Socratic Circles and a Birthday of Note.

Once upon a time, Socrates had an idea.

If he allowed students to have structured dialogues between themselves, he theorized, they might, just might, come up with some intelligent ideas of their own in the discussion.

Socrates believed that it was important for students to think for themselves instead of just having him fill their head with alleged "correct" answers.

A good Socratic seminar suspends biases and allows students to listen and question each other based on a discussion. The discussion is exploratory; that is, there is no specific "end point" that has to be reached in the discussion.





In today's discussion, several good points were made throughout the discussion. Characters, symbolism and the idea of authority were discussed, along with whether or not cockroaches have eyelids.

A character development question was raised: Why didn't Gregor Samsa leave?

So, what were your opinions of the Socratic Circle? Do you have any suggestions on how it could have been improved? Did you learn anything from this experience?

For Homework:

We will have our Irish Literary Festival on Friday.
If you can find a poem, literary piece, or biographical information on an Irish author, bring it along.




Today is also the birthday of Jack Kerouac, born Jean-Louis Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts (1922). He was part of the "Beat Generation," and he came up with the name. He said, "To me, it meant being poor, like sleeping in the subways ... and yet being illuminated and having illuminated ideas about apocalypse and all that." Later, Kerouac decided that "beat" stood for "beatific."

His parents were from French-speaking Quebec, and he did not start learning English until grade school. He skipped second and third grades, and as a 16-year-old senior, he ditched class in order to go alone to the public library and read what he wanted: Hugo, Goethe, Hemingway, William Saroyan, Thomas Wolfe, history books, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and books of chess problems. He was a good football player and received a scholarship to Columbia University, but he broke his leg in the first season and didn't play anymore. He dropped out of Columbia, joined the Merchant Marine and then the Navy, and was given a psychiatric discharge after only two months, having been labeled as a "schizoid personality." The next fall, he went back to Columbia where he dropped out again almost immediately, but kept his apartment near campus and it became a gathering place for young intellectuals. During that time, he met Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Carl Solomon, Neal Cassady, and others who would help found the Beat Movement.

He spent the next seven years hitchhiking around the United States and Mexico, and in 1949 he and his friend Neal Cassady drove a Cadillac limousine from California to Chicago, going over 100 miles an hour on two-lane roads until the speedometer broke. In 1951, he sat at his kitchen table, taped sheets of Chinese art paper together to make a long roll, and wrote the story of Cassady and their trips. It had no paragraphs and very little punctuation. Allen Ginsberg called it "a magnificent single paragraph several blocks long, rolling, like the road itself." It took him only three weeks to complete and became his novel On the Road (1957).

Kafka and Zeno's Paradox

As you know, this is an English class, not a Math class. But sometimes, especially in works of sureralism or magical realism, philisophical or mathmatical paradoxes can act as supporting actors in framing the text. Think of how Zeno's Paradox could frame some of the the ideas of conflict in "The Metamorphosis"

Zeno's Paradox may be paraphrased as follows:

Suppose I wish to cross the room. First, of course, I must cover half the distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then I must cover half the remaining distance . . . and so on forever. The consequence is that I can never get to the other side of the room.

What this actually does is to make all motion impossible, for before I can cover half the distance I must cover half of half the distance, and before I can do that I must cover half of half of half of the distance, and so on, so that in reality I can never move any distance at all, because doing so involves moving an infinite number of small intermediate distances first.

So, we never get anywhere.

Motion is impossible.

See what biographical information you can unearth about Kafka that might contribute to the tone of "The Metamorphosis." How would social,political, and personal factors convey Kafka's view of life through his literature?

After watching the Salvador Dali video in class, I was astounded at the way motion was used in conjunction with the surealistic images. What did you think? Did Dali convey a message or was it all unconscoius mumbo-jumbo?

The Theory of Everything: From Thursday's class

Due to popluar demand, here is the info from Thursday.

REMINDER: Take home test due Monday. Answer 2 questions: 1 Poetry and 1 Macbeth.

HOMEWORK: Read Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and annotate.

Literary Theory: Paradigm
*A framework of generally accepted assumptions and perspectives
*An example or pattern
*Relationship to accepted ideas is understood within the profession
*Allows research without continual justification of methodology (ex. Copernicus)

Paradigms in Literature
*Can you get meaning from a text through a paradigm?
*Can using a “methodology” lead to authentic interpretation?

Paradigm vs Theory
*Theory= nothing “goes without saying”
*Each and every term must be defined and re-defined contextually
*Terms such as “gender politics”, “political propaganda”, “phallocentric” – reflective of theory

Why Theory?
*No consensus exists about a canon
*People, critics (yes, they are people too) theorize in analysis
*Analysis & theory replace paradigms

Three questions when readingWhy, What, How?

*Why read literature?
*Literature attempts to bring together in a system of values which transcend class, economy, race, gender

Theory of Everything

*What should we read?
*Do we want to change the world or merely learn about it?

