Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for another great class!

I really enjoyed hearing some of your thoughts on the poem today.

I also felt like Lit. class was like an oasis – sitting working on writing poems about something that is important to me (yes, I am doing the assignment too!) and listening to some really mellow tunes (Jack Johnson–”Curious George” soundtrack)– it was just really restful and refreshing. I know there was some chatting going on, but I also understand that sometimes there are more important things than class stuff.

Thanks for a relaxing afternoon. I hope it was good for you, too, in the midst of a tired Monday.

remeber to read Keats’ “When I Have Fears”–read it like a letter from a friend, or something like that.

Your poems are due next Monday, April 10th. I look forward to reading them! 

Reading Byron’s “Apostrophe…” was like riding a big wave or going to church (insert appropriate simile here). It was amazing and outstanding and I really enjoyed hearing your summaries of each stanza!
The outcome of this sublime class: that essay assignment I handed out has been taken back in. It has been put off for a while as we will attempt to create our own apostrophes.

Thank you for your willingness to jump into the unknown…

I think it will be an interesting journey!

Have an outstanding day. Remember to be thinking of what topic you want to write about. We will get down to it on Friday’s class.

No reading assigned, just thinking–> “To mingle with the universe, and feel / What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal” (Byron, “Apostrophe to the Ocean,” 8-9).

Hi everyone…

Ever since we discussed the whole ‘pirate’ scene of Hamlet (IV.vi), and after reading Wango’s Act IV.vi post I have been wondering about this scene. It seems that in my head this scene has been replaced by the more popular film adaptation of having Hamlet swap letters on the way to England as opposed to being captured by pirates…The text we are using, however, does not seem to mention this event. It is interesting how our memories can be altered by other things!
I did a bit of snooping about this. One thing we need to keep in mind is that there are various versions, or folios of Hamlet floating around. It is like an author putting out a revised version of a book. Sometimes they change certain parts of the book in the next edition. Perhaps this is the case with the ‘pirate’ scene, but I have yet to find any evidence to support this…
I did, however, find some neat commentary via Google regarding the possible meanings of the pirate scene. I have pasted them below:

Shakespeare uses a problem that seriously threatened Elizabethan/ Jacobean security: the prevalence of pirates. Some critics speculate that Shakespeare means for us to infer that Hamlet, knowing that pirates lurk in every bay, has arranged for the pirates to subvert Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s mission. It is equally likely that the ship bound for England carrying Hamlet and his treacherous “friends” was beset by pirates, and Hamlet, always the smooth talker, was able to connive his own release. In either case, the outcome is critical to the play’s action. ( Yahoo Education )

I agree with the idea that, at the time, the possibility of pirate raids would be a believable situation for Shakespeare to use. I also find the possibilities of Hamlet’s scheming mentioned above intriguing…perhaps Hamlet did scheme to have this ‘raid’ arranged in order to keep himself safe. He does allude to the fact that he knows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are up to no good (III.iv.222+)..the most important part of this scene though is that Hamlet is returning to Elsinore…and we all know what comes next!

Just a few thoughts…

Here are some quotes from the above mentioned articles:

And a teacher at a private school in Vancouver, British Columbia, has his senior English literature students blog on their reading assignments, bringing medieval narrative poems such as ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ into the era of ubiquitous computer technology.” (Borja, “Blogs Catching On” Dec. 14, 2005, par. 9)

Under the heading Selected Classroom Blogs:

Reading for this weekend:
Please read Act I.ii and Act I.iii for Tuesday’s class.
Remember: you are responsible for only one reflection in your “Hamlet” log for each act. This is a reduction in your original assignment.

Just a head’s up:
You will write two quizzes for “Hamlet”– one half way through, the other upon completion.
You will also write two ‘multi-paragraph responses’ from old Literature 12 exams. You will be given a quote from “Hamlet” and be asked to make a multi-paragraph response to it. Consider this practice for the provincial exam, as well as a study aid, “The readiness is all…” (”Hamlet” V.ii.219). The more ways we can experience these texts and respond to them, the better.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Only 7 more school days until Christmas break!

Just a reminder that your essay outlines are due at the beginning of class on Tuesday.

We will be finishing up Mel Gibson’s Hamlet on Tuesday and then beginning to go through the text.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about the log/blog project, and we will discuss that on Tuesday as well.
Have a great weekend. I will leave you with some of Polonius’ words of advice:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel
(Hamlet I.iii.66-67)

I have been hearing some complaints re blogging in the classroom lately.

I just wanted to challenge you with the following:

A six year old blogging… No kidding. Six years old, using a blog because he wants to.
Check it out, I like the post about aliens.

So, if he can do it, we should be able to as well!

Have a great evening, and pray for snow…

Using something old to say something new…Your thoughts?