Showing posts with label final. Show all posts
Showing posts with label final. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Study Guide for Final -- pt. 3 -- EN 190 -- Summer 2012


The picture above is of Walt Whitman as a younger man.  The picture is from the 1855 edition of his Leaves of Grass.


Here is a list of terminology that may be on the exam:

silent film/movie

poem/poetry

free verse

blank verse

organic form

formal verse 

sonnet -- Shakespearean and Petrarchan

villanelle

iambic pentameter

stanza

alliteration

assonance

onomatopoeia

octet

sestet

line break:  full stop, end of phrase, enjambment

Below Petrarch contemplates his muse Laura.


 Below we see Shakespeare with the Dark Lady, subject of his poems.

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Monday, August 6, 2012

Study Guide for Final -- pt. 2 -- EN 190 -- Summer II 2012

 Above is Edgar Degas' "At the Races" (1877-1880).  Below are pictures of Detroit in the 1940s.

 This week's readings include the following:

Below are links we looked at in class today, starting with Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California":

Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is here:

Sherman Alexie wrote "Defending Walt Whitman":

Let's look at Shakespeare's Sonnet #73:

We'll conclude with Philip Levine's "M. Degas..."

You may find this blog entry to be interesting: 
But be sure to scroll down to the entry for July 19, 2008.

This links to part of a literary map of Detroit:

The translations we looked at follow:

Let's start with Petrarch:

A.S. Kline's translation of Sonnet 3 is here, together with Petrarch's original and the MP3 of Moro Silo reading it:

Mark Musa's translation is here:

Next we looked at Sonnet 140.  Again, we will start with Kline's translation and the original:

The literal translation by Patrick Cruttwell is below:

See this link for the version by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542):

The translation by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) is actually of Sonnet 294.  Again, we'll start with Kline's translation and the original:

Higginson's version is here:

We'll finish with A.M. Juster (1956-).



On to Li Bai's "Drinking Alone With the Moon."

We'll start with Ezra Pound's translation:

Note that he did not know Chinese although he popularized Chinese poetry and used it as a predecessor to modern poetry.

Then we'll move on to linguist Arthur Waley's version:

Stephen Owen's translation is more recent:

Vikram Seth's translation was the last we looked at:

But I would like to include another by Xu Yuanchong:

The last version will not be on the test, but I think that you may enjoy reading it, too.


Presentations:
Sharon Ossi -- white elephants
Yuehshen Huang -- manga
Adrian Watson -- faces of the 1960s
Renee Rodriguez and Chau Nguyen -- Koji Suzuki
Melissa Mittleman and Sandrine Mbonwo -- NYC in the 1940s
Gizachew Elcho -- Tsegaye Gebre Medhin
Joel Feussi -- The Fables of LaFontaine


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Study Guide for Final -- EN 190 -- pt. 1

Above is a picture from a 2010 production of The Dumb Waiter at Chicago's TUTA Theater.  Below is a link to a review of this production:   http://chicagotheaterbeat.com/2012/07/23/review-the-dumb-waiter-tuta-theatre-chicago/

Now for our readings -- and viewings.  Below are pictures from the Unexpected Stage Company's productions of The Dumb Waiter and Trifles.


Trifles 
The Dumb Waiter
See the link here for a BBC version:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYV0sbzEIJQ

Nosferatu (1922, dir. F.W. Murnau)

Poems:
Robert Hayden -- "Those Winter Sundays" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjosL9VpXjY
Gwendolyn Brooks -- "We Cool"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyKF2e2CiMk
Maxine Kumin -- "The Sound of Night"
William Carlos Williams -- "The Red Wheelbarrow"
Allison Joseph -- "On Being Told I Don't Speak Like a Black Person"
Robert Bly -- "Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter"
George Herbert -- "The Altar"  http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Altar.html
(Note that Mr. Herbert wrote during the 1600s!)
Howard Nemerov -- "Found Poem" http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16512
(Note that his sister was the photographer Diane Arbus.  Below is one of her photographs.)

"A Primer of the Daily Round"  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20008

Other found poetry is available here:  http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/

Dylan Thomas' villanelle "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377

Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1TD1saNCqA

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 read by Alan Rickman 

Li Young Lee's "Eating Alone"

Charles Bukowski's "my old man"

Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll"

We watched an interview with former Poet Laureate Rita Dove on the anthology that she edited:

We also watched an interview with US Poet Laureate Philip Levine and UK Poet Laureate Carol Anne Duffy:

We also watched Stephen and Ashley's presentation on Alfred Hitchcock's films.  The PowerPoint is at MyMC.



