Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"

What are your thoughts about Plato's allegory?  The one we dramatized in class today. BLOG.

Looking for the light?
Or merely viewing shadows?

  



Solipsism, Absolute or Relative Truth?

 




























Awaiting Frankenstein . . .

Thank you Serio, Victor, and Brandon for your excellect pre-firedrill performance of Edward Field's poem "Frankenstein." You really brought the scene and the characters to life!

You will be happy to learn that  Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus  can be read on line. I want you to go to one of these websites and to read The Preface, which contains Robert Walton's first six letters to his sister Margaret.

CLICK  ON THE URL TO CONNECT: 

http://www.brian-t-murphy.com/FrankensteinV1.htm  1818 Edition

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/21/technology/20101121-brain-interactive.html?src=me&ref=technology

http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/SheFran.html   1831 Edition

THIS IS A PAGE FROM THE 1817 MANUSCRIPT

THIS IS THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.

In lieu of reading this book, which we do not yet have - alas how monstrous - I would like you to do Internet research about its editions, editing, and manuscript(s).
1. What "editions" of Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus are there?
2. How many times was this novel "edited?" Who were the editors?
3. What is a "manuscript?"
4. Which edition of this novel should we read? Why?
5. How will reading this edition affect our analysis, and interpretation of a novel?
6. Notice the first edition was published "IN THREE VOLUMES."  Why do you think it was originally published that way? What did each of these volume contain?
7. What is the book's full title? Who is Prometheus?
8. Notice the 1818 book is "authorless." Why?
9. Read the quotation from John Milton's Paradise Lost.  Who is being addressed? Who do you think is speaking? How do you interpret the words?
10. What else do you notice about the first page of the first edition.

HAMLET Essay Test

I went back and looked over old A.P.English Literature and Composition Tests to find a good essay question  for Hamlet.  I found one I feel is germane to what you have read: The 2008 English Literature and Composition Test, Question 3 (40 minutes). I simplified this question and tailored to fit Hamlet.
 
You may wish to refer to the October 29th blog posting on foils.

Hamlet has two foils in this play, Fortinbras and Laertes.  Write an essay in which you compare and contrast Hamlet to each of these foils and in which you analyze how the relationship between these minor characters and Hamlet illuminate the meaning of the play.  Substantiate what you say by making accurate specific references to the play.

This will be a closed book essay test.
Prepare to write this essay and be sure to get to class early. 

SUNY Website/Finish College Matrix

uny.edu/student/campuses_complete_list.cfm 
By clicking on the above url you will be taken to a State University of New York website that was designed for high school students, like you, who have to research and then select SUNY schools which best fit their needs. Please realistically position the schools you select within your matrix as reach, possibility, probability, and saftey schools.
The time, the effort, and the thought you give to both researching and selecting which schools to apply to is a serious matter, and is your responsibility.
We will  briefly discuss the CUNY, SUNY, private school matrix tomorrow in class.

Students' HAMLET Quotations

Your posting counts for five (5) points on this test. Place your five quotations from Hamlet here before 9pm - I have to write the test! Write your name, then write the first five or ten words of each quote and where it can be found in the play by page number, act, scene,  and line  number(s). Indicate who is speaking, who is being spoken to, what the importance these line have in the play, and what they mean. Be sure to use this as a review study guide. ENJOY SHARING. Sharing is caring! Oh yes, please feel free to disagree with one another. Have a good time studying Hamlet.

HAMLET Test Monday or Tuesday or both.

What is a dichotomy?
Which dichotomies were pointed out to you in class?
Compare medieval and renaissance values expressed in Hamlet.
How do pagan, Christian, and intellectual dictates in Hamlet contest with one another?
Why are Hamlet's soliloquys so central to this play?
Identify the most important soliloquys and the most important dialogue within the play.
Why are both the players and Horatio of such importance in this play?
How do concerns Hamlet express in his soliloquies change as the play progresses?
How is Hamlet a political creature?
How is  Hamlet's Denmark portrayed?

I strongly urge you yo reread sections of Hamlet, think about what we discuss in class tomorrow and Friday, blog about aspects of the play I will alert you to on this post and in class, ask questions, express your thought and intelligently disagree with one another in writing on this blog.

HAMLET Act V: QUESTIONS





















V, i
1. In some editions of Hamlet the "gravediggers" are not  called gravediggers but clowns. Why at this point in the play does Shakespeare resort to comic relief  ?
2. What is the dispute they have, and what is the riddle and its answer?
3. Why do you think Shakespeare at this point for the first time lets us now know Hamlet's age?
4. How does Hamlet  react to being told, "This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the King's jester"?
5. What dramatic irony extends over much of this scene? What affect does it have?
6. Why does Laertes quibble with the priest officiating at his sister's burial? Where and how has this been foreshadowed  in this scene and elsewhere in the play?
7. Why at this point in the play do Laertes and Hamlet have such radically different opinions of each other?
8. What do we learn from Gertrude's farewell to Ophelia? What do you think of what she says? What would Polonius have thought?
9. What does the priest's treatment of his sister cause Laertes to do? How is this counterpoint to the comic relief earlier in the scene?
10. Why does Hamlet so assertively announce himself, "This is I, Hamlet the Dane" ? Why is Hamlet so angry?
11. Explain why Hamlet jumps into the pit dug for Ophelia's coffin?
12. What  do you think were Hamlet's true feelings for Ophelia?
V, ii
1. How did Hamlet sidestep Claudius' plot to have him put to death in England? (He tells Horatio.)
2. Why do or don't you think killing now may be easier for Hamlet?
3. How does Hamlet react to the idea of the match? How does Hamlet expect to do and why does he go ahead with it? How does this reflect the "new" nature of Hamlet, revealed in V, i? 
4. What is the nature of Hamlet's speech to Laertes before they fence?
5  How do Hamlet and Laertes get wounded?
6. How does Hamlet get his final revenge?
7. How do the characters who entered this scene die?
8. What is Hamlet's final act as King of Denmark?
9. Why does Hamlet entreat Horatio to stay alive?
10. Why is Fortinbras' presence important at the end of the play?

I hope you enjoyed the play. 

Recall Hamlet's references throughout the play to the decay of the body, and Denmark. Scene one is a culmination of the concerns Hamlet has expressed about mortality and decay throughout the play. (Here we have an example of a literary term T.S. Eliot coined, known as the objective correlative.)  Please read this scene aloud at least twice. The gravediggers speak in colloquial  lower class Elizabethan English, so carefully read the liner notes relating to their dialogue to appreciate both their graveyard humor as well as Hamlet's.