The day began with an interesting devotion Mrs. Loconte found on YouTube about fearing the right things, and how we shouldn't be afraid to attempt great things for God.
Afterward, we all pulled out the handout sheet on Understanding Satire in Gulliver's Travels and briefly went over the answers and discussed them. In doing so, we learned all about persona, wit, and irony.
Later on, we talked in great depth about Jonathan Swift's great essay "A Modest Proposal" about the benefits of eating poor Irish babies during the potato famine. We discussed both the satirical nature of the essay and the objectivity/rationality that Swift presents within his arguments. It is almost frightening how Swift can turn a phrase so well that it numbs a reader to the fact that he is actually suggesting people eat their own babies.
Finally, after we had discussed eating babies in great detail, we moved on to short, hunchbacked Alexander Pope and his anti-epic mockery "The Rape of Lock". In this anti-epic, Pope describes an incident where a young man cuts off two curls from a girl's head, nearly sparking a family feud. The way he writes the poem in the style of an epic though, suggests that the incident was far more important than it actually was.
For Homework Tonight:
- Finish the "Rape of Lock"
-Read "Rape of Lock" handout/notes
-Do reading check questions
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