Almighty-- strong and stout
minded He mounted high gallows, bold before many." Those are just some
examples...Whew....

These homeschoolers, truly, they rock. What this student has developed, if we were going to do a more formal assignment right now, is the basis for a nice little essay re-narrating and explicating the poem. I've been hoping to exploit this aspect of what an online group can make possible: all communication is in writing, of course, so I'm trying to push everyone to think and converse in writing, at a much higher and deeper level than your average Facebook conversation. It's very gratifying to see that beginning to happen.

Questions to Consider When Reading "The Dream of the Rood"

2008-09-11T13:38:00.001-07:00

How does this poem "move?" That is to say, where are we when we start,
where do we go from there, and where do we end, both geographically
and in terms of thought/feeling/idea?

Who is the speaker in the poem? Is there only one speaker, and one
point of view? Or more than one?

How would you characterize the tone, or mood, of the poem? Does it
stay the same throughout, or does it shift? If so, how? Where in the
poem do changes of mood occur? What kinds of words signal those shifts
in mood?

Let's get specific about how the story of Christ's death and
resurrection are narrated in this poem -- what's different, or weird,
or unique about the way the story is told? What details are dwelt on?

This may seem like a strange question, but are there ways in which
Christ in this poem seems like a uniquely Anglo-Saxon Christ? What
things about Him does the speaker particularly notice, and what images
are associated with Him?

Here's a challenge for you: read the poem out loud to somebody, and
read it so that they will really listen and understand what they're
hearing, know what I mean? Not,
"listenwhatchoicestofvisionsiwishtotell/almightygodwherehishomeland-
wastheend."

Read it like a bard who's got to earn his bread by chanting poems for
people. You might be amazed what you yourself hear and notice when you
read it like this.

Time Team - Anglo Saxon Cemetery - Part 5

2008-09-09T11:54:00.001-07:00

Here's the end . . . you can see, even from these fragments, how successive cultures came and went on the same bits of ground, how the highly-civilized Roman settlement fell into decay, and the warlike "barbarian" Saxons lived among their ruins.

Time Team - Anglo Saxon Cemetery - Part 4

2008-09-09T11:45:00.001-07:00

Aaaah -- this cuts off very abruptly. Looking for Part 5 . . . otherwise we'll just be left hanging.

Time Team - Anglo Saxon Cemetery - Part 3

2008-09-09T11:34:00.001-07:00

There's a Part 4 . . . coming up!

Time Team - Anglo Saxon Cemetery - Part 2

2008-09-09T11:23:00.001-07:00

Here's Part 2 -- I'm interested in what they're going to make of the close proximity of the Anglo-Saxon burial ground to the earlier Roman settlement which was apparently there.

Time Team - Anglo Saxon Cemetery - Part 1

2008-09-09T11:11:00.001-07:00

I found this and thought it was an interesting glimpse into how we find out things we know about the Anglo-Saxons. It's in three parts, and you don't HAVE to watch any of it, but you might find it fun.

Anglo Saxon Lyre

2008-09-09T10:55:00.001-07:00

Check this out to get a sense of the music which might have accompanied something like Caedmon's Hymn.

Some Things to Consider While Reading Caedmon's Hymn

2008-09-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

1. Once again, look at similarities between Anglo-Saxon/Old English and modern English.

For example, read the first line in either one of the Old English versions, then the first line of the modern translation. How many words can you figure out?

Notice words that recur in the poem: "keeper," for example, which shows up in lines 1 and 7. Can you find the corresponding word in Anglo-Saxon? (hint: think "ward" . . . )

Can you find the Anglo-Saxon "Almighty" in the last line?

Looking closely at these poems in their original language helps us to understand the history of the words we use . . . they come to us via this culture (and the French, and the Latin, and pretty much everything else, since English will adopt any word it finds useful and incorporate it into the family).

2. Look at the imagery used to describe heaven and earth, and also God. Be able to say what images appear in the poem and what they might suggest about the way the poet sees the world.

How is God, as you see Him here, both like and unlike a Saxon king in attributes?

3. Look at the prosody, or poetic attributes of the poem ("prosody" is a good word to remember and use -- it just refers to the technical aspects of a poem, like rhyme and meter, use of stanzas and white space, etc). As the notes following the poem in the version you read point out, this was a hymn, meant to be sung, probably simply accompanied by a harp (imagine someone playing plunk plunk in rhythm with the lines as they are spoken or chanted). It might have been chanted something like this:

Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard
metudæs mehti and his modgithanc

(Again, I'm not an Anglo-Saxon scholar, and I'm not an authority on how the language is spoken, but I do know roughly what the rhythm would have been like).

In fact, you often see lines in the Anglo-Saxon mode written like this:

Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard

with a space in the middle. This kind of pause in the middle of a line, like an unspoken "beat," is called a caesura -- another poetic term to write down and remember. It's yet another element of prosody.

You can also see the heavy use of alliteration in the Anglo-Saxon, even though it isn't quite as bodied over in the English translation. If you want to see it clearly, print the poem out (or copy it by hand) and in every line, circle all the like consonant sounds -- all the h's in the first line, for example, the m's in the second. Noticing these elements can help you to hear, in your mind's ear, how Anglo-Saxon poetry holds together. In our own poetry we depend on rhyme to give things shape -- if I say,

I wish that I may never see

your mind immediately wants to fill in some line that rhymes with "see," even if it isn't "A poem lovely as a tree." Our minds like shape and closure that way.

Just so, an Anglo-Saxon listening to poetry, which they did a lot more of than we do in our everyday lives, not having Facebook and iPods to amuse them, would hear a line like, I don't know,

Hegdwitha helps . . .

and immediately fill it in mentally with something like, "herself to the hash." That would have made poetic sense to the Anglo-Saxon ear, just as a rhyme does to ours.

So always pay attention to these things -- they were what made poetry poetry for the Anglo-Saxons. And again, they were what made it easier to relish, remember and repeat in a culture which was largely illiterate and dependent on the oral transmission of poetry, which is a fancy way of saying that they got it talked to them, instead of by reading, and had to remember it, rather than looking it up in a book which probably didn't exist outside the monastery, if at all.

4. Think about how the worldview of this poem differs from that of "The Wanderer." What things tip you off to those differences?

Finally, as an aside to you Tolkien fans out there, isn't it interesting to note that Tolkien didn't just make his world up out of nothing? Even the name, "Middle-earth," comes straight out of the Anglo-Saxon, which isn't surprising, as Tolkien was a linguist by profession and a scholar of Anglo-Saxon. The Lord of the Rings is a brilliant achievement -- maybe the most brilliant literary achievement of the last century -- but not because its creator conjured it out of thin air.

The Venerable Bede

2008-09-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a short but thorough account of the life of Bede, whom you should come to know and love. He is a saint of the Church; his feast is May 27. The prayer with which he concludes his History is a good one for all students:

And I pray thee, loving Jesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face.

HT:The Catholic Encyclopedia

Riddles in the Dark (or the Light of Day): Our Own Exeter Book

2008-09-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

Here are some riddles written by my online students, in response to the riddles we've been reading. I don't have the solutions yet; some I can guess, and maybe you can, too, but in any event, once the writers share the answers with me, I'll share them here.

1.

I contain many colors; Similar to the colored sky-ribbon;
Though, unlike my cousin, My colors are trapped inside of a box;
I live within the human-tool, waiting for them to re-arrange my
off-spring and place them inside their correct homes; For as I am one,
I am also many;
A great number try to complete me, though drop me upon the floor
through aggravation; For, even though I am no bigger than the human
fist, I require great knowledge to solve; I get thrown around as I
twist and turn different ways only to be incomplete; It saddens me
when I am not finished, but I become overjoyed when I am fully
finished; Even though I have no face, my multiple colors show my
gratitude for being perfected;
One of the last to try, one named Sam, got close like all the rest,
but could not complete me.
Many have tried to solve me, but many more have failed... What am I?

2.

I glitter in daylight yet gleam in the dark. I am priceless yet I come cheap. My white brethren
are worthless in my sight. I cannot move yet I travel far. I can be bent, shaped, and melted
but I cannot be destroyed. What am I?

Copy and paste this link...

http://www.3dchem.com/molecules.asp?ID=177#

... for the answer (or click it if you can)

3.

Beauty to ashes to beauty again

The singer of songs to the skies

The three Magi's Gifts to Our Lord you will find

In its glory, its life, and demise

Its wings royal colors, its chest made of gold

Its voice is pure rapture itself

Less than immortal but still everlasting

For even great splendor meets death

At the end of its life, three spices are needed

A nest is then built before dawn

The last song is sung, the task is now done

From ashes comes forth the new life

4.

Rending flesh and shattering bone, supporting wall, building home, I
never move but can fly great lengths, I can never break but easily
shatter. I am used to cause pain and strife, to kill and destroy with
crushing might. I am also used to build up high and to be abused but
never die. What am I?

5.

