Lustful Poetry

To my dearest fellow lit companions,

We have finally managed to go through another day! Today we started off with homework check and received a marble :) Most of the lit class we talked about Andrew Marvell and his lustful poem "To His Coy Mistress." As we analysed this poetry, we found the author quite creepy and desperate. Yet, it was very interesting to see how he often used "time" to express different imagery. Then we read Robert Herrick's bio and his poem, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time." We thought this poem was superior than the other poem,     since Herrick's poem was more general and profound. For homework, read Tribe of Ben, and Ben Johnson and why he has a tribe. Also read about his lost son. Do all the questions please! Have an amazing day :)

Religious Tangents

We started the class going over Holy Sonnet 10.  We went over the various meanings of the word ravish.  Then we moved on to Meditation 17, with its famous line, "no man is an island."  We learned about the three different comparisons in Meditation 17: a book, an island, and gold.  After that we talked about Herbert's Easter Wings.  First, Mrs. Loconte showed us that if you turn the poem on its side, it is shaped like two birds, representing the lark and falcon in the poem.  Obama’s schoolmates in Indonesia sometimes called him “Curly Eyelashes” because his lashes were so long and curly.  We answered the questions, until we hit a few theological snags.  Then there was a lengthy tangent on the fall of Satan and Jesus's decent into hell.  Eventually we got the phones out to search for references online.  Joon eventually found the passage in Isaiah 14:12-15, 

"¹² “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, who didst weaken the nations!¹³ For thou hast said in thine heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.’¹⁵ Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.""  We are not quite clear on whether or not Jesus descended into hell.

Mrs. Loconte eventually managed to cut in with the homework, which is the following:
Read the bio on Andrew Marvell and read his poem To His Coy Mistress.

That poem was ravishing, darling.

  So the first bit of class was spent reflecting deeply on the literary devices in John Donne's Great Valediction. Half an hour, and a decent write up later we dove straight into John Donne's Holy Sonnets. Starting with Holy Sonnet 6 and then on to Holy Sonnet 10, The Anglo-Saxons called August Weod Monath, meaning weed month, because weeds and plants grew the fastest in August although we finished the questions take a few minutes this evening to reflect on the use of the harsh vocabulary in the poem, and more specifically that word "ravish". Once you've reflected on that quickly turn to page 273 and read the bio on George Herbert followed by Virtue and Easter Wings. Tomorrow is a day 2 so we WILL have lit class! See you all tomorrow,
-Coral

The Tragic Loss of Two Marbles

Welcome back to Lit everybody!  Today was spent in discussion of John Donne's highly metaphysical "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."  As we studied the poem together, many hidden significances were brought to light; the poem took on a new and greater meaning as we analysed the conceits and comparisons Donne so brilliantly uses to illustrate and illuminate the rare love he and his lover share.  The longest geographical name that is accepted in the world is “Taumatawhakatangihangak oauauotamateaturipukaka pikimaungahoronukupokaiwhe nua kitanatahu” (85 letters) which is a hill in New Zealand – it is a Maori phrase which translates to “place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played his flute to his loved one”.  Mrs. Loconte suggests rereading the poem and commentary to cement these ideas in your mind and garner even more enjoyment from this profound poem.  For homework, read Holy Sonnets 6 and 10, and Meditation 17.

Notes on the Goings-on of our Second Unit Thus Far

The 'Rebirth' from Wyatt to Donne

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

 

 

This is the copy of the assignment that was handed out on Thursday. Sorry for the late post!

7-3 = 4 = SMALL CLASS

So for all ya'lls people who were at the WE Day concert hope you had fun rocking, jamming and just totally being awesome!!! And hope that it was educational too, I guess. So for those who weren't here guess what? WE got our tests back!!! Yahhh!!!!!

