Literary Fiction and Empathy

Reading fiction can help you to understand others because you're imagining people's facial expressions as a situation is happening. Because so much is left up to the readers to figure out, we can apply those skills to real life. If you go people watching, you can sometimes come up with a pretty good idea of what's going on with the person over there who doesn't look very happy, even if you can't hear what they're saying. People give away a lot with their facial expressions even though they aren't trying to.
But when a piece of lit doesn't give you clues as to someone's facial expressions like in...oh, say.. Hamlet, for example, it's up to the actor (if it's a play) to interpret it as they will. If it's a book, then again, it's up to the reader to imagine what the character looks like given the details of the situation. Reading the dialogue and understanding the situation can give us an idea of what the character is feeling, so that's when we start to understand other people in real life. We see things from their point of view. In Hamlet, we may never understand why Gertrude hastily married Claudius after a happy union with Hamlet, but we can definitely see why Hamlet Jr. isn't happy about it.

Act I Scene I

• Starts out with two guards outside the palace. Then two more guards show up and they start talking about how one of them saw a ghost.
• The ghost shows up, and it turns out to be the late King Hamlet. They try to get him to talk to them, but he goes away.
• They think that the ghost is there to warn of an impending attack
• Not much really happens in the first scene. The guards decide to tell Hamlet of what they saw because they think it'll talk to him

Act I Scene II

• Claudius talks about the recent death of his brother. He says that despite how sad it is, they should be thinking of themselves and get through it together. (cognitive dissonance used--putting two things together to make you wonder). Claudius is trying to distract everyone by saying "Focus on Fortinbras, not what's going on with me."
• "A little more than kin, and less than kind."
• Hamlet says in his own way "You don't know what I'm feeling" and he doesn't approve of the marriage
• Claudius tells Hamlet that it's unnatural for him to be grieving for so long. He doesn't trust Hamlet because he won't let him go to university
• Hamlet gives his long monologue thing and it allows us to see how angry he is. He's suicidal in a way, but not because he's depressed. He just doesn't want to have to see what's going on in his family. He doesn't want to be a part of it in any way. He curses his mom
• Horatio and Marcellus show up and tell Hamlet about how they saw his dad. Hamlet tells them to say nothing about it to anyone else.

Blog experiences (Hamlet)

Shakespeare Geek Blog-- This blog talks a lot about Shakespeare (obviously) so I posted a comment saying something about wanting to discuss Hamlet with whoever would be willing to, but my comment can't post until my comment is okay'd by the person running the blog. Or something.

I found a high school blog kind of like the one we use for this class and I was going to post on it but  I felt like the students who saw it would think I was just some pervert so I didn't post anything. I looked around for some more Hamlet/Shakespeare blogs but there aren't too many around.

Vocabulary #6

abase--behave in a way so as to belittle or degrade (someone) 
abdicate--voluntarily cease to keep or claim; give up 
abomination--a thing that causes disgust or hatred 
brusque--abrupt or offhand in speech or manner
 saboteur--a person who engages in sabotage
 debauchery--excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures
 proliferate--increase rapidly in numbers; multiply 
anachronism--a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned
nomenclature--the devising or choosing of names for things, especially in a science or other discipline
expurgate--remove matter thought to be objectionable or unsuitable from (a book or account) 
 bellicose--demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight
 gauche--lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward
 rapacious--aggressively greedy or grasping
 paradox--a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory
conundrum--a confusing and difficult problem or question
anomaly--something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected 
ephemeral--lasting for a very short time
rancorous--characterized by bitterness or resentment 
 churlish--rude in a mean-spirited and surly way 
 precipitous-- dangerously high or steep

Phonar "Unphotgraphable"

The first time I experienced a "wow" moment that I didn't take a picture of was the first time I went on the ride Goliath at Six Flags. It's the tallest coaster in the park, (23 stories) and it takes its sweet time getting you to the top...and then it keeps you there for a good five seconds which, in the open air at that height, feels like a lifetime. I couldn't take a picture, obviously, but taking a picture wouldn't have been able to capture exactly what I was seeing anyway. I thought for sure I was going to die. I was sooo scared. A picture wouldn't be able to capture that feeling, either.