I am found in the animals-houses and also near the rocks that attempt
to reach the heavens. My brothers and sisters are everywhere;
sometimes we are together, we form one, but mostly we rage alone, in
the places out Lord above put us: unmoving from our spots, unchanging
in out movements. I only go one way: never shall I be able to touch
the highways of the birds or see the great cheese-ball in the sky. I
sound like a loin roaring or like a metal-bird taking off. Never do I
rest or stop my rhythmic flow: endlessly falling I forever will go.
If it ever be your fate to be swept away by me you had better hope
that my friends at my feet, the hard sharp floor that is beneath me,
destroys you first before I drag you below for a dark wet defeat.
That is a simple warning though do not be afraid I am very peaceful
to watch and see just be careful if you're on top of me.

6.

I am the one who picks you up when no else will; I
am the one who can lead you through this world into the next without
missing a step; I am the one, when you are broken and no one can fix
you, will put you back together; I am the one who, when you are feeling
hopeless and your life-giver seems to fading out, is the silver
lighting. What am I?

7.

Standing one-legged, brown-skinned and tall, I've only
One purpose: to provide service to all. Thin arms I do
Have, outreaching and cold, in either direction, my
Brothers I hold. Through me and my kin, voices do pass,
And secrets and promises and many laughs. My brothers, they march away
From each other,only to find another ahead. I cannot feel,
Nor do I blame, those of you that know not my name.
But those that do, my name, speak true, for hopefully I am known to you.

8.

Captured by pockets, untouched by man,
Used everywhere without any thought,
I move so very slow, yet so very fast, and
Once I'm gone, I am no more. To the young,
I am nothing but there, to the old, I am
Missed greatly. With me, memories fade
Away, boxed memories hold them though.
And soon with me, there shall be no more.

9.

I gather the lovers from afar.
My din rings through the darkest night,
bearing news both sad and glad.
upon the wall I am doomed to hang
My binding ropes hang, curling down.
Here I hang waiting for the kindly hand to take hold of me
And press me to the loving cheek.

Thoughts on "The Wanderer"

2008-09-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in the syllabus post for this week that we'd be looking at how this poem manifests an Anglo-Saxon worldview. As in most of the poetry we'll be reading from this period, you might look for the ways in which there seems almost to be a tug-of-war between Christianity and the older, bleaker belief in impersonal Wyrd. In many cases (and you'll see this again in Beowulf) a poem will begin with some kind of invocation of the Christian God, but then, as if the poet felt he had gotten that out of the way, the poem's mind quickly falls into older habits of seeing and interpreting the world -- and then back again. There's something very natural about this, of course, in the sense of being part of human nature in every time. One of the interesting aspects of this poetry is that it reflects the process of conversion -- both personally, and on the level of a whole culture which was shifting from paganism to Christianity and was sometimes uncertain precisely where it stood.

So that's a big thematic thing to be looking for as you read. Think also about other important Anglo-Saxon themes:

*the transience of life (in other words, life was short, and they were keenly aware of the fact of human mortality)
*the presence and power of Wyrd, or impersonal fate
*the general coldness and emptiness of the world
*the significance of a king, and what made a king a good king

But first of all, I like that the page I gave you has both the Anglo-Saxon text and the modern English translation side-by-side. Even if you can't read the original language, you should always look at it, and see if you can make anything out, based on the translation which you can understand. For instance, check this out --

Here are a couple of lines in Anglo-Saxon:
Ne mæg werig mod
wyrde wiðstondan

Recognize any words at all? Can you hazard a guess at them?

Now here's the modern English:
The weary spirit cannot
withstand fate

"Wyrde" you could have guessed, right? Hopefully you did. And possibly wiðstondan/withstand. It's an alien language to us, and yet there are moments when we hear our own language in it. And despite the intervention of so many centuries, some words and parts of words have come down to us virtually untouched: "wer" for man, for example. Now you know why we call a werewolf a werewolf. Literally, he's a "man-wolf." Thank you, Anglo-Saxons.

Now, let's return to that list of themes I gave you. Hopefully, on reading this poem, you'd be able yourself to identify some ideas that were important to the Anglo-Saxons, and/or to this poet in particular, but I made things easy for you. With these ideas in hand, let's go looking for evidence of them in the poem.

Transience of life.

How does this poem signal an awareness that human life was brief and easily snuffed out? Look what the poet has to say about it:

Indeed I cannot think
why my spirit
does not darken
when I ponder on the whole
life of men
throughout the world,
How they suddenly
left the floor (hall),
the proud thanes.

One minute the thanes are there, partying down in the mead-hall, and then, poof, they're gone. Life is like that, everywhere ("throughout the world;" it's not just his bad luck that all his friends have died. Happens to everyone.)

A wise hero must realize
hu gæstlic bið, how terrible it will be,
þonne ealre þisse worulde wela when all the wealth of this world
weste stondeð, lies waste,
swa nu missenlice as now in various places
geond þisne middangeard throughout this middle-earth
76a winde biwaune walls stand,
weallas stondaþ, blown by the wind,
hrime bihrorene, covered with frost,
hryðge þa ederas. storm-swept the buildings.
Woriað þa winsalo, The halls decay,
waldend licgað their lords lie
dreame bidrorene, deprived of joy,
duguþ eal gecrong, the whole troop has fallen,
80a wlonc bi wealle. the proud ones, by the wall.
Sume wig fornom, War took off some,
ferede in forðwege, carried them on their way,
sumne fugel oþbær one, the bird took off
ofer heanne holm, across the deep sea,
sumne se hara wulf one, the gray wolf
deaðe gedælde, shared one with death,
sumne dreorighleor one, the dreary-faced
84a in eorðscræfe man buried
eorl gehydde. in a grave.
Yþde swa þisne eardgeardAnd so He destroyed this city,
ælda scyppend He, the Creator of Men,
oþþæt burgwara until deprived of the noise
breahtma lease of the citizens,
eald enta geweorc the ancient work of giants
idlu stodon. stood empty.

And here's an interesting passage. All the world's wealth "lies waste;" everything lies in ruins; wolves and birds have "carried off" the warriors . . . and we would have said that this was just Wyrd, but now we're Christian, so we believe in God, but we have a hard time NOT seeing God working in exactly the same way that Wyrd does. Anyway, our guiding principle is that life is short and then you die.

What kind of world do we live in, while we live?

Well, here are some key words: "ice-cold," "frozen," "fallow (infertile, like an unsown field) waves," "frost," "snow," "hail," "wind," "storm-swept," etc. Not a lot of sunny days in the Anglo-Saxon universe. And mind you that this is the same part of the world in which William Shakespeare, some centuries later, could write, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Granted, some climate change could have taken place in those intervening years, but still: you have to imagine that there was spring in Anglo-Saxon times, with "darling buds of May" and all that . . . but they weren't flowery warm-weather people, at least when it came to writing poems about the meaning of life. Summer and lambs and cuckoos and roses just weren't their images. Life was short, and while it lasted, it was cold and hard and filled with cruelty and insecurity. It was, in fact, like an exile -- if you were a Christian, this was perhaps the handiest way to make sense of things, to imagine yourself as an exile in a strange and cruel world, with heaven as your only hope (see the end of the poem).

So, these kings.

You can discern a lot about what made a good ruler from the images associated with the "lord" in this poem: the speaker's word for "lord" is "gold-friend," if that tells you anything. "Throne" is "gift-seat." A good chief bought his thanes' loyalty with treasure, and this wasn't a superficial transaction, or mere bribery, as this kind of thing too often is in contemporary politics, but a deep symbolism. In a treacherous world, a good thane's loyalty and bravery was a treasure in itself. The lord's gift of treasure was a sign of the thane's high value in his lord's heart. The thane would reward this high estimation with even greater loyalty -- just as you might work harder to please and be held in esteem by someone who you knew already held you in high esteem, than you would for someone to whom you were just a number or a drone. This was what held society together and preserved some fragile measure of safety in war-torn times.

Be on the lookout for more kings, and more imagery about kings, as we continue to read Anglo-Saxon poems. Kings are important.

Notice, too, the rhythm of the lines in this poem. It varies some, but the predominant "beat" is a two-stressed line:

So spoke the wanderer,
mindful of hardships,
of fierce slaughters
And the downfall of kinsmen.

I mean, that's the English translation, so we're not hearing the real sound in those words, only an echo of how it's supposed to sound. Still, the translator strove to preserve the blunt, tramping, tide-rhythmic sound of the Anglo-Saxon verse.

Feel free to add to this discussion of the poem, either in the comments or, if you're one of my online students, on the discussion group. I've tried to suggest how we can read a poem like this, and what things we might look for, but I've by no means exhausted it. There's always more to say.

English Syllabus, Week 2: September 8-12

2008-09-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

Monday: post your riddle to the discussion group, leaving out the answer. Everyone else gets to guess the solution. Read The Wanderer. Post one example of kenning from the poem on the discussion group; also, we will be discussing the Anglo-Saxon worldview as the poem manifests it.

Tuesday: Read Caedmon's Hymn, plus Bede's Story of Caedmon. By Tuesday be able to tell us all who both Bede and Caedmon are, and to identify some elements of Anglo-Saxon poetry which you recognize in Caedmon's poem. Also we'll discuss how it's like and unlike "The Wanderer."

Wednesday: Co-op and catch-up day

Thursday: read "The Dream of the Rood." Be able to tell us all what a "Rood" is, as well as what the dream was about. Also be able to talk about how this piece of literature is distinctively Anglo-Saxon as well as Christian.

Friday: Reread "Dream." Tell us what new things you notice about it on a second reading.

