Back from Lemnos--Humanities Blog Revives

Assignments for the Week of February 6--10

 

Philoctetes:  Oh, my aching foot!

Monday:  Finish the Thermopylae Test on Chapters 4 and 5

Begin Reading  Prometheus Bound.  This will enable us to complete all 3 volumes of Greek Tragedies.

Read the following for Homework:  Essay--"Tragedy and Comedy"
                                                       Thermopylae, Chapters 6, 7 & 8

Tuesday:  Test Over Thermopylae, Chapters 6, 7, & 8.

Finish Reading Prometheus Bound.

Classwork and Homework on Greek Tragedies

Wednesday:  A Test to Overshadow All Tests Over Greek Tragedies

Continue with the Film:  300 Spartans

Reading:  Chapters 9--11 of Thermopylae

Thursday:  Test Over Chapters 9--11 of Thermopylae

Briefing Over TRAGEDIES PAPER

Homework:  Write the Tragedies Paper, Step 1--The 3 Paragraphs

Friday:  In-Class Peer Reviews of THE TRAGEDIES PAPER

Continue (finish) 300 Spartans

Instructions for THE TRAGEDIES PAPER

Decide which 3 Tragedies are your favorites.

Rank them--from 3rd to 1st

Decide what factors make a tragedy a favorite

• Heroic characters
• Feminine characters
• Surprise endings
• Sin or Forgiveness
• Struggling against Fate
• Human flaws
• or whatever else you can think of.

Write a paragraph on each of the three plays you chose, using the factors you chose.

"The Greeks present a picture of their culture and say, this is the way it is--thsi is what we value, this is what makes us who we are, this is who is included, who excluded--and then blast the entire conglomeration to pieces.  What is most often misunderstood about Classical literature is that almost all of it was composed as a critique of Greek society and the very values that allowed it to flourish.  The most important legacy of the Greeks and Romans is this uniquely Western urge to pick apart everything--every insitution, tradition, individual. Only in this manner do ideas change at all--and only in this way does an author find any credibility with the reading or listening audience."

Victor Davis Hansen and John Heath, Who Killed Homer?

   

To The Ships, O Achaians

Week of November 28--December 2



Poised to Press to the End of the Iliad





Monday:  The Goal This Week is to Complete Our Reading Through Book 18

Discussion up through Book 11 (The Book of Wounds)
Overview or Preview of Book 12
Discussion of the PAPER--The Aristeia of Humanities Students in their Kleos

***Tonight:  Read Books 13 and 14***

Tuesday:  Book 12 Hektor smashes through the gates

Book 13  The Greeks rally and Poseidon encourages the Achaians
Book 14  Nestor meets wit the wounded Heroes; meanwhile, Zeus is distracted from the Trojan War

THE PAPER:  ideas, thoughts, initial plans...the brainstorming of the gates of lethargy.

***Tonight:  Read Books 15-16***

Wednesday:  Book 15  Hektor's Aristeia continues as he breaks through to the ships

Book 16  THE TURNING POINT OF THE ILIAD
What can Dr. Leithart show us?  Will he help us with our papers?

***Tonight:  With fires blazing at the very black ships, read Book 17  (or get caught up).***

Thursday:  Book 17 The Fight for the Body of Patroklos

Writing about The Iliad--Students rush in where epic poets fear to tread.

***Tonight:  With tears shed for Patroklos, read Book 18***

Friday:  Book 18      THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES

Read it, discuss it, explain it, and draw it.

We Will Finish The Iliad Next Week.

BE READY FOR A TEST ANY DAY AND EVERY DAY.

Write a brief journal entry after reading each book.  At home, on your own, to have and hold in class, for a possible grade.

"When modern readers ask what makes men and women keep reading the Iliad....Surely the answer lies in the unsparing beauty of the heroic vision that the poem perennially renews: it inspires heroic enterprises, whether the conquest of nations, explorations of consciousness or massive literary undertakings. To make the poem one's own is to enter the dimension of the heroic imagination, and the Iliad is able to issue the liberating call to such heroic possibility with less cultural or historical static than any other work one could name."

