Wednesday, March 18, 2009

March 13 Class Notes

On monday, do one min presentations on a story from Ted Hughes Tales from Ovid

Worst that can be imagined was explored and close to perfected by Shakespeare.
  • Titas Andronicus= eating other people
  • King Lear= old man loses his daughter, one character edgar has infamous quotes
  • "It's never the worst as long as you can say 'this is the worst'" this being a reference to the daughter having her tongue ripped out, and creating a tapestry to tell the story
  • "the worst returns to laughter"

Everyone should read Ovid because it is essential to our literature, and if you took it out of Shakespeare you would lose close to 90% of his work

Situations can always get worse as long as you can convey your meaning in some way.

Sophie's Choice with Merele Streep, shows the worst choice for a parent

Hecuba:

  • buries grandson, on her son's sheild
  • her grandson once said that when she died he would cut his hair and lead his troops past her tomb, but that will never happen
  • he was the child whom the greeks feared
  • this fear is the fear the comes when reason goes away
  • gives up everything she has to the child
  • places a black shrowd over him
  • she has very few gifts to give the child to take with him to the underworld
  • she would have dressed him on his wedding day, but instead is dressing him for his funeral
  • her one consolation is that his father will be there to greet him
  • He had to be killed because the greeks thought he would grow up and seek revenge

Iphogenia:

  • summoned by her father to "marry Achilles"
  • really he wants to summon the winds by sacrificing her since she is a virgin
  • the sun means more to her people than anything else "the sun has never seemed so bright"
  • she will die proudly with grace and beauty
  • death will be her wedding, her children and her glory.
  • In the short time that Achilles knows her he falls in love with her
  • says he will fight the entire army for her
  • she doesnt want him to die, and asks that he live through the war
  • she will not let her mother mourn, or be mad at her father
  • wants to see her brother Orstes, who later kills his mother, to avenge his father, who killed Iphogenia
  • Asks her mother to not blame her father, Agamemnon
  • **in the book there is a miss print, she really did die, and was not saved by Athena, and a deer sacrificed in her place**

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