Today our class started with Joon and his brilliant math skills informing Mrs. Loconte that our marks on the engrade website was not weighted out so it wasn't proper. Which was good because it boasted our marks up by quite a bit. Then WE were given back our test which WE disputed over and had some questions as to if that question was right or not. Oh and everyone for the Anglo-Saxon Period number 16 the correct answer that WE concluded with is D. After that WE asked if WE could get two marbles, TWO MARBLES, for both The Renaissance assignment and Shakespeare's Sonnet and WE got two marbles!!! Which basically means we are in the lead haha. After WE were given the marbles WE went over both of the assignments and had a good discussion about them. WE had a good discussion about the Shakespeare Sonnet, there is a type of snow called Watermelon snow that slightly tastes like watermelon, and the good news is that WE all know what love is! And not the whole idea of oh I love your hair and what not but real true love, to be able to stick by someone even through thick and thin. Mrs. Loconte also read us a news article that was posted in The Province during last year's Valentine and thought that it was relevant, and it was. It talked about two married couples who had been married for 75 years and are still in love with each other and still happily married. After We read on Francis Bacon who is probably one of the greatest writers and man who is pure genius. We then ended the day shortly again because WE had a homeroom thing where WE had to get our directories from our homeroom teacher. And thus ended another short day at Lit 12 :(
So.... for homework read 261-262
read 263
read 264 John Donne's bio and read the Great Valediction #1-9
How many WE's can you find?

Classy Classical Music in Class

Dearest classmates,

Today we felt the full force of a literature test -- really, a multitude of quizzes stapled together, covering topics ranging from The Anglo-Saxon Period to Chaucer to the history of Middle English. A few minutes into the block, the tests came around and silence entered the room, save for the sound of shifting chairs, scratching pencils, and classy Classical tunes eminating from the radio. Our minds hard at work, we did our best to recall the information we've studied for the month or so. Except no Beowulf. Or The Canterbury Tales. So that was a relief.

3:15pm rolled around a little sooner than most of us expected, and it was time to mark. Somehow, by Mrs. Loconte's efficient marking style (ie. slaves), we managed to mark the whole test and return them to Mrs. Loconte to tally up. Some of us managed to glimpse our marks, while others simply left after collecting the homework package, rushing to catch the bus, or hit the gym, or just get home.

We have learned from this experience that when we are being tested on the historical portions of Literature, we are truly tested on the historical portions of Literature. Small details that are overlooked, such as the fact that Uranus has three moons named Puck, Titania, and Oberon, from A Midsummer Night's Dream, can easily show up on the review test. Skim reading may help, but it's never a bad idea to sit down with a few days before the test and reread the full text.

The aforementioned homework is as follows:
- If you have not finished the Renaissance reading and question answering (pages 128-148, with the ten review questions on page 148), grace be to you. Make sure that is finished by Thursday, as Mrs. Loconte did not check today.
- In the Sonnet package handed out at the end of class today, complete section 2 (The Marriage of True Minds), answering questions 1 and 2 on pages 25-26.

Enjoy your evening and may your minds be filled with learning and the expansion of knowledge!

Is Shakespeare Gay?

Sorry for the late post! I wasn't able to get to access the blog site due to some internet problem; but now I can! So from Friday's perspective, most of us finished and brought the Canterbury Parody assignment except for Rachel who decided to do the prologue. Overall, everyone did phenomenal job and we also received a marble! Yay! Keep up the work! Then I was able to present my bonus project on Black Plague and how it changed the feudalism in England. Then, it was our time to get back to our text books and read some amazing love (luuube) poetry (Did I write it right?). One was about a young shepherd offering his love to the girl with materialistic goods; but the other one was a response to the shepherd's proposal about girl "kindly" refusing him. We went on a discussion of the characteristic of both poetry and shepherd's flaw in his approach to his love. Lastly, we got into Sonnet and read Sonnet 29 and 130. We learned that Sonnet was mainly a love theme which I was mind blown about.