Over the weekend: write some lines that have the following features: four stressed syllables, and strong alliteration (Hang the hammer here, Harry). Try to write between five and ten lines/sentences like that -- a sentence can be a line, or it can go on for more than one line, but keep the rhythm and the alliteration going. Beyond that, your lines don't have to make sense together, necessarily, or tell a story, though they may. You could write about going out to get the mail in Anglo-Saxon-style lines, or about cooking dinner, or whatever. Just write four-stress lines with alliteration. And be ready to post them on Monday, just for fun.

You should know by the end of this week what topic you're going to be researching for your presentation on the 24th. If you're stumped, check out the links for Anglo-Saxon culture and see what ideas are out there.

The Anglo-Saxons and Wyrd

2008-09-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Just yesterday I ran across a contemporary poem, by a friend and former teacher of mine, actually, which puts into words -- words we'd use -- the way the pagan Anglo-Saxons faced the big questions of life and death. Essentially, they believed that whatever was ordained to happen would happen, and that there was nothing a man could do to alter the course of his fate. We would say that he had very little "agency" -- in other words, very little power over himself. He was simply at the mercy of Wyrd, or capricious fate, which had no personal concern for him as an individual, and no discernable plan.

The best and most heroic thing that a man could do, in the face of an impersonal universe in whose schemes his own life was meaningless, was to put on courage and keep going forward to meet whatever his fate was, without showing fear. We'll see some of this in poems we're reading for next week, but in the meantime, here's part of this contemporary poem which brought all these thoughts to mind:

Foretelling

Once it was the gods
who tested a hero's mettle
by showing him the shape

of his own death
but giving him no way
to change things,

so that the only variable
was how he carried himself
into a future he already knew

by heart -- he wasn't fighting
for his life, but to be remembered
for his manner of dying,

how he made the inevitable
his own --

(Sharon Bryan, from Flying Blind
Sarabande Books, Louisville, KY, 1996)

Actually I think she's probably thinking of Greek heroes and oracles, but the idea holds true for the Anglo-Saxons as well. You can well imagine what an escape from all this grimness Christianity represented -- a God who loved and saved each man individually, in place of Wyrd which did not care at all -- though you will also see in upcoming readings that old habits of thought and belief did not die quickly.

Some Excellent Kennings From my Equally-Excellent Online Students

2008-09-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

Cotton-Skin: Clothes
Granite-Farm: Grave Yard
Dark-repealer. A lamp.
Faerie-towel: a leaf of lamb's-ear (which itself is kind of a kenning)
Metal-sun: Lamp
Sky-clock: Sun
Cloth-night: curtains
Frame-Eyes: Glasses (though it seems more Anglo-Saxon somehow to say "eye-frame;" still, a good one)

All of these examples, you will notice, describe an everyday item by comparing it to something else concrete (skin, a farm, a towel), or else giving it a human-type action (dark-repealer). There's actually a word for giving a non-human thing human attributes: we say that to do this is to anthropomorphize the non-human object (note that the root of this word is the same as for "anthropology" - it comes from the Greek anthropos, meaning "man"). That's another way of making a metaphor, since what you're doing is to compare the non-human to the human.

If you're interested in more Greek and Latin roots for English words, check out this nifty site, great for SAT/ACT vocabulary prep.

If you're interested in Anglo-Saxon roots for English words, this site covers a number of them, as well as Latin and Greek. And here is another good chart for Anglo-Saxon roots and words that derive from them in Modern English.

Exeter Book Riddles: Questions to Ponder

2008-09-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

*What topics do the riddles deal with?
*What kinds of images appear most often in the riddles?
*Based on what you read in the riddles, what mental pictures do you form of Anglo-Saxon life?
*Based on the riddles, what do you learn about how Anglo-Saxons thought?
--What things were beautiful to them?
--What things were part of their ordinary existence?
--What impression do you get of the landscapes or scenes that were familiar to them?
*What things about their ways of thinking and seeing are strange to us?
*What things about their ways of thinking and seeing are familiar to us?

More Resources for Anglo-Saxon Culture

2008-09-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Visit this site for a list of links pertaining to monasticism in Anglo-Saxon England: primary sources, virtual tours of monastic ruins including the Abbey of Whitby, and more.

Virtual Anglo-Saxon village

Learn about Anglo-Saxon kings

Law in Anglo-Saxon times

Modern English translations of Anglo-Saxon legal documents

Death and burial in the Anglo-Saxon world

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Those Crazy Sword-Swinging Anglo-Saxons, and Why We Love Them, Part the Second

2008-09-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read Part the First yet, go here.

What Were They Like?

We know the story of Pope Saint Gregory the Great who, on seeing a collection of fair-haired slave boys in the market in Rome, and learning that they were called "Angles," remarked, "Non Angli, sed angeli!" --"Not Angles, but angels!" -- and immediately resolved to missionize their land. By this time -- the end of the 6th century A.D. -- their land was not Germany or southern Scandinavia, but the island which to the Romans had been Britannia, but was now called England after these Germanic invader/settlers, who referred to themselves as Englisc. Gregory himself became Pope shortly after that encounter in the slave market and ended up sending Saint Augustine of Canterbury, not without fear and trembling, in his place to convert the pagan Saxons in England.

(if you haven't read it already, Augustine Came to Kent, by Barbara Willard, is a lovely, quick read which retells the story of the conversion of the English in the form of a novel. It's a bit "young" for high school, but something everyone really ought to have read before graduating).

What were they like? In many ways they were very like the Viking raiders who followed them a few centuries later: a warrior culture, organized into tribes led by chieftains (warriors were called "thanes," a word you'll see again when we get to Shakespeare and Macbeth):

The Anglo-Saxon social structure consisted of tribal units led by chieftains ("kings," or "lords") who, theoretically at least, earned their respect from their warriors (or "retainers," or "thanes," the group being called a "comitatus"). Kings should display the heroic ideal and be known for an extraordinary and courageous feat or for success in war, all preceded by some boasting. The king must be a generous "ring-giver" too -- that is, he must dish out the spoils of war to his thanes rather than hoard the treasures won in tribal warfare (a practice that has survived in diluted form, says Tom Garbaty, with the Queen giving medals to the Beatles and such). These weapons and treasures are important too. The craftsmanship is always elaborate and stories accrue about each ding. Although theoretically the thanes freely agreed to join a king, it was nevertheless vital for one's sense of self to be part of a tribe. The thane shouldn't survive the king, and the worst fate for these people was to be exiled or to outlast all one's fellow warriors. The sense of identity came from the warrior community.

(this is an excerpt from the site linked at the beginning of the next paragraph -- do go and visit them)

For more about Anglo-Saxon culture, check out this site. Incidentally, we often associate the legends of King Arthur with medieval courtly culture (and we'll be looking later at some medieval retellings of these legends), but the story actually originates with the arrival of the Saxons in Britain; if there was an historic Arthur, he was most likely a Celtic chieftain of some prominence who attempted to rally Celtic resistance against the Saxon invaders.

Before Augustine's arrival, the Saxons were a pagan people, believing in an array of gods not unlike the Norse ones, and passing along legends such as the story of Weyland the Smith, also famous in Norse legend. Though they wrote in runes, they were largely an oral, not a written, culture, prior to the coming of Christianity. Just as the legends of the Trojan War were preserved by word of mouth through the Greek Dark Ages (remember how the Greeks forgot how to write?), epics such as the tale of Beowulf were handed down orally by travelling poets called bards and only rendered in writing, most likely by monks, centuries after the deeds they recorded had faded into the mist of prehistory.

As you'll see from the first week's reading assignments, riddles -- poems and mind-games in one -- were a popular form of entertainment in Anglo-Saxon culture. The Anglo-Saxon love of riddles, the sense of serious competition about them, and the widespread knowledge of certain riddles (there were riddles which almost literally "everyone" knew) shows up in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit: Bilbo and Gollum sit riddling in the dark in much the same way as the Anglo-Saxons sat by their firepits in the dark and cold of English winter nights asking, in some cases, the same riddles. Reading these riddles is a good introduction to the way the Anglo-Saxon mind worked; through them you can glimpse the world as the original riddlers saw it. You will know what was obvious to them, what was everyday, what was beautiful or strange, what they could come up with for comparing one thing to another to hint at an answer. Guessing at riddles is fun in and of itself, but to look at them as a kind of archaeological game, guessing at the minds of their makers, is another layer of fun entirely.

We have, today, archaeological records of Anglo-Saxon life, most notably the burial sites at Sutton Hoo and the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow in modern-day Suffolk, near the border with Cambridgeshire in the part of England still called East Anglia, after the Germanic peoples who made their home in the southeast, where many place-names still bear witness to them: Essex (East Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons), Norfolk (North-folk), Suffolk (South-folk), etc.

In fact, the single greatest legacy we have from the Anglo-Saxons is our language itself. It hasn't come down to us in pure form, having passed through the French influence of the Norman Conquest in 1066, and all kinds of subsequent vowel and consonant shifts and addings and borrowings and so forth, but the English we speak today still bears not only the name, but many of the same words. We say we had a "holiday" today, for example, because the Anglo-Saxons said "haelig dag," or "holy day." They said, "Deorling," or "little dear;" we say, "Darling." For more about the Anglo-Saxon language, also called "Old English" (as distinguished from the "Middle English" of the medieval era, and the "Modern English" of -- get ready for it -- Shakespeare), check out this fascinating and readable site, with many place names and other ancient words which have survived into contemporary usage; and also this site, with good information about the origins of the Anglo-Saxon language.

