Ancient History

My favorite honor.

Reverberation

Years ago I heard a federal agent describe his mistake in a major crime investigation in a way that broke my heart because that mistake had obviously broken his own heart. I also felt deep sympathy with the victims of the crimes committed, and I still do, as the agent did.   Compassion and pity and anguish for all involved.

I wasn't there in that original hell, but listening to such testimonies puts a burden on the listener.

I still haven't figured out how to share that story with my own students, though I ought to--and I mean that in the best ways.

Class Planning

Spring 2018:
Why ever not?

Dumas' The Three Musketeers (novel and films)

My favorite version--after reading Alexandre Dumas' classic novel The Three Musketeers--to watch: Richard Lester's version (scripted by the author of the Flashman novels!)--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-LfUtHnEBY

But then you'll also need to watch Richard Lester's sequel (though part of the original French novel):
The Four Musketeers--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMhwGUGNuxI

What I Have Learned

English 1B: two questions.

How does X serve the story?
And, what does the story serve?

English 1A?
Shift "story" to "argument".

"Seyton!"

I'm thinking of a particular speech from Shakespeare's Macbeth: 
V.III. 23-34.  (Seyton is Macbeth's retainer and body-servant.)

Long ago, I wrote what I felt was a successful piece explicating Lord Byron's use of this same passage in his own masterpiece Don Juan.  I should hunt up those old words and see if there's any validity still there.  In the interim, I'll reread that piece from the Scottish play.

Fragments From Bacchylides

Though Honor shifts to any shape,
And man's skills cannot be told,
One outranks them all: the mind
Discretion moves to what's at hand.

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Yet resilient Theseus
Did not flinch:
Poising tall
On the planked deck,
He dived an arc
To his welcome warm
In the sea's glades.
Minos, bit to the quick . . . .

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Works of the gods are wonders
Seaworthy men confirm.

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This for the last time:
Profit can crush
Profoundest minds.

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One writer picks another's brains--
Call it tradition:
Taking the gates of a new song
Is no small job.

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One criterion, one approach
Leads on to man's success:
The soul that sees out
Life in self-delight.
Who hounds his wits
At the heels of crowding cares
And pummels his mind with what's to come,
Drives dead work through the days and nights . . . .
Throttle your heart with sorrow,
All the gladness dies.

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. . . when she curves that smooth arm,
And flicks some wine at the saucers--
Just with a neat turn of her wrist--
Our flute-girl serves her bachelors.

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Never underhand,
The words that Wisdom
Resonates in man.

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The gifts of the Muses,
Goals of a hard campaign,
Do not surrender
To all who handle arms.

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*Bacchylides was a Greek poet of the fifth century B.C.  You can find these fragments and more with an appropriate scholarly treatment in . . .

Bacchylides, Complete Poems, 
Translated, with a Note to the New Edition, by Robert Fagles,
With a Foreward by Sir Maurice Bowra,
Introduction and Notes by Adam M. Parry,
Yale University Press: New Haven & London,
1998.

Hektor: sculpture mix, pit-fired.
(The red is from kelp-wrappings before I put the piece into the pit, I'm fairly sure.)

Test Prompt: Is Roxane Worth The Trouble?

When I teach Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, I end up wanting to write lots of letters.  I also always assign the following topics--or roughly similar ones--for in-class or take-home writing:

Is Roxane really worth the trouble?

Is Cyrano just a fool?  (Use evidence from all parts of the play to support your position.)

Does the Comte de Guiche have any redeeming qualities?  And if so, are they enough, really, to redeem him?

Stuff like that.

The first is a particular favorite, and those of you who know the play understand that in the beginning, Roxane, aside from her beauty and liveliness, doesn't seem to merit such devotion from Cyrano and Christian.  In fact, in the second and third acts, she can seem petty and hurtful.  And yet if you keep reading . . . .

I also like to direct students to the balcony scene as a crescendo in the arc of the play.  What really happens amidst all those words back and forth?  Is it all just the "pretty nothings that are everything," as Roxane claims earlier, or is there something of greater depth at work?

Oh, Roxane--


I've also found the following quotation helpful in considering the overall arc of the play:


"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."
--Horace Walpole (1717-1797)


--a handful of thoughts at the end of a long day.