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Friday, May 4, 2012

Study Guide for Final -- pt. 2 -- EN 230 -- Spring 2012

Above is a picture of American artist Bob Rauschenberg's Radioactive I (1964).  It is initiating us into the more avant-garde section of the semester.  As you may remember, Rauschenberg's work inspired contemporary playwright Charles Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica, and Anne Bogart whose books I've reviewed directed the play's premiere.



And here are some links to videos that we've seen in class:

Below are links to the performances that we saw, starting with Hedda.

Here is the review of the production:

Let's look at Charles Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica:

Next is Suzan-Lori Parks' The America Play:

Finally, we have a scene from Tarell McCraney's Brother/Sister Plays, the ones that I consider more enjoyable to read.

What do the playwrights and directors seem to be trying to do in these plays?

See this blog entry.  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/apr/19/noises-off-theatre-safe-risks
Are we trying to make drama and theater too safe?  Should we embrace productions like Hedda?

The picture below is from the NYC production of Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet.



Yikes!  I forgot Trifles.  The link to my entry on this play is below:


Here are links to the movie versions that we saw:


Below are theatrical versions of this play:

If only there had been a video of the 2005 production at Theatre Unbound!


Let's move on to Brecht and The Good Person of Szechuan:

Here is the definition of the alienation effect:
http://faculty.washington.edu/cbehler/glossary/alienationeffect.html

See this link for more about epic theater:
http://pages.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_epic_theater.html

Let's start with our clips from The Threepenny Opera (words, Brecht; music, Weill)


Below is a poster for the 1931 film version of Brecht and Weill's play.


Mother Courage is another of Brecht's plays.  Recently Tony Kushner translated it.  Meryl Streep has starred in a production that used his translation.


Here is a song from Mother Courage (but from a different production and translation):

On to the Good Person of Szechuan!

Below is a picture from a 2010 production staged in Berlin, Germany.


Here is a trailer (much music, no words) from this production:

We'll finish up with Waiting for Godot.


See this link for my Multiply entry on this play:

Here is a link to Beckett's Film with Buster Keaton:
(and here is a film with Keaton:

These are the links to versions of Waiting for Godot:


How has watching these videos helped you with Waiting for Godot?

Here are some clips of other plays by Beckett:

And here is an entry on The Metamorphoses:

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Thursday, April 26, 2012

Study Guide for Final -- EN 230 -- pt. 1

We may not be able to watch the 2008 production of The Good Soul of Szechuan, but the picture above is of Jane Horrocks' performance as Shui Ta.

The plays that will be on the objective final include the following:  Pygmalion (play & film), The Taming of the Shrew (performance only), Hedda Gabler, Trifles, The Good Person of Szechuan, Waiting for Godot, and The Metamorphoses (performance only). 

Let's start with The Taming of the Shrew.

Here is the Globe Theater's quick summary of The Taming of the Shrew:
The Summary of Taming of the Shrew
This drama is one of the great comedy plays by William Shakespeare. The play starts with the Induction where a trick is played by a nobleman on the drunkard Christopher Sly who arranges for an acting troupe to perform a play called The Taming of the Shrew...

The beautiful and gentle Bianca has no shortage of admirers (Lucentio, Gremio and Hortensio) but her father insists that she will not marry until her shrewish sister, Katharina, is betrothed. Bianca's suitors persuade fortune-seeker Petruchio to court her. The suitors pay for any costs involved and there is also the goal of Katharina's dowry. Petruchio marries Katharina and he carries Katharina off to his country house with his servant Grumio. Petruchio intends to browbeat Katharina into submission and he denies her food, sleep and her new clothes, whilst continuously singing her praises. Katharina is tamed. They return to Padua where Lucentio has won Bianca. At a banquet they wager on who has the most obedient wife. Each wife is issued with commands but only Katharina obeys and promptly lectures everyone on the importance of wifely submission.

Here is the trailer for the movie version of The Taming of the Shrew:

You may watch more of this movie here:

To compare, here are links to stage versions:

This link is more informative:

 

Let's move on to Pygmalion (play and film).

We'll start with what's on Multiply:

Here is a link to the 1938 film starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller:
Do you think that this play from 1913 is still worth staging today?   