Great figures of the Anglo-Saxon era include Saint Bede, also known as the Venerable Bede, who wrote the first history of England; and King Alfred, also known as "Alfred the Great," champion of learning, religion, and culture among his people.

Anglo-Saxon poetry, once written down, preserved certain elements which must have made it easier to remember, for the bard, and to listen to, for his audience. When you begin looking at riddles and poems, these are some things to note:

*lines with four stressed syllables.

Here's a line from Caedmon's Hymn, for example, in Anglo-Saxon:
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc

You'd pronounce this (roughly; I'm not an Anglo-Saxon scholar) "MeTOOdas MActi END his MODgidanc." Notice how many syllables I've typed in capital letters. I'm not sure I'm entirely right about the pronunciation, but it would be typical for an Anglo-Saxon line to have four emphasized syllables: DUM da DUM, DUM DUM, or something like that.

A contemporary English line in the Anglo-Saxon mode: Monks make the mirthful mead. (MONKS MAKE the MIRTHful MEAD).

So you want to notice that Anglo-Saxon lines sound a lot like that.

*alliteration

Remember this, my friends from last year? It's when similar consonant sounds are repeated. Look at that line I just quoted: metudæs maecti end his modgidanc. See all those m's? That's alliteration. The Anglo-Saxons didn't use rhyme (in contrast to poets in Latin, who did, Latin being a much more rhyme-rich language), but similar consonant sounds more or less held the line together, made it easier to remember, and rendered it more musical-sounding for the listener.

So notice that, too, in your reading.

You will also want to look for a device called kenning, which was a form of metaphor.

Well, I think that's enough to be going on with for now, don't you?

Those Crazy Sword-Swinging Anglo-Saxons, and Why We Love Them, Part the First

2008-09-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

When we left off our studies last summer, the Roman Empire -- though I don't think it entirely knew it yet -- was on the wane. Its imperial courts were dens of intrigue and poisoning; its increasingly far-flung outposts were also becoming increasingly more difficult to hold and police, especially as barbarian tribes from outside its straining borders grew in strength and numbers and began to cast a collective, if not at all unified, warlike eye towards its wealthy cities.

One of those outposts was Great Britain. First visited by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C., in the course of his campaigns in Gaul, and then decisively claimed by the Emperor Claudius in A.D. 43, Britain represented perhaps the most uneasy of all the imperial marriages between Roman civilization and local culture. As happened in every place the Romans conquered, classical pagan deities set up shop beside, and often in conjunction with, local gods: the best-known example is to be found in modern-day Bath, in the west of England, where the local goddess Sulis was transformed into Sulis Minerva, whose temple encompassed the famous baths which you may visit today. At the same time, various tribes among the Celtic peoples whom the Romans found in residence -- the "Britons," they called them collectively -- vigorously resisted being subsumed into the Roman Empire. The Iceni, led by their queen, Boudicca or Boudicea, mounted a bloody revolt circa (around) A.D. 60, while to the north, in what we now know as Scotland, the Picts posed such a constant threat that the Emperor Hadrian in about A.D. 122 caused construction to begin on a massive wall to stretch the width of northern England, studded with forts to ward off Pictish raids on the Romanized (read: "civilized") south.

For more details concerning Roman Britain, you might like to visit this informative site. It's also worth noting here that the religious climate in Roman Britain reflected that of the Empire as a whole. Tolerance and incorporation of local cults was a norm; so, until the time of Constantine, was the persecution of Christians, as the story of Saint Alban illustrates. Following the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313, which established official tolerance and protection for Christianity throughout the Empire, there is some, though not much, archaeological evidence that Christianity had begun to assume a more public role in Roman British life.

But the Romans were losing their hold on Britain. For speculation about just how, and how quickly, Roman culture was superseded by that of invading barbarians -- so called by the Romans because all they could make out of their speech, supposedly, was "bar-bar-bar" -- you may want to visit this Post-Roman Britain site, where several theories are discussed at length -- besides which, there's lots of good information about this period to be found. What's important to know is that Rome itself was under attack by various Germanic tribes -- Goths, Visigoths, Vandals (in case you ever wondered where some of our contemporary names for things come from) -- and that to protect itself, the Empire began to draw inward. Its eastern wing, whose capital was Constantinople, now known as Istanbul in modern-day Turkey, remained unassailed, but Rome itself, the city, was sacked progressively: in A.D. 410 by Alaric the Visigoth, in A.D. 455 by Geiseric, king of the Vandals, and in A.D. 546 by Totila the Ostrogoth.

Meanwhile, Rome's outlying provinces were themselves not immune from attack. While some Germanic tribes struck at the heart of the Empire, others invaded along its edges. Britain's coastlines fell prey to the "Sea Wolves," warriors in keelboats like the later Viking longships, who first raided British settlements and then, eventually, began to conquer and settle permanently in Britain. These invaders came from across the North Sea, from southern Denmark and various parts of Germany, and they were not one people, but a mixture of tribes, most notably Jutes, Saxons, and Angles. These groups became known collectively, even in contemporary accounts, as "Anglo-Saxons," and it is thanks to them that we speak of "England," and that we speak "English."

Coming next: What were they like?
(and meanwhile, here's a site which will begin to answer that question)

English Syllabus Week 1, September 2-5

2008-08-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

ETA: the blog post you're supposed to read for Tuesday will be up on Tuesday. So don't panic that you don't see it now.

Tuesday: read blog post for the week, with information about Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Be able to tell us all what "kenning" is, and also to tell us about"Wyrd" or "Weird" (no, this would not merely be what you call your siblings, or what they call you).

Also read Riddles 1,3, 41, and 43. Post what you THINK the solutions are before you look them up, and we'll see who's closest on each one. Also post one example of kenning from the riddles to the discussion list, and tell us what it means.

Wednesday: Take this very basic quiz and also this one. Write 5 two-word sentences (example: Time flies.) and post them to the discussion group. Then read Riddles 29, 57, and 81.

Thursday: on the discussion list, tell us about your favorite riddle. Was it easy or hard to figure out? What clues tipped you off? What was the cleverest way of describing whatever the subject of the riddle was? Also, make up and share 3-5 examples of kenning, describing things in our contemporary world (example: "hair-tooth," for one of those claw-clip things girls wear in their hair. "i-Pod" would not count as kenning.).

Friday: read all of How to Write a Riddle-Poem. Review the riddles you read this week, and over the weekend, write your own riddle to share with the discussion group on Monday. The "How-To" will prove very useful.

Project assignment for Week 4: I will be at co-op on September 24, and on that day all you co-op participants will present some kind of project on an aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture or literature: coming of the Saxons to England; warrior culture; monastic life; bards; conventions of Anglo-Saxon poetry or song; beliefs about life, death, fate, etc; law; daily life; Saxon place names in England; elements of our English language that derive from Anglo-Saxon. You will do some informal research and write up a talk (does not have to be a formal research paper with citations) to give at some point during that school day. If you're not in co-op, choose a topic and present it to your family in the same style. Everyone should then post a synopsis (a brief write-up of what you said, in complete sentences and paragraphs, not bullet points) of his or her talk on the discussion group for the fourth week. There will be no online class that week.

Newcomers to English Class: In Case You Missed the Post with Readings for Anglo-Saxon Literature

2008-08-20T17:04:00.001-07:00

Here they are again. I will have the first week's assignments up by next Friday, so that you'll know specifically what you're reading and doing the first week of English class, but if you want to go ahead and be familiarizing yourself with the reading, go for it.

Read Your Way Through History: Online Readings for Western Civilization

2008-08-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

All the following links are to e-texts at a single site: The Baldwin Project. This is an amazing collection of public-domain literature aimed at young readers, much of it dating from the Victorian era. The books listed here are a pretty comprehensive sampling of Baldwin's offerings for the historical periods likely to be covered in a Western Civ class; many of them were originally intended for readers far younger than high-school age, but the level of writing, in terms of syntax, vocabulary, and assumed knowledge, makes these books not at all inappropriate or "too young" for a contemporary high-school reader. Furthermore, they are "living" books which bring historical figures and events to life as no textbook can, and they comprise an excellent supplemental-reading list to pair with a "spine" like the books and lecture series covered in my last post.

(High-schoolers: clearly I'm aiming these last few posts more at your parents and teachers than at you, necessarily. I promise to be back soon with a detailed syllabus for the first few weeks of English class, to begin right after Labor Day).

One last note: e-texts on Baldwin Project are free for you to use. The site is very much a labor of love, and they ask that, if at all possible, if you're using their resources extensively, you consider making a donation towards the support of the site. Since I'm sending my readers there on a fairly extensive basis, I thought I ought to bring that up, as I'd love for these great people to benefit from the extra traffic. But only if it's not a hardship for you, the reader!