Glenn Arbery, "Soul and Image: The Single Honor of Achilles" 

Of Arms and Armaments--Battling with Spears and Rhetoric

Assignments for the week of November 14-18

This vase paints shows Diomedes (left), being aided by Athena, attacking Aeneas (right), being protected by Aprhodite.

Monday:  Discussion of The Iliad

Tuesday:  Visiting Teacher Dave Richardson:  The Greek Language--From Homer to the New Testament

Wednesday:  A wily surprise test on unsuspecting Trojans.

                     Discussion of The Iliad,

                      including the fine poetry ending Book 8

Thursday:    Words of Wisdom from Glenn Arbery concerning the Iliad, of course, and the topic of honor.

                     A pleasant retake of unpleasant tests on Book 3 and 4
               
Friday:  A Discussion of the Exemplary Rhetorical Discourses of Book 9

A Note from Agamemnon to the Achaians:

As a lion that stalks a hapless deer for days without obtaining a meal,

So we have lingered too long by the ships and have not pressed against the gates

of far-reaching Ilion, on the plains beyond the river Skamandros.

With times of feasting and respite before us in the days ahead, yet we must be armed

for dark days loom ahead and the mist of illiteracy unless we take up the ashen spear.

Meaning, folks, we will need to be on Book 18 by the end of the next week of school.

Notable Quotables:

"My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog....

"But in reading great literature, I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.  Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, in knowing, I transcend myself, and am never more myself than when I do."
C. S. Lewis

Aresteia and Honor and the Bronze Ashen Spear

Assignments for the Week of November 7-11




Waging War Outside the Gates of Troy:  All in a Day's Work for Achaians



According to Homer, the Trojan War lasted ten years....It was the greatest war in history, involving at least 100,000 men in each army as well as 1,184 Greek ships....Ironically, the Iliad focuses on a pitched battle on the Trjan Plain, although most of the war was fought elsewhere and consisted of raids.  And the Iliad concentrates on only two months in the ninth year of the long conflict.

Barry Strauss, The Trojan War: A New History

Monday:
Discussion of Books 4 through 6:  The Wounding of Menelaus and the Aristeia of Diomedes.

Handout:  Key Issues from Books 3-5and Outline of Books 5 through 7

Tuesday:
 Opening Question:  What does it mean (or what might it have meant) for a mortal, like Diomedes, to wage war against not just the Trojan Army, but the Olympian gods themselves?
(How might it relate to the greater theme of the book?)

Book 6:  Key Achaian Victories and Hektor's Visit with Family

History from Spielvogel:  Survey Chapter 2, pages 30-48.  Write a one page synopsis of either Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, or Persians.

For Tonight:  Read Book 7 of the Iliad

Wednesday: 
Synopses of Synopses:  The Ancient Near East: Peoples and Empires in Brief

Discussion of Book 7 of the Iliad. 

For Tonight:  Read Book 8 of the Iliad
& Read Leithart's Discussion of Books 1--8 from Heros.

Thursday:
Role Playing:  The Class as Peter Leithart, discussing Books 1--8.

Into the History of Greece:  A Race Across Spielvogel, Chapter 3, "The Civilization of the Greeks."

A Chart:  10 Defining Statements About Greek Civilization

For Tonight:  Read Book 9 of the Iliad

Friday: 
The Epitome of Rhetoric:  The Envoy to Achilleus

More About Greek Civilization


Warning:  All Readers of The Iliad of Homer are subject to being given a test over the more recent readings, themes, ideas, notes, or discussions.  Read, think, listen, take notes, reflect, remember.

Agamemnon, Leader of Men, forward into battle

The Best and the Bravest Fighting Men

Assignments for October 31--November 4

"Homer is the poet of all ages, all races, and all moods. To the Greeks, the epics were not only the best romances, the richest poetry; not only their oldest documents about their own history--they were also their Bible, their treasury of religious traditions and moral teaching.   With the Bible and Shakespeare, the Homeric poems are the best training for life."
from Andrew Lang's essay, "Homeric and the Study of Greek"

Monday
Thoughts taken from Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners by Clyde Pharr
Characteristics of Epic Poetry
Questions and Discussion Points about Book 2
Discussion of Thersites

Tuesday
Continuation of the Discussion of Book 2
Discussion of Book 3
By Now, You Should Know Nearly All the Main Characters
Characteristics of Epic Poetry Quiz

Wednesday
Book 4


Thursday
Book 5

Friday
Book 6

 

When First There Stood in Division of Conflict...Achilles and Agamemnon

Assignments for the Week of October 24-28




And the will of Zeus was accomplished since that time when first there stood in division of conflict Atreus' son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus.



