Howe,+Cyle


 * Cyle Howe**

__5/2/11 - Sonnets__ Volta - abba abba cde cde English - abab cdcd efef gg

__4/27/2011 - Acting__ Today Kelly Stowell came in and did some acting for our class, I thought it was pretty cool. When I was in highschool I was big into theater, mostly musical theater though. When I had characters that I had to portray I never really thought to look into them too much, research wise, I would always just draw from what I saw. One of my characters was a rich old man, who took in an orphan, so I kind of wanted to play the humour side on it, when I thought of rich old men, I thought of them to be kind of nutty and confused, so I always acted like I didn't understand what was going on. Then last semester I took an acting class which was awesome. I learned about not only researching a character you play, but also to give them a back story if there isn't one written for them. Another thing I learned is that when you're acting you're always trying to get something to happen, even if you're trying to get a chair to move with out touching it, you have to make yourself and the audience believe that you ARE going to move that chair without touching it, even though everyone knows it's not going to happen. That was a really hard part about acting, but it was probably the most rewarding as well. I love acting, and wish the school put on more musicals and what not because I miss doing musicals.

__4/27/2011 - Debate Class__ So this past class where we had our trial was really fun. I knew my group was damned from the beginning but, we pushed to be innocent, even though we pretty much knew we would end up guilty. Kind of hard to convince someone when you're innocent when there's a bunch of evidence supporting you're guilty.

__4/25/2011 - Final paper__ For my final paper, my plan is to write a story in the form of a poem. Kind of like Bisclavret. That was my favourite story that we read this semester, and it was the only one that I really understood. Since we have to sort of draw ideas and inspiration from other texts that we've read, want to reference ideas from Bisclavret, with the human turning into a werewolf, I won't necessarily use that, but the whole shape shifting idea. Along with ideas taken from Faustus, like the idea of black magic. I may incorporate black magic with white magic, kind of like a lord of the rings esque feel, with a war based around something, with mystical powers, elves, dwarves... All in poem form!

__4/20/2011 - Utopia__ Raphael - Well learned, Wise, Traveled Peter Giles - Introduces More and Raphael to each other,

__4/11/2011 - To The Troops At Tilbury__ This speech to the troops is from Queen Elizabeth, kind of saying that she is behind her troops 100%, she trusts them and honors them, and wants to make sure that she does what she needs to make everything well. She knows she can't find because she's a weak feeble woman, but she has the heart of a King, and would be willing to take up arms if invaded to fight for her kingdom, and what she knows is right.

__4/04/2011 - The Renaissance__
 * Increase/change in --
 * Literature
 * Art
 * Music
 * Going back to greek
 * Philosophy

__3/30/2011 - Marie De France, Bisclavret__ Marie De France was a story about a fairy woman with supernatural powers who gives Lanval all kinds of things like money and power, but she tells him that he can never reveal her. In the end he ends up going to Avalon with her.

Bisclavrert was a story about a man who was a werewolf, and he could only turn human again if he had his clothes. His wife found out and he told her where he hid the clothes, and she ended up stealing them so he couldn't change back into a human, and she ended up re-marrying a knight. The King recognizes bisclavret's human like qualities as a wolf and takes him in, eventually he runs into his former wife and her new husband and bites off her nose. The King wonders why he attacked her because he has never attacked anyone, so he questions her and she explains. He gets his clothes back and becomes human again.

__3/28/2011 - Describe Mak in The Second Sheperd's Play__ The character Mak was a thief who stole sheep from the sheperds. He wasn't exactly the smartest either, he knew the sheperds that he stole from, but didn't realize or remember that he knew them. Although his intentions are good (steel sheep to feed family), his execution is very poor. He sheperd's knew from the start he was going to steal from them so they kept an eye on him. When they awoke to a missing sheep they knew exactly where to find it, but Mak dressed the sheep as a baby... Not the smartest guy out there.

__3/21/2011__ - Why is the "Miller's Tale" a fabliaux/farce I believe that the "Miller's Tale" is a fabliaux because the term fabliaux (from http://www.duke.edu/~tmw15/literary%20terms.html) stands for, "comic works that typical concern cuckolded husbands, rapacious clergy and foolish peasants". In this story, it involves pilrgrims which, some can be seen as peasants. It also has the "cuckholed" husbands, which means sexually cheating. In the "Miller's Tale" there is a LOT of cheating going on. It's a story based on love and affairs.

__3/21/2011__ - Religious and Spiritual Life I'm not a very religious person, so I didn't know anything about religion really going into reading this. I still couldn't get into the reading here, I guess british literature isn't really my thing. I'm usually a sucker for reading poetry too, but the poem from Robert Manning of Brunne, just couldn't get into it. I didn't really understand it. I'm hoping when we get into poetry in unit 8 that I'll be able to get into the text more.

__3/7/2011__ - //Pick your Favourite Pilgrim; Why?// My favourite pilgrim was the Friar. Mostly because of how weird it was to think how he had a bunch of different wives, because today you're only allowed one wife, but back then you could have a bunch, which to me is weird. So I guess I find that interesting. I love being able to compare old times with current times, it's fascinating to me. Also, I like him because he's a very happy person, and I'm a big fan of being happy!

__3/4/2011__ - //Green Knight// So, reading Gaiwin and the Green Knight was very difficult. Not going to lie, I did have to look it up online to understand it because the text was so confusing since half of it seemed to be in another language. However, when I read the synopsis and analysis' of the story online, I thought the story was really good. I loved the whole idea of the game, where the Green Knight gave someone the opportunity to cut him with an axe and then in one year he would do the same to that person. Then when Gaiwin went to get his head cut off he ended up receiving an item that made him invincible so to speak, and even though it was given to him so he was supposed to give something to the host in return, he didn't. I wish the story could have been better translated, because I feel I would've enjoyed this story so much more than I did.

__2/22/11__ - //Exciting News// So, the first week of class, I ordered the book, then about a week later it finally came in, only to find out... I purchased the wrong book. So then I sold that book and bought the correct one... There was a problem with shipping, it had the wrong address on it, so after a long...long...long... drawn out process I finally have the book for this class and can hopefully start to catch up!

__2/14/2011__ - //Art of Courtly Love Rules// I especially agree with #14 (The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.) Everyone kind of likes a challenge, when something is easy to get it’s not as rewarding as when something is hard to get. When you have to fight for love, in the end it’s more rewarding. Other than that, most of the quotes are kind of oddly worded and hard to understand, but I never really knew that there were Rules of Love? Kind of weird, I just thought there was love.

__2/7/2011 //-//__ //Ruminate on the end of __Beowulf__// I thought the end of Beowulf was kind of sad because obviously he died, but at the same time every hero has to have an end. And at least this way he died with glory. He killed the dragon and saved his people, and ended up dying as well. Rather than, just dying of old age or something along those lines. He was a good hero, and like all good things, everything must come to an end. Just like Superman, he served his time saving the world, but in the end he had to die, Doomsday killed him... Very sad moment in time, but it had to happen.

__1/26/2011__ I really enjoyed reading the Beowulf graphic novel. I'm not much of a reader, so being able to have visuals was pretty sweet. Just being able to see Beowulf ripping off Grendal's arm, and everything made it much more enjoyable for me and it didn't put me to sleep. Also, I love art so being able to look at the pictures and try to decipher different stylistic things that were done was awesome for me.

//Manuscripts// > > > >
 * //Junius : Caedmon //
 * //Exeter //
 * Vercelli – poetry
 * //Nowell Codex //