(ETA: This is NOT required reading for English, boys and girls. I'm helping several other co-op moms come up with a Western Civilization class that would go hand-in-hand with English, so these readings could figure into that. OR if you're out there doing all this on your own, and just gleaning ideas and suggestions, you could fold any of these readings into whatever you're doing for Medieval/Renaissance/Reformation-era history. Our group did ancient and classical history/literature last year, which is why you're not seeing Greece and Rome covered here now. Trying not to confuse anyone out there!).

Here's the list I've compiled, categorized and in more or less chronological order:

Anglo-Saxon England:
Alfred the Great/Jacob Abbott
The Count on the Saxon Shore/Alfred J. Church
In the Days of Alfred the Great/Eva March Tappan

Charlemagne:
Our Little Frankish Cousin of Long Ago/Evaleen Stein
Stories of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers of France/Alfred J. Church
The Story of Roland/James Baldwin

Vikings:
The Children of Odin (Norse myths)/Padraic Colum
The Heroes of Asgard/A&E Keary
Stories of the Vikings/Mary Macgregor
The Story of Rolf and the Viking's Bow/Allen French

Norman Conquest:
In the Days of William the Conqueror/Eva March Tappan
Our Little Norman Cousin of Long Ago/Evaleen Stein
William the Conqueror/Jacob Abbott

Medieval:
Heroes of the Middle Ages/Eva March Tappan
In the Days of the Guild/Louise Lamprey
Otto of the Silver Hand/Howard Pyle(Germany)
Stories of Siegfried/Mary Macgregor(Germany)
The Story of Robert the Bruce/Jeanie Lang(Scotland)
The Story of the Middle Ages/Samuel B. Harding
Tales from Canterbury Cathedral/Mrs. Frewen Lord

Chivalry:
King Arthur and his Knights/Maude Radford Warren
Men of Iron/Howard Pyle
Page, Esquire, and Knight/Marion Florence Lansing

Medieval Monasticism:
The Chantry Priest of Barnet/Alfred J. Church
Gabriel and the Hour Book/Evaleen Stein
God's Troubadour: the Story of Saint Francis of Assisi/Sophie Jewett

Crusades:
The Crusaders/Alfred J. Church
The Arabian Nights Entertainments/Andrew Lang
Our Little Crusader Cousin of Long Ago/Evaleen Stein
Richard I/Jacob Abbott
Stories from the Crusades/Janet Harvey Kellman

The Far East:
Genghis Khan/Jacob Abbott

England:Plantagenet Dynasty and Wars of the Roses:
Richard II/Jacob Abbott
Margaret of Anjou/Jacob Abbott
Richard III/Jacob Abbott

Italian Renaissance:
Stories from Dante/Mary Macgregor
Knights of Art/Amy Steedman

Spain:
Isabella of Castile/Oliver Otis Howard

England: Tudor Dynasty
Queen Elizabeth/Jacob Abbott
The Story of Sir Walter Raleigh/Margaret Duncan Kelly
The Tudors and Stuarts/M.B. Synge
Mary, Queen of Scots/Jacob Abbott

English Reformation/Civil War
With the King at Oxford/Alfred J. Church (Charles I)
Through Great Britain and Ireland with Cromwell/H.E. Marshall (Reformation from a Protestant point of view)
Charles I/Jacob Abbott
Charles II/Jacob Abbott

Putting Together a Western Civilization Course to Pair with English

2008-08-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

Say that you're putting together a Western Civ/European History course to dovetail with this year's English, and you're looking for both a spine AND some supplemental and primary-source reading for that purpose. Say that this isn't totally hypothetical, because I happen to have some good friends who are doing just that, but I figure that if they're thinking along these lines, then you may well be doing the same thing, and why not throw some suggestions out there for the benefit of all? Right?

That said, here are some suggestions:

1. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization as a spine.

This book has eleven chapters, as follows:

I The Indispensable Church
II A Light in the Darkness
III How the Monks Saved Civilization
IV The Church and the University
V The Church and Science
VI Art, Architecture and the Church
VII The Origins of International Law
VIII The Church and Economics
IX How Catholic Charity Changed the World
X The Church and Western Law
XI The Church and Western Morality
Conclusion: A World Without God

As is clear from the chapter titles, this isn't so much a chronological history as a history of origins, according to category. Actually, looking at the chapters, I can imagine an entire curriculum emanating from this one book and branching out into science, economics, fine arts, civics and so forth. But this would work well as a text for Western Civ. The chapters are meaty enough for high-schoolers that you could spread one chapter out over several weeks, as a unit, and include supplemental readings from primary sources, biographies, historical novels, and the like.

For example, take Chapter II, "A Light in the Darkness." This chapter deals with the so-called "Dark Ages," from the fall of the Roman Empire through maybe the end of the 7th century, if not longer -- it used to be that the entire period from the fall of Rome to the rise of the Renaissance was labelled "dark," but as Professor Woods points out, this isn't really understood any more to be an accurate designation. At any rate, this chapter deals largely with the Merovingian and Carolingian Frankish dynasties -- think Charlemagne -- and the Church's work to effect some kind of order in a turbulent Europe.

So you might spread that chapter out over two or three weeks, and also assign maybe a choice of novels, so that they'd be reading some fiction alongside the history: Barbara Willard's Son of Charlemagne is a good, if rather easy option (IF they haven't already read it -- I imagine many of them have); and some primary-source material, like The Song of Roland, which was actually composed later (about 1130), but is the great French epic establishing France's lineage from Charlemagne. There's also Two Lives of Charlemagne, by Einhard and Notker, who were Charlemagne's contemporaries, but I haven't been able to find it as an e-text.

There's also King Alfred the Great in England, from roughly the same period -- Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse would be a good thing to read here.

For Chapter III, "How the Monks Saved Civilization," an obvious parallel reading would be selections from The Rule of St. Benedict. This would also be a good place to read Louis de Wohl's Citadel of God, a fictionalized life of St. Benedict, plus excerpts from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (I've already linked to one segment, Bede's story of the poet Caedmon).

Anyway, I could see organizing the course in terms of thematic units: Europe trying to sort itself out after the fall of Rome; monasticism and its impact on medieval culture; development of the university; science; law -- and so forth, using a combination of the "spine" book plus supplemental reading (and maybe projects to go with that reading), plus hands-on experiential learning, as in a history group.

2. The Teaching Company's "Foundations of Western Civilization" lecture series, by Prof. Thomas F.X. Noble of Notre Dame. We listened to the first part of this series last year at home -- the part dealing with ancient history, that is -- and have just started listening to Part 2, which deals with Rome (we're catching up a little bit!). Parts 3 and 4 of the series actually cover the time period dealt with in our English class. Starting with Lecture 25 (the beginning of Part 3), here are titles:

25 Late Antiquity -- Crisis and Response
26 Barbarians and Emperors
27 The Emergence of the Catholic Church
28 Christian Culture in Late Antiquity
29 Muhammad and Islam
30 The Birth of Byzantium
31 Barbarian Kingdoms in the West
32 The World of Charlemagne
33 The Carolingian Renaissance
34 The Expansion of Europe
35 The Chivalrous Society
36 Medieval Political Traditions

(begin Part 4)

37 Medieval Political Traditions II
38 Scholastic Culture
39 Vernacular Cultre
40 The Crisis of Renaissance Europe
41 The Renaissance Problem
42 Renaissance Portraits
43 The Northern Renaissance
44 The Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther
45 The Protestant Reformation: John Calvin
46 Catholic Reforms and "Confessionalization"
47 Exploration and Empire
48 What Challenges Remain?

Pretty comprehensive, as you can see, and more or less chronological -- certainly more so than the Woods book. Teaching Company resources can be expensive -- offhand I can't remember how much we paid for these tapes, but I'm fairly sure they were on sale (they do have good sales). The lectures are also available as DVDs, with lots of visuals, but those are pricier. Most TC lecture series are also available as audio downloads, for the same price as the audiotape version. Visit their website to check things out. If several families go in on the price of a course, something like this might be a reasonable investment.

Anyway, again, you could listen to a lecture weekly, then assign other readings and projects to accompany it.

So those are some thoughts on putting together a history course to accompany English. I'll also be posting timelines and notes as we move through our study of literature, so the two can supplement each other quite nicely. If anyone wants to brainstorm, feel free to post comments, and we can converse about it.

UPDATE: Another thought: I'll check The Baldwin Project for more historical fiction/reading for these periods. I know it's there. That's where some of our versions of the Iliad, Aeneid, etc., came from last year.

If You Like Actual Books, and You Don't Want to Read Online . . .

2008-08-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

As I've said before, everything we're reading this year is available as an e-text, and I'll be linking to everything you need. But should you want to own books to cover this Anglo-Saxon business . . . well, there are plenty of editions and translations of Beowulf out there, and pretty much any one will do. I'm going to work from the e-text myself, because I figure that that's what will be most readily available to most people, but if we have different versions, we'll just compare and contrast. Not a problem. It's also possible to find anthologies with Anglo-Saxon riddles, and both Caedmon's Hymn and "The Dream of the Rood" are quite famous as well and likely to turn up in anthologies and texts. I can't guarantee, however, that your book, if you have one, will have the same riddles that I'm going to assign -- I do like being able to make my own customize online textbook, choosing what I want us to read.