Canterbury Outline

Introduction
-Thesis
- introduce chosen tale

Body paragraphs
-compare to Dante's Inferno
-dante's inferno and Canterbury are actually pretty similar
-show similarities
-use of language

Conclusion

The Point of Canterbury Tales is...

Canterbury Tales is different from other stories of its time by its use of ___, ___, and ___.

Green Eggs and Hamlet

1. I saw Hamlet at PCPA last year, so I know the basics of the storyline.(Spoiler alert: If you don't want to know what (kind of) happens, stop reading now.)  It's about a prince whose father suddenly died and less than a month later his mom marries his dad's brother, and Hamlet thinks that his uncle poisoned his father in order to become king so he decides to kill him. Then he kind of has a thing with Ophelia whose father Hamlet kills on accident and she goes crazy and commits suicide (or something along those lines) and that's all I remember. It's pretty much typical Shakespeare.

2. I know that Shakespeare devoted his life to writing his plays and sort of abandoned his family in order to pursue his dream of being a playwright (at least that's what I learned at OA freshman year). Also, he was married to a woman named Anne Hathaway and she was way older than him.

3. Students "involuntarily frown" when they hear his name because despite how great he's considered to be, the fact is that his work is very old and hard to understand and boring. Freshman year we went over Romeo and Juliet in detail and it made me realize that Shakespeare was actually pretty funny, but you would never catch his jokes today if you saw it in a theater or read it because it requires in- depth analysis.

4. I don't know about making it an "amazing experience" but if we could read it in completely modern English it would be more interesting for everyone, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of how he wrote it because it was in iambic pentameter and all that. I just like it when we read something like Shakespeare and then we have in-class discussions about it because I think it helps everyone to understand it better.

Vocabulary #5

shenanigans--secret or dishonest activity or maneuvering 
ricochet--a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief.
 schism--a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief.
 eschew--deliberately avoid using; abstain from
 plethora--a large or excessive amount of (something)
 ebullient--cheerful and full of energy
 garrulous--excessively talkative, especially on trivial matters
 harangue--a lengthy and aggressive speech.
 interdependence--depending on each other: unable to exist or survive without each other
 capricious--given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior 
 loquacious--tending to talk a great deal; talkative.
 ephemeral--lasting for a very short time
 inchoate--just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary 
 juxtapose--place or deal with close together for contrasting effect
 perspicacious--having a ready insight into and understanding of things 
 codswallop--nonsense
 mungo--cloth made from recycled woven or felted material.
 sesquipedalian--characterized by long words; long-winded 
 wonky--crooked; off-center; askew 
 diphthong--a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves toward another (as in coin, loud, and side). Often contrasted with monophthong, triphthong.

Canterbury Tales (II) What A Character

Pages 106--115 focusing on Chaucer's use of humor
The wife of Bath has had five husbands and despite the failed marriages, she believes herself to be quite proficient in the matter of relationships. Chaucer gives her a humorous description and says she is an ugly woman where looks and personality are concerned yet men seem to like her, as she landed five husbands and multiple lovers when she was younger.
The miller's tale uses farce (a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations) as the main form of humor. He gives the miller a ridiculous and exaggerated description, saying that he is like an ox. He is described as being strong, and claims he can break down a door completely by running at it. He's also a thief.
The summoner is also given a funny and rather unattractive description. He has pimples and gross eyebrows and he's boisterous. He's a "kind" man who'd let any young man keep a whore for a year as long as he received a quart of wine, despite the fact that there's "no better fellow" than he. He seems easily persuaded by alcohol.
The pardoner likes to swindle people out of their money and doesn't feel bad, though he is very good at seeming like a person with morals. He would imitate someone who was a churchgoing person and yet he was the complete opposite. One of the reasons why he was happy to sing a church song was because he could easily get money from all of the people there.