Next up is Hedda Gabler.  Earlier this year I saw a production of Ibsen's play, but until I write up my review, the picture above and this entry will have to do:

This entry has various links to versions of this play:


We watched several scenes from the 1981 Yorkshire Television production starring Diana Rigg.


The end is more compelling:

Below are links to the 1970s version with Glenda Jackson and Patrick Stewart.







Stage actor Janet Suzman played Hedda to Ian McKellan's Tesman:






More recently, there has been the Broadway production starring Mary Louise Parker.


and  the University of Washington's production of Hedda:


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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Final Prompts for EN 230 -- Spring 2012


Below are the prompts for your take home part of the final.  Please choose one prompt and use the questions to create an essay with an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs, and conclusion.  This essay may be from two to five pages.

Question #1:

Consider the plays that we've read and seen so far this semester (including Pygmalion and Trifles).  What do they tell us about modern and contemporary drama?  (Modern drama includes "Soul Gone Home," Trifles, Pygmalion, Hedda Gabler, The Good Person of Szechuan, Waiting for Godot, Death of a Salesman, and A Streetcar Named Desire.  Contemporary drama includes Fences, Angels in America, The Metamorphoses, and M. Butterfly.)  What do these plays have in common?  How are they distinct from other, earlier plays such as The Taming of the Shrew or other plays by Shakespeare?  Or from the newer plays I showed or referred to?  Consider performance as well as the text of plays.  If you are revising your midterm, be sure to include two plays from the second half of the semester.

Below are links to some plays that may be postmodern:

First is Charles Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica:

Next is Suzan-Lori Parks' The America Play:

Finally, we have a scene from Tarell McCraney's Brother/Sister Plays, the ones that I consider more enjoyable to read.

And here are aspects of the postmodern:


Question #2:

What does performance add to the plays that we've read?  How does performance limit these plays?  How does poor or critically panned performance (like Mary Louise Parker's Hedda Gabler) affect these plays?  How have watching the various clips helped you understand our plays?  Discuss the differences between film/TV and stage versions, and feel free to consider versions we did not see in class.  Can a play still be worth reading if it is never performed?  Why?  Why not?   Which of our plays are still worth performing?  Why?  Why not?  (Consider venues as well.)

Here are some articles from the Guardian's theater blog:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/mar/16/noises-off-theatre-faithful-texts

Consider the differences between drama (play text) and theater (performance).

Question #3:

How is American modern and contemporary drama similar to European modern drama like Hedda Gabler, Pygmalion, Waiting for Godot, or The Good Person of Szechuan?  How is it different?  Which themes, characters, plot, language, and setting seem to be particularly American?  Which stagings seem to be particularly American?  Why?  What do European plays add to the mix?  Consider plays like M. Butterfly, Waiting for Godot, or The Good Person of Szechuan that are more cosmopolitan.

Question #4:

How are women represented in modern drama?  Although The Taming of the Shrew is not modern, feel free to bring in what you noticed while watching the performance at MC.  Consider the work of female directors as well as actors and playwrights.  Here are some interesting articles from the Guardian's theater blog on women playwrights:
How might a female playwright work with characters like Hedda Gabler, Linda Loman, Blanche duBois, Stella Kowalski, and so on?
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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Study Guide for Final -- pt. 3 -- EN 190


I think that it's time for part three of our study guide!

Monday's presentations were as follows:

Grant's presentation on Jules Verne, focusing on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Ismail's presentation applying Erikson's theory of development to Death of a Salesman

Pamela's presentation on Cuban poet and painter Armando Vallardes

Inhae's presentation on the Brothers Grimm

Liliana's presentation on Nobel prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa

The picture below is of Vargas Llosa with his first wife, Julia.

We also discussed the ballad, a form present in both poetry and song.

Here are a few more links for you:

 In the 1960s, Simon and Garfunkel put E.A. Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" to music.  Here is a link to the poem although it is in our anthology:
Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action. The ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza. Incremental repetition repeats one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action. The ballad stanza is four lines; commonly, the first and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and fourth lines contain three feet. Ballads often open abruptly, present brief descriptions, and use concise dialogue.
      The folk ballad is usually anonymous and the presentation impersonal. The literary ballad deliberately imitates the form and spirit of a folk ballad. The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk balad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).

Tuesday we saw the following presentations:  Hubert's presentation on Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, Wajiha & Jonathan's presentation on Eminem's "Mockingbird," Aurelie's presentation on Victor Hugo's "Demain des l'Aube," and Dexter's presentation on the Beijing production of Death of a Salesman. 