I would highly recommend NOT reading straight from the computer too much, however. My optometrist says that this is very very bad. He furthermore says that you should make yourself a little sign that says "BLINK!" and tape it to your computer to remind you, because apparently when you're staring at the computer you don't blink, and this is also very very bad for your eyes. So anyway, especially with something long like Beowulf, print it out beforehand (yes, the whole thing), and put it in a binder or page protectors or something. Come to think of it, maybe the best plan is to get a ring binder and a hole punch and just keep adding printouts of the readings as they come up, and at the end of the year you will have a very nifty textbook to, um, cherish for years to come?

Readings and Links for Unit I: Those Sword-Swinging, Rood-Dreaming, Riddling, Kenning, Hymn-Writing Anglo-Saxons!

2008-08-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

Anglo-Saxon Riddles from The Exeter Book: I will assign a few of these. Solutions available.

Riddle-Poems and How to Make Them

Caedmon's Hymn, with notes

Optional primary text for history: Bede's Story of Caedmon. Includes a link to an audio file of Caedmon's Hymn read aloud in Anglo-Saxon. Highly recommended!

The Dream of the Rood, modern English translation

Beowulf:

digital images of the Beowulf manuscript

Beowulf in Hypertext: site with the entire text in either Anglo-Saxon or modern English; notes, characters, history, self-quiz, etc.

On Wednesdays we will devote ourselves to grammar, working our way through reading and quizzes at the online Guide to Grammar and Writing. We'll start at sentence level and work our way out to the essay-and-research-paper level. This doesn't mean we won't be writing essays during this time -- there will be a 5-paragraph essay due at the end of the unit, and we will be reviewing essay form and conventions, especially for the benefit of those who weren't with us last year.

I haven't put actual lessons on the calendar yet, but this unit should take up the month of September and possibly a little of October. The Anglo-Saxons are great fun! Stay tuned, and if you haven't signed up for our online discussion group yet, DO IT NOW.

Still Time to Sign Up

2008-08-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

We have one section of Beowulf to Paradise: English literature from the Anglo-Saxons through Milton still open for registration. If everyone who said they were signing up actually signs up, we'll have a class of 10, and I'd take as many as 15 before closing registration. So if you're a homeschooled high-schooler or have one in your house, sign up -- it's free -- and send a few of your friends our way as well. Just click the link in the sidebar to visit our yahoo site and join the discussion group. Class will begin the day after Labor Day.

The syllabus is coming together: we'll kick off the year with those sword-swinging Saxons (and Geats, and Ring-Danes, and man-eating monsters and their big bad mamas), plus some grammar and fun writing exercises to ease us back into gear. I'll be posting assignments, notes and links here on the blog, so even if you're not registered to participate in discussion via our yahoo group, you can still use the resources here to enhance your own study of English literature. To make life even easier, all this year's reading and other work, including grammar, will be available online, so that while you might choose to buy books, you don't have to. It will all be right here for you, as you need it.

All the resources here are free and available for anyone to use, any time. If you'd like to help support this site, we've now added a Paypal "Donate" button in the sidebar. There's no obligation to make any kind of monetary commitment or contribution here -- we want the site to be accessible and available and useful to all, without cost -- but if you'd like to contribute, there it is, and the Abandon Hopefully homeschooling family certainly thanks you for making it easier to for us to continue bringing you this service.

More History Suggestions

2008-07-27T04:22:00.001-07:00

A number of folks out there, including me, like to integrate literature with history. To me it makes sense to study literature chronologically, hand-in-hand with history, to get a sense that what we read didn't simply spring out of nowhere, but belongs to a continuous tradition, with which it's in constant conversation -- that's why you have a 20th-century poet like W.B. Yeats alluding to the Trojan War when writing about the Easter Uprising of 1916. Other curricula, notably Mother of Divine Grace, operate on this same idea -- I guess the difference here is that my natural tendency is to foreground the literature and have the history serve to help us understand it, instead of the other way round.

So! We will continue to do lots of history here, with "lectures" on historical context, plus links to timelines and other handy resources for the study of history. Use of those resources can definitely be put down as part of "history class," if you're needing to differentiate for record-keeping purposes. We have also found that having some kind of supplemental "spine" for history enhances our study greatly (and also gives us something to say when people ask what we do for "history"). Here's a list of books and other resources we have used and/or plan to use this year:

Textbooks: I really do like this "Christendom" series by Warren Carroll, though the student in my house finds them tedious to read. I'm planning to do some reading aloud from them, to make them go down better. The Building of Christendom, The Glory of Christendom and The Cleaving of Christendom would all cover the time periods of the literature we're studying, though I'm not sure a high-schooler would necessarily read them all cover to cover.

Other books:
We plan to use Thomas Woods's How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization -- it's a less difficult read for a high-school student than the Carroll books and offers a good overview of events of the "Dark" and Middle Ages with, obviously, an emphasis on the Church's role in history.

Lectures:
We love the Teaching Company! Their products can be pricey, but they run frequent sales, and many of their series are available as audio downloads. Additionally, many public libraries carry Teaching Company cassettes, CDs and DVDs.

For an overview of history to accompany our studies in literature we've been using a series called "Foundations of Western Civilization," with a Notre Dame professor, Dr. Thomas F.X. Noble. His lectures are lively and full of information, and we've run across nothing that would be inappropriate for a high-schooler. We listened to Part I of the series last year for ancient history and will begin this year with Part II. Mine are packed right now, so I can't verify that I'm remembering correctly, but I think there are four parts in all, so we may well listen to them all this year. Last year we listened to one a week, and it offered a good opportunity to experience what a college lecture might be like (albeit a really, really entertaining one -- they're not always that zippy in real life!).

I am planning this year in our homeschool to schedule in a history slot two or three days a week to allow for several hours' reading or listening in history as well as what's being read for English. That will give us the opportunity to use a "spine" for history and to read some primary source material as well that won't be assigned as part of English. Primary source material might include excerpts from some of hte following:

Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Froissart's Chronicles (carefully edited -- some of Froissart is a bit much for high-schoolers)
Machiavelli's The Prince
Castiglione's The Courtier

I will be looking for primary sources in e-text form to add to our lit syllabus as suggested reading for history. That just means it won't be an English assignment, but Mom can say, "Do this for history today."

I'll be back by mid-August with a more detailed syllabus for the year, including links to online texts. If you're planning to do the whole online-class thing, we'll be starting the day after Labor Day, with daily assignments and prompts for online discussion.

Wishing everyone a good summer, and looking forward to an exciting new year!

Support This Site: Shop the Abandon Hopefully Bookstore

2008-07-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Abandon Hopefully Amazon Bookstore in the sidebar has just been updated with new titles for the next school year. Using it, however, may be a little tricky. I'm not sure why, but some of my "categories," such as "10th Grade Booklist," have gotten hidden under other subcategories, which makes them difficult to find. So . . .

IF you want to buy books for next year (which you don't have to, but you certainly MAY), for the "Beowulf to Paradise" seminar, you will need to click on the bookstore widget in the sidebar and then, when you have the cyberstore on your screen, look for "Latin" off to the right. This makes no sense whatsoever, and I'm not sure how I managed to set things up this way, but if you click on Latin, you will see "10th Grade Booklist" as a subcategory. Click on that to shop for books.

If you are looking for history-themed books to complement our chronological study of literature, click on "Resources for Teaching English." You will then see "If You're Integrating History With English," or something to that effect, as a subcategory. There are more books I want to add, but already you'll find a fairly thorough inventory of historical novels, mainly, to pair with the various periods whose literature we'll be studying. I plan to add some more primary sources as well.

Again, you don't HAVE to buy any books at all, as everything we're studying this year is in the public domain and available in free e-text format. And of course if you do want to buy books, you don't have to buy them through this medium. It's worth considering, however, that enrollment in our online classes and use of everything on this blog is FREE. This is our ministry and our gift to anyone who finds this site, and we don't ask for anything in return. When anyone buys a book through any Amazon button on this site, however, we do get a little kickback which is much appreciated -- generally it goes right into more books for the Abandon Hopefully homeschooling household!

So if you CAN, and you were planning to buy books for English for the coming year, please consider making your purchases through our Amazon store. We will be most grateful.

Summer Reading

2008-07-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

Mrs. T is moving and is consequently a little behind on her booklist-making and other English classwork. But just so you know that I haven't forgotten you, here are some summer-reading suggestions to stave off brain atrophy:

Great Myths of the World, Padraic Colum: Celtic, Finnish, Icelandic myths

Available online here, under the original title, Orpheus: Myths of the World. Just scroll down past the introduction and click on the appropriate chapters to read.

Good titles to read for historical context, in chronological order from the Anglo-Saxon era in England:

Beowulf the Warrior, Ian Seraillier
Citadel of God, Louis de Wohl
Ballad of the White Horse, GK Chesterton
Murder in the Cathedral, TS Eliot (verse play)
The Talisman, Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
King John, William Shakespeare
The Joyful Beggar, Louis de Wohl
The Quiet Light, Louis de Wohl
Lay Siege to Heaven, Louis de Wohl
Kristen Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset (some mature themes, but overall a very high-quality, good book set in the Middle Ages)
Mantlemass Series, Barbara Willard
Man for All Seasons (play -- there is also a very good movie)
The King's Achievement, Benson)
Lepanto, GK Chesterton
St. Edmund Campion, Evelyn Waugh
Come Rack, Come Rope,Benson
Children of the New Forest
Outlaws of Ravenhurst

These can also be read as part of European history (covering the Dark Ages through the period of the English Civil War) during the school year, but reading a selection of these titles over the summer would set the stage nicely for our literary reading beginning in the fall.