I was really curious what made Shakespeare gay but here are some points I found on the internet that prove him gay:

1. The first 124 out of 156 Sonnets are widely known to be accepted as a love poem to a man.

2. All of Shakespeare's Sonnets are dedicated to "Mr.W.H"

3. "Sonnet 126" begins "O thou, my lovely boy." And, while I'm not sure if Shakespeare envisioned himself the Day Man or Night Man -- or if the lovely boy is a metaphor -- this poem (the 126th of the 126 man- directed sonnets) is one of the only ones that just comes right out and declares its man slant.  

4. In his plays, there are so many cross-dressing plays when guys have to have women roles. Women were not allowed to act back then. 

Homework time: 

1. Make sure you read those 20 pages of Renaissance in your text book starting from page 128 by Tuesday.  

2. Our Quiz will be also on Tuesday so study hard! The breakdown of the quiz is on the previous blog in case anyone missed it. 

Have a great day! 

Noli Me Tangere

So first off we decided that the Renaissance history reading would NOT be due tomorrow! (Phew! It’s 20 pages!) Just thought we should get that cleared up because I’m pretty sure otherwise someone will do if for tomorrow. After we decided that, we read the description of Sir Thomas Wyatt together and his poem Whoso List to Hunt. We deciphered the poem together and discovered what an extended metaphor is (basically the whole poem is a metaphor). We also went over the questions orally on page 151. Next we read the essay about the sonnet so that we would “know the rules before we played the game.”(Mrs. Loconte, 10/11/12) Then we read the description of Edmund Spenser. We read about his epic poem The Faerie Queene, which we wanted to read, but then found out that it was like six books long… so we kind of lost interest. We then read Sonnet 67 and went over it together. We did the questions on page 157 orally. Joon and Brody discovered that girls prefer mutual affection opposed to aggressive pursuit… they were awestruck to say the least. We also found out about how Mrs. Loconte met and got to know her husband! (It was just like in the sonnet!) After we completed this, we decided to work on the Renaissance reading and save more sonnets for another day. Oh, and by the way, the phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. Who knew?!?

Homework:

FINISH YOUR PROJECT for the Canterbury Tales (we will be sharing them in class tomorrow)
Read The Renaissance by Tuesday and do the reading check questions on page 148
Oh, and do the bonus project by tomorrow if you want to

Portfolios are Done!

Today we started class discussing how long the parodies need to be for our lit project.  We determined that it should be longer than the cook and around the length of the franklin.  It should also be in rhyming couplets, but it does not need to be in old English or iambic pentameter.
We then discussed our upcoming quizzes.  It will cover everything during the medieval period, not including the prologue of the Canterbury Tales and Beowulf.
After that we read Bonny Barbara Allan.  It was a tragic love story about a relationship gone wrong.  Sir John Graeme dies of a broken heart over Barbara Allan and Barbara Allan died out of guilt of her lack of courtesy to Sir John on his death bed.  They are buried together in a church yard where the roses over his grave entwine in a true love knot with the briers over hers.  
Lastly we went over Everyman.  When Sesame Street’s Big Bird visited the Nixon White House as a guest of First Lady Patricia Nixon, the Secret Service’s radio frequency got mixed up with Big Bird’s microphone frequency so the Secret Service was picking up Big Bird’s lines in their earpieces.  We discussed the questions and whether the play focusses too heavily on good works.
Homework:
Read the Middle English Period for tomorrow
Lit project due Friday
Bonus project due Friday

Quizing Breakdown

Putting together my quizzes I have the following things for you to be mindful of:

A) The Anglo-Saxon Period- Historical Intro
B) The Growth of the English Language- both The Old English Period & The Middle English Period
C) Ballads
D)Chaucer: His Times and Works (no detail about the Prologue at all)
E) The Medieval Period- Historical Intro
F) The Pardoner's Tale
G) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (an open-book quiz)

Test/Quiz Update

The day of the test/quiz (you decide) will be the 16th of October.
All material studied, including history, will be examinable.