 Painting above is by William Page, 1811-1885

http://americangallery.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/william-page-1811-1885/

"By the general consent of criticks, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it reqireds an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions."

Dr. Samuel Johnson

Monday:  Scholarly insights from an insightful scholar.

The Trojan War as a Whole--As Told by Edith Hamilton and Others

Glenn Arbery on The Iliad

Close Reading of Book One

Tuesday:  Scholarly insights from an insightful scholar.

Continue with the Trojan War

Finish with Book One and yet....

Wednesday:  Scholarly insights from an insightful scholar.

Test over Book One

Begin Discussion and Close Reading of Book Two

Thursday:  Scholarly insights from an insightful scholar.

Further exploration of Book Two

Preview of Book Three

Friday:  Scholarly insights from an insightful scholar.

Short, but formal and brilliant, paper containing a character sketch from Book One.

Readings for the Week:

Homer's Iliad--Books 2--3

Edith Hamilton's Mythology--Part Four--The Trojan War

Peter Leithart--Heroes of the City of Man--Ancient Epic, pages 43--51

How to Experience Poetic Beauty

Flee techno-gimickry and distraction.

Find a setting both aesthetic and comfortable.

Find a beverage that is robust and caffeinated.

Read with a desire to find what Allen Tate called "Knowledge carried to the heart."

Read aloud, re-read.

Supplement the assignments with other readings.

Notable and Quotable

The French poet and novelist Raymond Queneau (1903-1978) opined, "Every great work of literature is either The Iliad, that is, a story of conflict, strife, battle and war,  or The Odyssey, that is, a story of a journey or exile and, after much wandering, a homecoming."

The extraordinary power of The Iliad, Alberto Manguel says, comes from the fact that it holds in tension two truths: our fascination with war and our abhorrence of its cruelty: "Homer fully understood our ambiguous relationship to violence, our desire for it and our hatred of it, the beauty we ascribe to it and the horror it makes us feel."

From an Amazon reviewer on Alberto Manguel's Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey: A Biography.

Robert Fagels' translations of Homer's epics.

Works and Days--Past and Present



Digging into the archeology of Books

Monday:  Columbus discovered what the Ancient Phoenicians already knew quite well: The Huge Continents between Europe and Asia.

Tuesday:  Brief discussion of Hesiod and Bruce Thornton

Read from Spielvogel, Chapter 1, regarding Egypt; write 10 facts or questions about Egypt.

Wednesday:  Test over Egypt

Discussion of readings.



Helpful Overview of the Writings from Antiquity



A Poet Who Preceded Homer

Thursday:  Journal Entry:  What I realized after reading...Hesiod or Thornton.

Looking closer at Hesiod. 

Prepare for a test over Mesopotamia and Egypt

Friday:  A Test over Mesopotamia and Egypt

Gleaning from Peter Leithart.

With ideas and literature, the confrontation between the Bible and paganism will be more intense, but with great care and wisdom, we can plunder even pagan literature and make it work for us.  As Proverbs says, the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous  (Proverbs 13:22). 

From Heroes in the City of Man, pages 19-20.

Evaluating Jerusalem and Athens

Assignments for the Week of 3-7



How Should Christians View Ancient Literature?

Monday:  The Historical Context of the Ancient World

A Survey of Mesopotamia and Egypt
Jackson Spielvogel, Western Civilization,  pages 6-29

Literature of the Ancient World
Peter Leithart, Heroes of the City of Man

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the World of Mesopotamia

Tuesday: The Historical Context of the Ancient World

A Survey of Mesopotamia and Egypt
Jackson Spielvogel, Western Civilization,  pages 6-29

Literature of the Ancient World
Peter Leithart, Heroes of the City of Man

Joseph and the World of Ancient Egypt

Wednesday:
In-class Writing Assignment on Primeval Saints by James Jordan

Continue
Literature of the Ancient World
Peter Leithart, Heroes of the City of Man

Thursday:  Classwork on Western Civilization, 6--29

Continue with Leithart.