How should we read?

*Is interpretation the same for every reader?
*Private associations and public meaning
*Persona / person

Educational lolcats

WARNING: This may have no educational value whatsoever.....











Jane Austen has one.....
Mr Darcy! !














If you take AP Physics,
You may recognize Schroedinger's lolcat.







Shakespeare has a lolcat too....
















While in the midst of reading student tomes
I came upon a common theme
Why? asked the writers if as one
Does the Bard use end rhyme in his sceme?
I will not try to answer that.
Instead I'll leave you with lolcats.

Imagist Poetry

IMAGISM & IMAGIST POETRY

"Imagism" refers to a poetic movement in the early 20th century. Imagist work, which rejected the formal poetic structure of Romantic and Victorian poetry, was a precursor to Modernism.

Imagist poetry is characterized by precise imagery, and clear, sharp language. Ezra Pound, considered one of the founders of Imagist poetry, said that the poetry relied on "luminous details" to isolate a single image to convey its essence, and thus its meaning.

Imagists were influenced by the ancient Japanese poetic form of haiku, which focused the mind on one image.


Compare:

This is an excerpt of Victorian poet William Ernest Henley's Invictus -

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

Compare this with Ezra Pound's In a Station of the Metro-

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

(This is the whole poem)

What images does Pound evoke in your mind?

This poetic movement existed at the same time as avant-garde visual arts were developing.

See if you can identify painters who were producing work at the same time as Pound ( 1915-17) and which artistic movement they are associated with.


(Carafe, Jug & Fruit Bowl, Picasso 1909 [l] ; Violin & Palette, Braque 1909[r])

Upcoming in English 12AP

I have included a lolcat as a way to raise the collective cultural consciousness of our class....if you can find the source of this lolcat's reference, you will get extra bonus points.... (meaningless on your overall AP exam score, of course, but hey)



This week, we will conclude our discussion of Shakespeare's Macbeth with the following question:

Are there any "power couples" in recent history that might be compared to Lady Macbeth & her Thane? These don't necessarily have to be murderous or evil people, who have caused bloodshed; just a couple where the man seems to be driven by or changed (for better or worse) by the actions of his Lady.

Also consider this: What scenes would you add to the play? Many events are left for the audience to figure out on their own, such as Lady Macbeth's demise. What do you think will be the next step in the Malcolm/Macduff strategy?

There will be a take-home test on Thursday this week, which will consist of essays and interpretations of Macbeth, along with connections to the poems we have read as accompaniment pieces.

The poems will include:

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
"The Poison Tree" by William Blake
"Are There Not Fireflies" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"next to god of course america i" by e.e.cummings
"In a Station at the Metro" by Ezra Pound


The next unit we will read will include the following short stories (subject to availability) :

Kafka:
"The Metamorphosis"

Hemingway:
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"
"Hills Like White Elephants"
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

Joyce:
"The Dead"

To balance out the testosterone, we'll also read

Gilman:
"The Yellow Wallpaper"

Chopin:
"Story of an Hour"

Porter:
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"

We will be reading these works with a critical eye to look for themes of Identity.

There will be supplemental poetry readings as well. TBA.

There will be a literary analysis paper required for this unit.

Poem of the Day: Ezra Pound

You think it's easy being a poet? Well, it's not all Parisian garrets, fountain pens and rejection letters that poets suffer. Some poets actually go to jail. Poetry is a hard life, sometimes. Look at Ezra Pound, for instance.

Ezra Pound (1885-19720) was an expatriate poet, intellectual rabble-rouser, and one of the primary figures in the Modernist movement in poetry. He was a friend of T. S.Eliot, Ernest Hemingway and William Carlos Williams. He promoted their work along with the work of writers Robert Frost, James Joyce, and Marianne Moore. Pound met the poet William Butler Yeats in London, and acted as his secretary for a time.

In 1915, Pound published Cathay, an ostensible translation of several Chinese poems into free verse. Critics notes the more literal interpretation of the works by Pound's use of conversational diction. Pound's accuracy in the translations are often questioned, and the poems are seen more as a combination of meditations on violence and friendship with an effort to "rethink the nature of an English poem." (The Pound Era. New York: New Directions, 1971. 199).

Pound protested the U. S. involvement in WWII. In 1942, as an expatriate living in Italy, he began making radio broadcasts criticizing America's role in the war; some of his messages were heavily anti-Semitic. He was charged with treason against the U.S. and arrested in Italy. While he was interred in Pisa, Italy, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Pound began writing the Pisan Cantos while in an internment camp, which are seen as a reflection on his ruin, and the ruin of Europe after the war. In 1945, he was tried on the treason charges and found not guilty by mental defect.

Pound was then committed to St Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C. from 1946- 1958. upon his release, he returned to Italy, where he remained until his death in 1972.

Of America, Pound said "America is a lunatic asylum".

This is from Pound's Cathay

The River-Merchant's Wife

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.