Here is a preliminary list of what we will be reading, divided into large units:

Anglo-Saxon literature:

Caedmon's "Hymn"
"The Dream of the Rood"
Anglo-Saxon riddles and short poems
Beowulf

Middle Ages/Middle English

"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
other Middle English poems
the mystery play
selections from The Canterbury Tales

Renaissance:

the development of the sonnet
Shakespeare

17th Century:

metaphysical and Cavalier poets
Milton

As you can see, the year will be divided into four large quarters, each devoted to a particular age in English literature. A more detailed syllabus with links to e-texts will follow closer to the beginning of the school year. This syllabus will also include grammar and composition assignments, and I will include further suggestions for history reading to accompany the literature.

Everyone should find at least a couple of books on this list to read over the summer, to whet your appetite for what lies ahead!

Online Class Update

2008-06-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

We now have two sections of Beowulf to Paradise: one for members of our local homeschool group (this section will have an in-real-life component), and one for all other interested parties (this section will take place completely online).

We also have our J.R.R. Tolkien discussion group up and running, as of today. I believe the Moderator-in-Chief wants to hit the ground running with a discussion of The Silmarillion, so join now!

To register for any of these classes/groups, click the links in the sidebar. Registration is absolutely free. I will soon be adding to the books available in the Abandon Hopefully Amazon e-store, so if you want to support this site and its work, buying your books through our e-store is one excellent way to do that.

I will also shortly be posting the syllabus and summer reading for Beowulf to Paradise, so people can get a head start on a challenging year.

One Online Class Up and Running: Register Now!

2008-05-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

If you took my in-real-life co-op class this year,and/or you're a member of our real-life homeschool group, you are cordially invited to register NOW for next year's class, Beowulf to Paradise. Click the link in the sidebar to access the private Yahoo group where discussion will take place. I will be working on getting the calendar feature and a class directory going soon.

If you did NOT take my in-real-life class this year, but want to take Beowulf to Paradise, please sign up for the second secion, also linked in the sidebar. I'm limiting the first section to students in our in-real-life homeschool group partly for their parents' peace of mind, and partly because there will be an occasional in-real-life component to that class, while the second section will be purely online. I'm working on the database for that section as well and should soon have some calendar dates and other features going.

I have not so far had interest in a section of ancient and classical literature: if you're interested, please let me know in the comments section on this post, and I will start a group for that.

We'll also shortly be opening up registration for a JRR Tolkien seminar, moderated by a friend who's something of a self-made Tolkien scholar. This group would be open to adults, college students, and high-school seniors looking for an in-depth study of one author, and discussion at a more rigorous level.

Gentle Reminder

2008-05-27T06:02:00.000-07:00

Exams are due to me, by email, at 5 pm sharp. PLEASE allow yourself some extra time for tech malfunctions.

Also remember that if you're doing an extra-credit project of any kind, tomorrow is the due date.

For class tomorrow, why don't we plan to bring in any word-related games we might happen to have, which can be played in a large group. I have some game ideas as well . . .

Don't forget to keep watching this site for information about next year's online classes.

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow -- and thanks for a wonderful year!

End-of-Year Take-Home Exam

2008-05-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

You will return your exam responses to me by email -- sallytslc AT hotmail DOT com -- by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 27.

All answers are to be in essay form, preferably the 5-paragraph format.

Required question:

Choose ONE -- Antigone, Pygmalion, The Aeneid, The Restless Flame, or Helena -- and explain how it corresponds to the exposition/rising action/climax/falling action/denouement model of dramatic structure. In other words, explain what the exposition is, how the action rises to a climax (and what that climax is and how it changes things), how problems get sorted out in the falling action and resolved in the denouement.

Choose TWO of the following questions to answer in essay form:

1. You are Octavius Caesar. Your good friend Vergil has just died, and on his deathbed he has decreed that his epic, The Aeneid, be destroyed. You have chosen not to honor his wishes. In a well-developed 5-paragraph essay, explain why. (You may use "I" and "me" in this essay).

2. In a five-paragraph essay, define the "tragic hero" and explain how three characters from the works we have read this year correspond to this definition.

3. If you read The Four Loves, define what Lewis asserts as the highest form of love, and in a five-paragraph essay explain why that kind of love is superior to all others.

4. If you read Crito, write a five-paragraph essay explaining the relationship of the individual to the state.

5. Discuss the use of metaphor and parallelism in Psalm 22, as these devices reinforce the speaker's argument with God.

For this exam, you MAY use your books and class notes. You may NOT use Google or any other internet aid in answering these questions; the only online resource allowed are e-texts, if that's what you used to read your assignments. No SparkNotes, no outside help of any kind. You are on your honor and will pledge at the end of your exam that you used ONLY the texts and your notes in completing the exam.

You MAY ask me for help in clarifying what the questions are asking you to do. If you do have questions, submit them as comments on this post, because often in answering one person's question, I'm really answering it for several people. Your questions can help others, and their questions may help you.

The more you have to say, the better your answers will be.

Julius Caesar (1979 TV)-Brutus,Antony funeral orations (pt1)

2008-04-30T15:09:00.001-07:00

You can compare this production with the outdoor one whose Antony oration is posted below. Also compare Brutus's speech with Antony's.

Marc Antony funeral oration from

2008-04-30T15:00:00.001-07:00

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1979 TV) - Caesar assasinated

2008-04-30T14:54:00.001-07:00

Julius Caesar the Highly Condensed Version

2008-04-30T14:47:00.001-07:00

Back to Shakespeare, and That Play About Romans

2008-04-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

We've been reading Julius Caesar -- everyone should have finished the play by next week. So far we've had some entertaining and lively written responses to Acts I-IV: some tabloid news articles, some cartoons, some historical-novel chapters placing a fictitious young protagonist on the scene in Rome in 44 BC . . . keep them coming. A very large hat tip to Margot Davidson of Hillside Education for her list of interesting alternatives to the summary paragraph, and also to Maureen Wittman, with whom the idea the historical novel/young protagonist thing originated.

Here is an interesting article about Shakespeare and the question of religion. The question of religion here, incidentally, has to do with Shakespeare himself: was he Catholic? Protestant? Or what?

Also, here is a timeline laying out the history of Tudor England, reviewing what we covered in earlier posts and moving ahead into the eras of the Protestant Edward VI, Catholic Mary I, and Protestant-via-media poster girl Elizabeth I. Read it.

I had asked, in my earlier posts, Why a play about Romans?, and really, my narrating of Tudor history was by way of trying to answer that question. The century preceding Shakespeare's era was one in which England experienced ongoing disorder, which was really an ongoing struggle to restore order (the struggle was all about who was going to be on top). Ultimately the Tudors ended that struggle -- Henry VII came out on top at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and his progeny stayed more or less firmly in that position until the line died out with Elizabeth in 1603. So in England the hierarchy was settled -- except that thirty years before Shakespeare was born, Henry VIII threw another spanner into the works by severing his ties with Rome and upsetting a heretofore-more-or-less-settled spiritual order. The reigns of Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth were in essence about the playing-out of consequences from that upset, and of yet another struggle to restore order (and would it be the old -- Catholic -- order, or the new Protestant one?).

So what you have to ask yourself is, How does all this resonate with Rome in 44 BC? What kinds of parallels can we draw? If we can answer these questions, then we can begin to understand at least one level at which Julius Caesar would speak to an Elizabethan audience.

Meanwhile, don't forget our handy literary terms:

protagonist/tragic hero
round character
flat character
foil
soliloquy
hubris
foreshadowing
metaphor/imagery
iambic pentameter

for more information on iambic pentameter and other questions of poetic meter and form (via cool interactive tutorials), check out this site or this one for a straightforward explanation.

For a review of five-act dramatic structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denoument), read this.

Julius Caesar: Why a Play About Romans? Part the Second

2008-04-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

All right, so from 1487 on, we have a Tudor king in England. You may not think that any of this is going to answer the question, "Why a play about Romans," but just wait. Just wait.

Henry VII reigns until his death in 1509. He and his Queen, Elizabeth of York (now the Tudors have this nifty emblem with two roses, red and white, for happy unified no-more-war England) have two sons, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Henry. Arthur they have married off to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, Spain being a powerful and happening place, and also potentially mega-rich, since Columbus so usefully discovers the New World for them in 1492. The idea is that at some point an English heir may have a shot at that yummy Spanish throne . . . whereas the Spanish are, and increasingly will be, eyeing the English throne in much the same way.

Alas for Catherine of Aragon, Arthur predeceases his father, and his brother Henry steps to the front of the line for the English throne. When Henry VII dies in 1509, young Henry is crowned Henry VIII -- and he also marries Catherine, his brother's widow. All is well . . . except that they have only one surviving child, a girl named Mary.