Friday:  Read Papers in Class on Greek Mythological Figures and Biblical Characters

"Here were two races, each very conscious of being different from its neighbors, living not very far apart, yet for the most part in complete ignorance of each other and influenceing each other not at all until the period follwoing Alexander's conquests....Yet it was the fusion of what was most characteristic in these two cultures--the religious earnestness of the Hebrews with the reason and humanity of the Greeks--which was to form the basis of later European culture, the Christian religion."

H.D.F. Kitto, The Greeks, page 8

Covenant Heroes and Lesser Known Greek Myths

Assignments for the Week of September 26-30

Isaac Blesses Jacob

Monday:
          Test Over Mythological Figures 
          Work on The Paper:  Characters to Contrast
           Discuss the Paper

Tuesday:
          Second Attempts at Test Over Mythological Figures
          Work on The Paper:  Writing an Introductory Paragraph

            Discuss the Royal Houses of Thebes and Athens
            Discuss Isaac and Jacob

Wednesday:
             Work on The Paper:  The Thesis Sentence, Concrete Particulars, and Commentary
              Grade Roundup:  Check Tests and Check Readings

               Discuss Shorter Myths
                The Story of Joseph
             
 Thursday:
                In-class Writing Time
               Continue Discussing Shorter Myths
                
                 Continue with the Story of Joseph and Pharoah

Friday: 
                 Peer Reviews of Papers

                  Wrap up discussions of Greek figures and Biblical characters.

Reading Assignments for the Week:

From Edith Hamilton, Mythology:  Read Part 6--The Less Important Myths

From James Jordan, Primeval Saints:  Finish the Book!

"Several times Paul quotes from pagan poets, just as he quotes from the Old Testament to prove a theological point....Since Paul did not have a Bartlett's Familiar Quotations to aid him, we would have to conclude that he had a firsthand acquaintance with Greek literature, including its fiction, and knew parts of it by heart.  The principle that emerges is that the Bible affirms, in a variety of ways, the value of reading literature, since it tells us things that are true and worth knowing."

Leland Ryken, Culture in Christian Perspective

Heroes Mythological and Mosaic

Assignments for the Week of September 12-16



Perseus triumphant over Medusa



Abraham's faith:  Preparing to Offer Isaac in obedience to God

 Monday:  Gods and Goddesses

The Story of Dionysus:  The God-Man of Greek Mythology, the God of Wine (freedom and brutality), and the hope of Eternal Life

Tuesday:   Tales of Love and Adventure

Looking for the Contrasts

Wednesday:  Test Over the 12 Olympians

The Quest for the Golden Fleece

Thursday:  Four Great Adventures

Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis by James Jordan

Friday:  Four Great Heroes Before the Trojan War

Perseus                Theseus               Hercules                  Atalanta

Readings for the Week Include:

Edith Hamilton, Mythology, Parts 2 and 3

James Jordan, Primeval Saints, Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2

September 5-9 In the Lurky Realms of Origins and Myths

Assignments and Plans for the Week of September 5--9

Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated.
Thomas Bulfinch 

Classic Work on the Greek Myths--a Love Affair Between a Teacher and Her Subject

Monday:  Labor Day:  "Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day, I've got a wonder feeling about Humanities on Tuesday...."

Tuesday:  Omnibus Ancient World handout on Edith Hamilton's Mythology.

This Week, read Part One:  The Gods, The Creation, and the Earliest Heroes

Wednesday:  Surveying how the Historians Approach Origins:

Comparing Carleton J.H. Hayes and Jackson Spielvogel

Thursday:  Gods and Heroes

Friday:  Archeological Labors:  Gathering Artifacts of Civilization--a.k.a. Cleaning Up Downtown

We read Greek and Norse mythology until it came out of our ears. And the Bible.
Penelope Lively

The Last Week of School

Monday, May 23--Thursday, May 26

So Many Books, So Little Time

Whoever ceases to be a student has never been a student.
     - George Iles

Monday:  Racing toward the finish line of The Brothers Dostoevsky.

If I am not in class, begin watching "Nicholas and Alexandra."

Tuesday:  A frightening test over The Brothers Karamazov.