We looked at some other forms of poetry.  The first is the tanka or waka, a very concise form from Japanese literature.  It is actually quite old, dating from the 700s CE (or the 8th Century), and one of its leading lights was a woman, Ono no Komachi who lived during the 9th Century.  At that time, upper-class Japanese women were encouraged to pursue literature in Japanese.  The men, on the other hand, read and wrote Chinese.  Here is the link we looked at:
http://www.gotterdammerung.org/japan/literature/ono-no-komachi/

Her picture is above.  She commonly appears in Japanese prints as an archetypal poetess and seductive woman.

One poem was translated by Arthur Waley, a noted translator from the early 20th century.  Two were translated by Jane Hirschfield, an American poet, and Aratani Mariko, a Japanese poet.

The second is the bop, a new form developed by African-American poet Afaa M. Weaver. 

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5773

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22359

Scroll down this link to find another example of the bop poem:

http://jstheater.blogspot.com/2007/04/random-musings-poem-lyrae-van-clief.html

I've also attached Evelyn N. Alfred's bop poem, "flashes: a bop for bix b."  Enjoy!

We listened to another one of Afaa M. Weaver's poems.  This one is not a bop, and it takes place in Taiwan:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20050

The picture below is of Taipei's most famous "night market."

We finished up with the following presentations:

Joe & Lizzy on 1950s pop culture
Nahom on the American Dream & Death of a Salesman
Clifford on music as literature
Karen, Shennekia, & Jason on song lyrics as poetry

You may also watch Mauricio's video on Cesar Vallejo, the Peruvian poet, here:


Thanks for a great semester!



Attachment: flashes.docx
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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Study Guide for Final -- pt. 2 -- EN 190

Tuesday we dug a little deeper into poetry, focusing on voice, tone, and style including line breaks and line length.  Terms we discussed included types of line breaks (end-stop, grammatical, and enjambment), types of poetry (narrative, lyric, didactic, dramatic monologue), alliteration, and assonance.  Below are links to the poems we looked at and listened to.


We looked at a few more of Charles Bukowski's poems.  Perhaps someone would like to present on him and his work.  Above is a picture of him from Wikipedia.

Harry Dean Stanton reads "Bluebird":


The print version is here together with another poem of his, "The Great Escape":


Here is Bukowski himself reading "The Secret of My Endurance":


The print version is here:



We also looked at and listened to Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California."  His picture is above.



For contrast, we added Robert Lowell's "Skunk Hour."  His picture is above.


Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" exemplifies the classic dramatic monologue:


Below is a picture of Browning with his wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning as portrayed by Frederic March and Norma Shearer.  The Brownings had a celebrated courtship and marriage as he helped her elope from her parents' house to Italy.  


Here is a link to a video of Li-Young Lee reading from his poems:



Finally!  Theodore Roethke reads "My Papa's Waltz":


You may prefer Frank McCourt's version without the music and distracting images:


Yusef Komenyakaa reads "Facing It."



If you were not in class, or if you would like to examine yet another poem, here are the questions we went over in class.

Choose one of the poems we haven’t discussed.  How does the poet draw on voice in this poem?  What is his/her figurative presence in the poem? What is his/her authorial presence?  How does the poet use tone (emotion/irony)?  How does he/she use style?  How does the poet use plot, character, or setting?  Is this poem a good poem?  Why?  Why not?


Tuesday's poems also include Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll," Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," and Yusef Komenyakaa's "Facing It."  Ms. Piercy's picture is below:



Thursday we focused on the sonnet but also examining the villanelle and the sestina.  Did you know that there are two types of sonnets (Petrarchan and Shakespearean)?  And that the villanelle was once a type of French song?  And that the sestina does not rhyme!  

It seems like we watched quite a few clips in class that night.


Let's start with Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun":



On to his Sonnet 29, starting with Rufus Wainwright's musical version:






Here is the site where we listened to Petrarch's Sonnet 90 in its original Italian:



Now let's listen to Elizabeth Bishop's "Sestina":


Here is her villanelle "One Art":



Next is "In the Waiting Room," one of her later poems.




This is not Richard Thompson's "Sumer is Icumen in," but it will have to do!


The lyrics are below:


Ah...someone has posted Thompson's "King Henry":



Here are links about the format of the sonnet, the villanelle, and the sestina.




Other poems that will be on the final will be Claude McKay's "If We Must Die" and Helene Johnson's "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem."

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