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**