Wednesday:  Semester Test, Part 1:

Bring a two page writing to class on this topic:  The Books That Made the Most Impact on My Thinking This Year.

Be prepared to write out a list of all the books we have read or read portions from.

Thursday: Semester Test, Part 2:  Questions and Answers Over Everything.


Friday:  Graduation

***Bonus Question for the Week:  Who Was Abraham Kuyper?***

You and Your Book and the Lake

Marx and Darwin versus Dostoevsky...and God

Assignments for the Week of May 2--6

"So great is the worth of Dostoevsky that to have produced him is by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the Russian people in the world: and he will bear witness for

his country-men at the last judgement of the nations."

- Nikolay Berdyaev (1923)

 



Fyodor Dostoevsky

 Monday:  Discussion of "The Death of Ivan Ilych."

Reading Assignment:  The Brothers Karamazov, Part 1, Book 1

 

Tuesday:  Terms and Background to The Communist Manifesto. 

Reading Assignment:  The Brothers Karamazov, Part 1, Book 2, Chapters 1-6

 

Wednesday:  Detour to the British Empire--Simon Schama

Reading updates and quiz

Reading Assignment:  The Brothers Karamazov, Part 1, Book 2, Chs. 7-8, Book 3, Chs. 1-3

 

Thursday:  Reports on Darwin's Origin of Species.  Handouts must be prepared before class starts.

Reading Assignment:  The Brothers Karamazov, Part 1, Book 3, Chs.  4-11 (due by the end of the week)

 

Friday: Track and Field Day. No regular classes.

Reading Assignment:  The Brothers Karamazov, Part 1--to be finished

"I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

 

 

Dostoevsky's Grave in St. Petersburg

• Keep Up With the Reading of Brothers Karamazov
• Write Down Questions You Have in Your Journals
• Be Prepared to Make Journal Entries Each Day
• Be Ready for Quizes over the Reading
• Don't Come to Class Without Your Book

April 25--29 The Battlefield for the Heart of Man

 God and devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov



Fyodor Dostoevsky



Monday, April 25
Finish Reading Tolstoy Selections This Week:  "Master and Man" and "The Death of Ivan Ilych."  If you wish, you can read "Family Happiness."
Read the Humanities Blog essay on Russian Literature.
Finish Reading and discussing the introductory material to Darwin's Origin of the Species.
Receive Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto.  Humanity students of the world unite; we have nothing to lost but faith and freedom if we do not seek for Godly Reformation.

Tuesday, April 26
Discuss Readings--Tolstoy, Darwin, and Marx
Begin Assignment from Western Civilization:  Either write four pages of Notes about the 19th Century or write a two page (typed) report on either Socialism, Communism, or Nationalism. (Due Wednesday of Next Week.)
Finish watching "Victoria and Her Sisters."

Wednesday, April 27
Continue Discussing the Readings.
Continue Working on the writing assignment.
Discuss and work on the Darwin Chapter Assignments:  Due on Thursday, Friday, or Monday.

Thursday, April 28
Updates on Darwin Works and Readings.
Continue working on Writing Assignment.
Exchange Tolstoy for Dostoevsky

Friday, April 29
Updates and Presentations on Darwin
An Antidote to the Communist Manifesto:  "The Christian Manifesto of 1984" by Francis Nigel Lee
Edging into Dostoevsky



“If God does not exist, then everything is permitted”



In her essay The Russian Point of View, Virginia Woolf said:

The novels of Dostoevsky are seething whirlpools, gyrating sandstorms, waterspouts which hiss and boil and suck us in. They are composed purely and wholly of the stuff of the soul. Against our wills we are drawn in, whirled round, blinded, suffocated, and at the same time filled with a giddy rapture. Out of  Shakespeare there is no more exciting reading.

 The fonts of knowledge are everywhere, but the rising generation is camped in the desert, passing stories, pictures, tunes, texts back and forth, living off the thrill of peer attention. Meanwhile their intellects refuse the cultural and civic inheritance that has made us what we are up to now."

Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation, 2007



Darwin, Marx, and a Russian Antidote

Assignments for the week of April 18--22

The Maelstrom of the 19th Century:  The Positivism of Comte, the Uniformitarian Geology of Lyell, the Nationalism of Bismarck, the Imperialism of Victorian England, the unbelief of Schopenhauer,  the Naturalism of Darwin, the Communism of Marx, the Social Darwinism of Huxley,  and a world losing its soul.

