Mitchell,+Maureen

**4/27 Today we had a visitor...**Kelly Morgan. He spoke of Shakespears, performed some of Shakespeares work (King Lear and The Tempest). Mr. Morgan spoke of chain of being (had never heard of that before), battle of good vs. evil. Mr. Morgan also spoke of prejudice.

**C****hoose a poem assigned for the day to analyze:** I picked Shakespeares 55 on page 793. It is a very powerful poem. Whenyou begin to read it, you think it is of war, battles etc. It talks of wasteful wars, statues overturned, violent quarrels...yet for the turn it reads "dwell in lover's eye"!!! It is about a couple/lovers/husband and wife.

**4/25 Final project idea:** For my final project I will be analyzing Utopia, perhaps contrasting the happiness in it.

**4/11 Ruminate:To The Tropps at Tilbury:** I think this speech showed that Elizabeth 1)believed in England's success and 2) believed in England's armed forces. She stands with her subjects to "die amongst them" if need be. However, I find it interesting that she talks of fighting with them, believes the fight for honr...yet she then states "In the meantime, my leutenant general..."  **4/6 Identify one significant difference in the language of the Bibkical passages:** One significant difference that I noticed while reading the different versions of the Bible is that the Douay-Rheims Bible seemed to be in a more "everyday" English. For example "He therefore that break" vs "Whosoever therefore shall break", "for I tell you" vs. "for I say unto you", "cloak" vs. "coat", and many more. It does not seem to change the translations too much but it does make it flow easier.  **What types of things are changing Middle Ages to Renaissance (Early Modern)...evolution not compare/contrast:** social fluidity, economic mobility...in the 1590's license beggars/accept reponsiblility for the poorest...William Shakespeare, weak harvests lead to increase prices, decrease wages...increase belief in magic/supernatural/astonomy...Renaissance drama increase- traditional supernatural belief combined with rationist ways of connecting cause and effect  **3/21 Why is The Miller's Tale a fabliaux?** Miller's Tale is a fabliaux/farce as it plays on the character roles each one portrays. "A fabliau is a brief comic tale in verse, usually scurrilous and often scatological or obscene. The style is simple, vigorous, and straightforward; the time is the present, and the settings real, familiar places; the characters are ordinary sorts -- tradesmen, peasants, priests, students, restless wives; the plots are realistically motivated tricks and ruses. The fabliaux thus present a lively image of everyday life among the middle and lower classes. Yet that representation only seems real; life did not run that high in actual fourteenth-century towns and villages -- it never does -- and the plots, convincing though they seem, frequently involve incredible degrees of gullibility in the victims and of ingenuity and sexual appetite in the trickster-heroes and -heroines. (//The Riverside Chaucer//, p. 7.) []  **3/7 Favorite Pilgram: M**y favorite pilgram would be Epicurious' son. His saint was St. Julian, patron saint of hospitality. He was "withoute bake mete was never his hous" or his house always had baked food. Also, "his table dormant" was always ready for a guest. I myslef like anyone who steps inside my house to feel wlecomed. I always try to feed all that come to my house as well. Everything is better with a full belly;-)

**3/6 Cantebury Tales:** I found this difficult to read however after the third attempt, I was able to read it through. I was not in class for this discussion but i do wonder if Middle English wrote this way or if some of the grammar and spelling of this story was on purpose for rhyming.

**For 2/27 class: Sir Orfeo...** Although i enjoyed reading Sir Orfeo, I always seem to get more out of the story when I listen to Dr. Tracy in class. The story made more sense after Dr. Tracy explained more on the background, plot and resolution. The inferential information learned is of grea value as I can now understand more fo what was going on and why. For example, it madwe more sense that the king ride off into the woods once I understood that his "people" would feel that what happened to him would happen to them. I did not get that from the text itself.

**For 2/23 class: Pick an important/key passage from Fitt3. Analyze.** I think the offering of the green belt is significant "For whoever is buckled into this green belt, as long as it is tightly fastened about him...There is no man on earth who can strike him down." (1851-1853)﻿ While reading, one has to think that it is a green belt-not unlike the green knight. It is a gift from the noble's wife. Gawain is going toward evil when he is going toward the green knight at the green castle. Could it be that the green belt also is to signify evil? Gawain has not partaken in any of the offered "gifting" from the lady, except a kiss. The lady's husband knows of this kiss as Gawain shares that with him. However, Gawain does not share the green belt gift with the noble.



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Valentimes Day... <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">"A new love puts to flight an old love" Too many times a person is heartbroken by a wrongdoing of a lover/spouse. They think of the relationships passage as a could have, would have, should have been, but were not.Once the same person starts to be open to anpther, the loss felt flies away in light of a new love. So...does true love exist? Is it that these particular people just have not found their true love? Is the old adage " time heals all wounds" true? Has Valentine's Day made too big a deal out of love and showing others love (commercialized?)?

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The Wife's Lament <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The author/poet writes of being in exile in the very first verse. In the second verse "she" writes of a "friendless exile" and of the "longing" that "seized her" when her lord's kinsmen sought to keep her and her lord apart. In the third verse, we read that The Wife perhaps was a peaceweaver as she states "lord commanded me to live here...only a few loved ones or loyal friends". Following this though is where the poet, I think, starts to be even more evasive. She talks of how they "swore only death could ever divide us" yet she also states her "most fitting man" plotted murder "with a smiling face". Who's murder? Or is this just metaphorically written? She is "forced to endure the hatred of my dearest one". She is forced to live in a dark, earthen cave (grave or actual cave?). This "cave" is where she can "weep" and be "sorrowful". In the final verse the poet is writing to, and of, someone else. Someone she wishes to be "sad minded" and "sorrowful". When the poet writes of a "young man" is she writing about the "fitting man" before she found out how he was truly? Is she talking of a lover she perhaps left behind in her homeland? Or perhaps she is talking of her husband before her death? The exact meanings within this poem are open to vastly different interpretations so that the actual meaning is in the eye of the reader.

The end of Beowulf was fit for the position he held in society. Phrases such as "mourn their king" and "his lordship" as well as "their prince" speak of the reverence Beowulf commanded. His people, the people of Geat, cherished Beowulf. At his death, "loot" "was not chosen...hoard""everybody had a share, there was enough for all". This shows that not only was he wealthy but he was wealthy because he was a great protector; winning many a battle that resulted in "loot" for the coffers.