Fame and Glory, or Plain ol' Pride?

Helm from Sutton Hoo ship burial.

Beowulf is a bit enigmatic: He's confident - he's cocky. He's brave - he's boastful. He's assertive - he's arrogant. He's full of honor - he's full of himself.


Like Odysseus thousands of years before him, he's a bit hard to pin down.


In an era when fame and glory were every warrior's goal, Beowulf is either the most heroic of them all or the most pathetic of them all. Sometimes it's hard to tell.


Using textual evidence (line numbers) tell us which side of Beowulf's character (the honorable-fame-and-glory side or the look-at-me-I'm-totally-awesome side) strikes you as being the Real Beowulf. 

The Art of Adaptation

from Persuasion (2007)

Hello everyone. Please watch parts 1-5 of Persuasion (2007) on You Tube before Tuesday's class. This portion of the movie coincides with Book I of the text. Please do NOT watch parts 6-10. I want you to read the book first because there are significant differences between the two and I want the written text to be your first and primary encounter with the narrative. We will watch parts 6 and 7 on Tuesday, and parts 8-10 on Thursday, after the quiz. 


For this post (because I've changed the movie viewing requirements, your comments will be due at the regular time of Tuesday, 9 a.m.) please discuss one of the major differences between the visual and written text of Book I. It can be a specific scene, a specific character's development, or any other aspect that lends itself to written comments. After briefly summarizing the difference (in just a few lines), explain how the movie adaptation alters your understanding and interaction with the original written text, and then comment briefly on whether you believe the adaptation does justice to the original narrative. As always, include textual evidence with page references.

Faded Flowers

In the first few pages of Persuasion we are introduced to Sir Walter Elliot and his descendants via an entry in the Baronetage. Austen goes on to give her readers the briefest of snapshots of specific individuals. Sir Walter, for whom "vanity was the beginning and the end of...character" (6); his deceased wife, "an excellent woman, sensible and amiable" (6); Lady Russell, "of steady age and character" (7); Elizabeth, "very like [her father]" (7); Mary, who had "acquired a little artificial importance" through marriage (7); and finally, Anne--Anne who is "nobody" in the eyes of her father or sisters...Anne, who is "only Anne" to her immediate family...Anne, whose "bloom had vanished early"...Anne who is, well, just Anne.


And yet we suspect that this is not entirely true. We suspect that Anne is somehow much more than what we are first shown. (After all, this is her story, and you can't have a story about "nobody.")


As you read, be on the lookout for moments that hint at Anne's true identity and character, whether that be through her actions, her words, or her thoughts and observations, which often (but not always) reflect those of the narrator.
Who is Anne Elliot, really? Are your initial impressions confirmed throughout Book I, or do they change? If so, why? As always, be sure to include page number references. And remember that blog comments are now subject to grading. Write substantively and proofread carefully.


Happy reading.

Extra Credit

Reminder:
Wednesday, Oct 13
3:30-4:30
Heavilon 320
C.S. Lewis Society
Discussing Out of the Silent Planet
You can earn 10 EC points by attending the discussion group and submitting a 1-page response paper. 

As a Fall Break Gift to you, there will be NO blog post this week. Read the three Canterbury Tales as assigned (Miller, Reeve, Wife of Bath) and start diving into Persuasion.  


Enjoy the long weekend!

Warning: Human Advancement Ahead

In his short essay, "A Reply to Professor Haldane," Lewis writes:

Out of the Silent Planet is certainly an attack, if not on scientists, yet on something which might be called ‘scientism’—a certain outlook on the world which is causally connected with the popularization of the sciences, though it is much less common among real scientists than among their readers. It is, in a word, the belief that the supreme moral end is the perpetuation of our own species, and that this is to be pursued even if, in the process of being fitted for survival, our species has to be stripped of all those things for which we value it—of pity, of happiness, and of freedom.

Were Lewis alive today, I suspect he might have a similar warning about technology, for every time we make a technological gain, it is at the expense of something - perhaps unrealized - that we already possess. That is, I may have hundreds of facebook 'friends', but the time I spend (or waste) on facebook is face-to-face time I lose with flesh-and-blood Family and Friends. (I'm not a facebook hater, by the way. I'm just making an observation about the reality of what may or may not be actual human advancements.)

Using a passage from Out of the Silent Planet as your starting point (page number, please; feel free to draw from the entire text), briefly discuss something in Lewis's world or today's world that, for all intents and purposes, appears to be a scientific or medical or technological gain or advance but which also carries with it the very real possibility of 'loss' or 'un-advancement'. Regarding the facebook example above, I might first refer to passages in the text where Ransom and Hyoi build a strong friendship only after spending significant face-to-face time together, learning each other's language, sharing experiences, and discussing such things as life, love, and death; then I would move on to a discussion of facebook and how, though it appears to enrich and expand my relational circle, it may be doing so at a very high (and possibly uncalculated) cost.

This post will require you to negotiate the text in a creative yet careful way, and to then expand your discussion beyond the text in a way that is logical, analytical, and thought-provoking.


IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Next week's quiz will be on TUESDAY and will cover chapters 14 through the Postscript. The format will be similar to Thursday's quiz.
• DO NOT print off and start reading the Harvard interlinear edition of "The Wife of Bath." I've made a change in our next text and will send an email with details. Be sure to check your Purdue inbox before our next class.