How can we grasp the major ideas of a century? 

"Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it."
Leo Tolstoy

Darwin and Marx

Monday:  Survey of Ideas, Ideologies, and Events

Discussion of the introduction to Darwin's Origin of Species
Reading Assignments from Origin of Species

The Antidote:  Tolstoy's "Master and Man"

Tuesday:  More Ideas, Ideologies, and Events
Work on Readings and Reports

The Antidote:  "Master and Man" and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"

Wednesday:  The spectre of Communism
Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto

The Antidote:  More about Tolstoy

Thursday:  Connections between the Darwinian Worldview and Other Idealogies, including Marxism

Friday:  Good Friday

More Quotes from Tolstoy:

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

"Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women." (from War and Peace)

"rest, nature, books, music…such is my idea of happiness…"

"Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond."

"Music is the shorthand of emotion."

"All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town."

From the Battlefields of Europe to the Battle for the Human Mind

Assignments for the Week of April 11--15

Monday

Finish movie Les Miserables

Handouts on Napoleon

Tuesday
Napoleon: From Corsican Upstart to the Grand Marshal to Emperor
Notes and Reading

Wednesday
Essay Test Over Les Miserables--An Escape Through Parisian Sewers
Chasing Napoleon Across Europe...and into Russia
Meet Leo Tolstoy

Thursday
Reading Tolstoy
Intellectual Movements of the 19th Century
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species

Friday
From Darwin to Marx to....Modernity
The Second Paper is due (Either Jane Austen or French Revolution)

The Age of Napoleon and the Pen of Victor Hugo--April 4--8

What kind of man was Napoleon?

"Had these events occurred at the beginning of the present century, there can be little doubt that Bonaparte would have been obliged to face a war crimes tribunal, with an inevitable verdict of 'guilty' and a sentence of death or life imprisonment. The evidence then produced would have determined, forever, in the minds of reasonable people, the degree of guilt he bore for events that had cost four or five million lives and immense loss of property."

Paul Johnson, Napoleon


Monday
Continue with the film:  Amazing Grace
From the Reaction of Thermidor to the Rise of Napoleon
Victor Hugo and Les Miserables discussion

Tuesday
Notes on Napoleon
Victor Hugo and Les Miserables discussion

Wednesday
Napoleon--Maps, Battles, and More
Victor Hugo and Les Miserables discussion
TURN IN PAPER (Either the Jane Austen Paper or French Revolution Paper)

Thursday
Napoleon's Road to Russia...and Miserable Retreat
Victor Hugo and Les Miserables

Friday
Finish Les Miserables

"What we learn from the study of the Great [French] Revolution is that it was the source of all the present communist, anarchist and socialist conceptions."

Prince Petr Kropotkin, Russian naturalist, author and soldier

writing in 1909 on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution

March 7--11 The Seasons Change

Revival in Britain and the Colonies; A War for Independence in the Colonies; Revolution in France


General Washington after the Victory at Yorktown, 1783



The French Revolution, 1789 and following



 Monday
Putting Jane Austen to the Test:  A Thesis Assignment for Pride and Prejudice
A Short Quiz Upon Some Aspect of Pride and Prejudice
Student Reports on 18th Century History


Tuesday
Locating a Thesis for Pride and Prejudice
A Short Quiz Upon Some Aspect of the Leithart Essay Excerpt
18th Century History--At a Glance and on a Screen

Wednesday
Sharpening the Thesis for Pride and Prejudice
Voltaire and Candide
Did the Enlightenment "cause" the French Revolution
18th Century History--At a Glance and on a Screen

Thursday
Planning An Introductory Paragraph
Victor Hugo and Les Miserables
Timelines and Sidelights of the Late 18th Century and Early 19th Century
18th Century History--At a Glance and on a Screen

Friday
From Voltaire to Hugo
What Causes Revolutions?
18th Century Test

Readings, Writings, and Rithmetic
Candide is to be finished this week.
Poets of the 18th Century Project is to be finished this week.
Introductory Paragraph to Pride and Prejudice is due Friday
Attack Les Miserables--read over the break, read in Greece and Italy, read by candlelight or morning sun.