Meanwhile, on the European continent, something of a revolution is taking place. In 1517, a monk named Martin Luther nails his "95 Theses" to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, protesting the Catholic Church's practices regarding indulgences for souls in Purgatory. Thus begins what is generally known as the "Protestant Reformation," in which a generally accepted spiritual order becomes unsettled in deep and lasting ways. It is worth noting that Henry opposes and denounces Luther's actions -- in fact, in 1521, Pope Leo X bestows on him the title "Defender of the Faith" in recognition of Henry's postion against the Protestant movement. Incidentally, the English monarch still bears this title, though Prince Charles has suggested that he would rather be known as "Defender of Faith" -- defender of your right to be a druid, or a cat-worshipper, or a person who waves crystals over people's bodies to redirect their energies, or whatever. But Henry, it is fairly clear, is interested in defending the Catholic faith.

Until. Well, he is never not interested in being Catholic; he simply becomes uninterested in spiritual authority which impedes his doing what good sense and ambition demand. This, incidentally, is nothing new: kings in England and elsewhere throughout the Middle Ages have striven with popes and archbishops over questions of authority, occasionally even besieging Rome and taking the pope prisoner. The pope, for his own part, maintains an army and generally behaves as a player in the geopolitical sphere, and not merely as a spiritual leader. So it's good to realize that a) Henry's argument with Rome has long historical precedent, and b) quite possibly nobody expects it actually to "take" in any lasting way.

What happens is this: Henry and Catherine of Aragon have one surviving child, a girl. England has never seen a female heir ascend the throne, and Henry in many ways is a man of tradition. He certainly does not want an heir whose legitimacy can be questioned in any way. He wants -- a son. So, Catherine failing to deliver, so to speak, he begins to cast his eye about . . . and it falls on one of Catherine's ladies -in-waiting, Anne Boleyn.

In 1529, Henry seeks an annulment of his marriage to Catherine (thereby declaring his daughter Mary illegitimate), on the grounds that her having been his brother's wife renders her marriage to him invalid. In this year he appoints as his Chancellor the brilliant lawyer Sir Thomas More, and -- finding the pope less than cooperative in granting the expected annulment -- begins to extricate himself from his bond to Rome.

In 1532, seeing Henry determined to settle his own marital fate in spite of the Pope, More resigns his Chancellorship.

In 1533, Henry marries Anne Boleyn and is promptly excommunicated by Pope Clement VII.

In 1534, the Act of Supremacy declares Henry supreme head of the Church in England, and every householder in the land is required to sign an Oath of Supremacy acknowledging such.

In 1535, Thomas More (whom we now know as Saint Thomas More) is beheaded for refusing to sign the Oath of Supremacy. Also executed is Saint John Fisher, the sole bishop to refuse to sign the Act.

In the midst of all this fuss, Anne Boleyn, now Queen, gives birth to . . . a girl, Elizabeth. Having let Henry down so grievously, she can hardly expect to sustain his interest in her, and before long, his eye begins to wander again. It falls on the lovely Jane Seymour, and . . .

In 1536 Anne is beheaded on trumped-up treason charges. Henry marries Jane, who in due time, renders unto him -- a son and heir, Edward. Of course, she dies in childbirth, which only seals his everlasting affection for her.

A king needs a queen, however, and in 1540 Henry contracts to marry a German princess, Anne of Cleves. He is told that she is very good-looking (and has a great personality), but on her arrival, he finds her to be unacceptably plain and quickly divorces her (he can do that now). He promptly turns around and marries Catherine Howard, who is pretty but apparently something of a party girl who has a hard time remembering what that ring on her finger means, exactly. So in 1542, out she goes, and off with her head. In 1543 Henry marries Catherine Parr, who to the amazement of all subsequent generations, survives him as his wife.

Meanwhile, since 1534, Henry has been busy consolidating his position as Supreme Head of the Church of England. He seizes monastery lands and property and rewards his supporters with lovely new estates featuring views of picturesque abbey cloisters. He has Carthusian monks of the London Charterhouse chained to gateposts and left to starve. On the other hand, though severed from Rome and bereft of monastic culture, England remains a functionally Catholic society.

In 1547, Henry dies. What happens next remains to be seen . . .

Julius Caesar: Why a Play About Romans?

2008-04-17T07:13:00.001-07:00

Term papers are in, and it's Shakespeare time. Next week's assignment: Julius Caesar, Acts I and II, with one of the following 10-sentence-minimum writing assignments:
*a paragraph summarizing the action in Acts I and II

*a diary in which you pretend to be Brutus or Cassius, commenting on events in Acts I and II

*a letter to one of the characters asking questions, protesting a situation, or making a suggestion

*a tabloid news story covering events in Acts I and II

*a comic strip with dialogue depicting a major scene in this part of the play

HT Margot Davidson at Hillside Education for the writing ideas

Meanwhile, let's talk Shakespeare. Let's particularly ask ourselves, "Why a play about Romans?"

For starters, let's look at the time in which Shakespeare lived (click here for a timeline). Born in 1564, dying in 1616, Shakespeare lived smack in the middle of an era we now call "The Renaissance," a French word meaning "rebirth." Of course, people living during this period -- roughly 1400-1650, depending on which part of Europe we're talking about -- didn't call it that; they didn't ask each other in the street, "Well, how do you think this Renaissance is going?" And calling it that is a little disingenuous of us, because in truth, it's not as though culture had ever died and then had to be revived from the ashes.

Many of us were taught in school that the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of the Renaissance was a near-millennium in which people did nothing but grunt and lie in the mud, but this isn't an accurate picture of the Middle Ages. Most importantly for our purposes, it's not as though knowledge of the literature and philosophy -- the culture-on-paper (or vellum, as it turned out) -- of the classical era had disappeared. For this we have a lot of anonymous monks to thank, as it was their copying of works for monastic libraries which preserved at least fragments of a culture which had been largely otherwise lost, and would have been utterly lost to the West without their efforts.

Among the manuscripts preserved from the Roman era was Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This work, which paired the lives of famous Romans with those of prominent ancient Greeks, and which enjoyed a wide circulation in Italy, inspired a renewal of interest in all things classical. An English translation by Sir Thomas North in 1579 brought that fascination to England and a wealth of dramatic possibility to Shakespeare's desk.

So one answer to "Why a play about Romans" would be: Romans were IN.

But there's another answer to be found -- at least one other than I can think of right now. That answer lies in the parallels we can draw between the Roman world, as it transitioned from Republic to Empire (not without a certain amount of power struggle), and the world into which Shakespeare was born. We'll come back and examine the world of Caesar later, but for now, let's lay out some English history.

Despite the apparent orderliness of a hierarchical Medieval, feudal society -- king, nobles, serfs/pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests -- life in England for centuries had been anything but orderly. In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, had overthrown the last Saxon king, united England under his own rule, established a Catholic culture more in line with that of the continent by installing his own Archbishop of Canterbury, and brought us words like, I don't know . . . "fleur de lis," for example. And he saved subsequent generations of English women from having to be named Elfleda and Walburga. So, yay for William, except that in the decades following the Norman Conquest, England still endured round after round of civil war not to mention the longer-term legacy of the Hundred Years War, actually a series of wars in the 1300s and 1400s, between England and France, which attempted to answer the age-old question, "Who gets to rule everything?"

Meanwhile, in the late 1400s, that same question arose closer to home. The Wars of the Roses were a series of battles in a 30-year tug-of-war for the English throne between the House of York, whose emblem was a red rose, and the House of Lancaster, whose rose was white. A Lancastrian, Henry Bolingbroke, had overthrown King Richard II, the last of the Plantagenet kings, and established what proved to be a short-lived dynasty. He ruled as Henry IV, and was succeeded by his son, Henry V. Henry V was a popular king and a war hero -- some of the greatest English victories in the ongoing Hundred Years' War are credited to him. But he died young and suddenly, at the age of 35, and was succeeded by his infant son, also named Henry.

The new Henry VI, being a baby, could not very well rule a country; his regent -- the grownup who ruled in his name -- was Richard, Duke of York. Generally the idea of a regent is that he supports you, the child-ruler, until you come of age, and then he steps gracefully out of the way to make room for you to be king in action as well as name. Alas, things often don't turn out quite this way. One glitch in the career of Henry VI was that he grew up not to be a competent king, but a mental patient of sorts. Even when he reached the age of competence, he wasn't fit to rule. Another glitch was that the York faction, headed by Duke Richard, really liked the idea of crowning one of their own. The Yorks rose against Henry, overthrew him, and installed Richard's son Edward as King Edward IV.

Edward and the ineffectual Henry (or the ineffectual Henry's rather less ineffectual supporters) tussled back and forth, with Henry's returning to the throne for a short period before Edward overthrew him again and had him murdered. More tussling between the Yorks and Lancasters ended in the crowning of Edward's brother Richard, Duke of York like his father, as the new King Richard III. This was the result of some tussling within the House of York as well -- Edward had had young sons, presumptive heirs to the throne, who mysteriously disappeared on their uncle Richard's way to coronation. Whether Richard was really the villainous monster which history -- helped by a very exciting play by one William Shakespeare -- has made him out to be . . . well, that is another story.

The story we're interested in right now is the tale of what happened next. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond and a Lancastrian, rose against Richard. At the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, Richard was defeated and slain, and Henry became King Henry VII. Marrying Elizabeth of York solidified his claim to the throne, and from 1487 England was united under a new dynasty: the Tudors.

Next time: Oh, Those Tudors!

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