Merlesena,Alexa

Monday, Feb 7

The end of Beowulf was expecting, I didn't enjoy all of the book but the ending created an emphasis on the importance of Beowulfs heroic figure. The end of the story offered majority of its themes and characters. Beowulf fights grendal and later dies after he runs himself into swampland. Grendels mother seeks revengeand seeks a battle with Beowulf. They soon after fight and she dies. Beowulf becomes king and fights a dragon and dies. Beowulfs confrontation acheives him in becoming this cultural icon. His strength excels with his encounter with grendal and his mother. Though he died, it ended in a heroic manner, its considered a great honor to die in a battle.

Monday, Feb 14th

The art of courtly love was an interesting read. The items listed makes it seem as though if your truly in love you must support the person with whom your in love with. Everyone experiences love in a different way. The needs and pleasures that come along with love varies. Love does vary each day, you build trust, feelings and memories creating love and creating the special aspects between one another allows you to fall in love. To be in love you must not have the desire to love someone else which was mentioned, and I completely agree, when your in love your almost in the moment for life with that one person. When you do fall in love, you fall in love with everything about the person not just the looks but the whole package of personality and lust.

Wednesday, Feb 23rd

The line that most amused me was, "I should desire the second wound, of Our Lord's gracious gift, that my body might be fulfilled with mind and feeling of his blessed passion; for I would that his pains were my pains with compassion, and afterward longing to God." This shows he's compassionate and sympathetic to earth and the likeness of good and how he's true to his nature

Monday, Feb 28th

Parts of the poem come off to seem sexist. I thought it was interesting because it was taking a closer look into the relationship between gawain and lady bertilak and makes it seem that women are thoughtless and idiotic. Makes me think how women were presented in that age of time, with no women rights and the belittling of women.

Wednesday, March 23rd Millers tale is fabliaux because it involves alot of lust, love and adultry. Its humorous containing events that are unlikely to happen its directed to show love in a negative light and insult several aspects of love. The author insults specifically the courtly love and the knights tale. The miller himself is a drunken man adding humor which emphasizes the farce aspects of the story. When absolom goes to kiss alison in the window she sticks her butt out and he ends up kissing her butt which is another reason why it cant be taken seriously. Also when nick and alison try not to wake her husband when they wanna sleep together cant be taken seriously it clearly a story making fun of love and commitment.

Monday, March 28th Starts the play as a common messenger. He turns into a thief, he wasn't the smartest thief though. He stole sheep from the shepards he knew. The shepards were catching on and kept an eye out every time a sheep went missing and when they woke up one morning and saw one missing they knew who to go to. They went to his place to find one but mak dressed it up to disguise the sheep which wasnt a smart idea at all. Though he stole it for his family it was a poor and pathetic way to help them out. He's full of trickery and sly ways.

Monday, April 4th The Renaissance means rebirth in Italian.

Wednesday, April 6th The langauge of the biblical passages emphasizes certain words italicizing them. Its mostly in old english, the spelling and pronouciation is different. The flow of writing was different intended to help common people read it.

Monday, April 11th She associates herself with the country and her people. She clearifies that she is just as valuable as a king would be. She ensures that shes ready to fight against armada and spain and has the faith in her people to accomplish this. This battle is a fight for the people, you can tell she is very loyal and committed to her people and the land she stands on. She will reward everyones loyalty and not allow anyone to disrespect and dishonor her. She encourages her people to fight and win for ehr, win for the country. She states that she's aware she is a weak feeble women but she reassures them that she has a heart of a king and is willing to do anything to win for this country. She has all the faith in the world for her people to fight and win this battle.

Wednesday, April 13th Canto 7- Red crosse knight: holiness, england una purity is trying to reunite with the holiness Phoebe (Diana) went on a hunt and traveling shes on a hunt to find something more famous virgin represents purity Cynthia Squire Phoebe gets so angry she curses the water makes red crosse sick- went from being something so pure to cursing the water and making red crosse sick water itself represents sin- tanted water from corruption

Monday April, 25th

Option B: Brainstorm ideas for final project, i'm still not sure about which topic i'll be doing but i'll be writing something that has interested me in the course

Wednesday April, 27th

Kelly Stowell was very interesting to watch when she was doing both her monologues shes very in tune with the character she is doing and emphasizes each one extremely well. I could tell she was experienced and prepared with each character and enjoyed creating and acting as the character in front of the class. I found it interesting when she was describing to us her thought process once she gets a character to practice on and what she prefers to do a play if she had the option between a monologue and play. She told us that she first memorizes the characters lines perfectly then she's able to add the emotions and intensity with it afterwards. Its easier to do a play because she is able to feed off of the energy rather than going up in front of the class and creating the energy out of still air.

Monday May, 2nd

Robert Herrick: 1591-1674 wrote 1400 poems To the virgins to make much of time