"Soon we shall know everything the 18th century didn't know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us."
Randall Jarrell

"Let us not turn to the eighteenth century in order to copy the institutions she fashioned for herself but in order that we may better understand what suits us. Let us look there for instruction rather than models. Let us adopt the principles rather than the details."
Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century

February 28--March 4 From Austen to Hugo--with Voltaire in between

Reading What Jane Wrote; Writing About What We Read

Be preparing for an upcoming essay on Jane Austen

Monday:

The World of Jane Austen:  On-going discussion points on Pride and Prejudice

What Jane Missed:  Political and Social Upheavals

Tuesday:
From Jane Austen to Voltaire--The Descent
Revolution Brewing in France
Tests Brewing in the Classroom

Wednesday:
Student Reports to be read on the Enlightenment and Enlightenment Philosophers
Film Documentary

Thursday:

Voltaire's Candide, Indeed
Film Documentary

Friday:
Wars of the 18th Century and Enlightened Despots and Others
Film Documentary

Readings:

• Pride and Prejudice simply must be finished this week, preferably on Monday evening.
• Voltaire's Candide, a short read of some 120 pages, should be read during this week and perhaps finished over the weekend.
• Fifty poems of the 1700s, read, re-read, contemplated, and documented: One should reach at least halfway to the goal.
• The selection from Peter Leithart:  Should be read over several times this week.
• Historical background to the reports

Advice from Jane Austen:

There are such beings in the world -- perhaps one in a thousand -- as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county.  (From a letter in 1814 written to her niece.)

The Jane Austen Top Ten Song List

 1. "All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor"...........Anne Elliot,
                                       Mrs. Croft, and Louisa Musgrove

 2. "Once I had a Secret Love"...................Jane Fairfax and
                                                 Frank Churchill

 3. "Lord, It's Hard to be Humble"...............Mr. Darcy

 4. "Food, Glorious Food"........................Dr. Grant

 5. "I Had a Letter from my Love"................Elizabeth Bennet

 6. "Mad About the Boy"..........................Lady Osborne

 7. "How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?".....Sir Thomas and
                                                 Lady Bertram

 8. "Girls Were Made to Love and Kiss"...........Sir Edward Denham
                                       and the Seducers' Barbershop
                                       Quartet:  Messrs. Willoughby,
                                       Wickham, Crawford, and Elliot

 9. "Soldier Blue"...............................Colonel Brandon

10. "Baby, It's cold Outside"....................Mr. Woodhouse and Emma

Week Fifteen: December 6--10

ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF THE TUDOR MONARCHS

Readings for the Week: 

1. From Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion:  Read Book IV, Chapter 20, "Of Civil Government.  Keep this chapter in mind as we deal with political upheavals in England and Scotland.
2. Read lots and lots of poems from The Annotated John Milton: Complete English Poems.  Glance, on occasion at Paradise Lost and imagine how wonderful it will be when we read it.
3. Finish Douglas Kelly's The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World: The Influence of Calvin on Five Governments from the 16th Through the 18th Centuries, Introduction and Chapter 4 "Calvinism in England: The Puritan Struggle and Its Results."
4. Read Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Volume II. Chapter 8, The Reformation in Great Britain
5. Finishing reading the complete version of  A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Monday:

•        More on "The Reformation in England" with a Timeline of Key Events and People
•         Film/Documentary:   "The Body of the Queen"

Tuesday:

•   Who were the Puritans?
•    Continue film/documentary

Wednesday

•  Continue Notes and Readings on the Puritans
• Continue film/documentary
•  Readings from Milton and others
• TEST OVER TUDOR ENGLAND

 Thursday

• England's Golden Age Under Elizabeth
• The Defeat of the Spanish Armada
• The Problem of Succession
• The Continued Presence of Puritans

   Friday

• TEST OVER THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 
• Poets of the Age:  Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Johnson, & Others

EXTRA WORK:
1.  Worksheets over The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World. Due Thursday, December 9.

2.  Read all the "shorter" poems of John Milton.  "Shorter" means any poem that is not an epic.  This means pages 1-130. Due By Christmas Eve.

Field Trip this week if possible to the Tudor era castle and garden grounds pictured above.

  

Queen Elizabeth