Author Archives: JSylvor

• By now you should have completed your reading of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.  Please respond to one of the questions I have posted in in “Hedda Gabler – Part II.”  Your responses are due by Sunday, April 11th.

• Our reading for this week is Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (vol. E of your anthology).  Please complete the novella before our call on Wednesday.  I will expect you to demonstrate that you have done the reading.

• Write a blog post of 300-400 words, due by Friday, April 16th.  For this week’s writing assignment, I’d like you to reflect on what it’s like to read this work at this particular moment in time.  As you know, Tolstoy’s novella describes the experience of a man whose rather conventional life, focused primarily on work, socializing, and the acquisition of wealth, is suddenly disrupted by illness.  In your blog post,  please consider what it’s like to read and digest this work in the middle of our own unexpected and unrelenting period of disruption and unsettledness.  What did you take away from Ivan Iyich’s experience of illness and isolation?  To what extent are you able to sympathize with Ivan’s suffering?  What lessons does Tolstoy’s work hold for us?

• I will be holding my regular office hours on Monday.  You can sign up HERE.

Please respond to one of the following questions in the comments section below.  Your response should be 250-300 words in length and must include a quotation from the play in support of your response.  Please post your response by Sunday, April 11th.

1. What is the significance of Lovborg’s unfinished manuscript?  Why does Hedda burn it? What ramifications does that act have for Lovborg and the other characters in the play? 
2. Why does Hedda give Lovborg the pistol? What does she mean when she urges him, “Can you see to it that — that when you do it, you bathe it in beauty”? 
3. Is Hedda pregnant?  What difference does her possible pregnancy make in terms of our understanding of her character and her fate?       
4. Discuss the character of Judge Brack.  What function does he serve in the play?  What does Hedda mean when, in her final line of the play, she says, “Yes, that’s what you’re hoping for, isn’t it, Judge? You, the one and only cock of the walk –”?
5. Why do you think Hedda kills herself?  What evidence can you find in the text to support your response?
6. What is the significance of the play’s final line: “But God have mercy — People just don’t act that way!”?

I hope everyone is having a restful and restorative break and that you are ready to dive into the second half of our semester.  Here is the plan for next week.  Please reach out to me if you have any questions!

1. I have recorded an introduction to Literary Realism, the literary movement that dominates the second half of the 19th century.  This is the next period in literary history that we will be exploring.  You can access the video HERE, using the Password: 5M=ei3UA    In a comment on this post, please share one idea from the video that stuck with you.
2. Please take a look at the Frederick Douglass Group’s Presentation.  You can find it here on the blog.  Leave a comment for the group with any feedback you’d like to share.
3. Read Acts I and II of Hedda Gabler. Then, using the link below, watch the opening scene of the film version of the play, made for television in 1963, starring Ingrid Bergman.

   Watch until Thea Elvsted enters. In a blog entry of 250-350 words, compare the written and film versions of the opening of the play. How might we view the film as an interpretation of Ibsen’s original text? Where has the filmmaker made changes to Ibsen? To what effect? What do we notice when we watch the film that we may have missed upon first reading the play? Please share your post by Wednesday, April 7th.

4. Please try to finish Hedda Gabler before our Zoom call on Wednesday, April 7th.  (If you haven’t finished the play, our conversation will definitely include spoilers!). You will have a second Hedda Gabler related assignment that will arise out of Wednesday’s call.
5. Office Hours:  You can sign up HERE to meet with me during my regular Monday office hours.
6. Mid-Semester Reflection:  Before Spring Break, I asked you to complete a short questionnaire reflecting on how the first half of the semester has gone for you.  If you haven’t yet completed your form, please do it ASAP.  (It is REQUIRED!).   You can access the form HERE.

1.  Reading – This week, we are reading Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (in its entirety) as well as a short excerpt from Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  You can find a link to the Jacobs reading under the “Readings” tab at the top of the blog.
2. I have recorded a brief introduction to the reading which you can access HERE.  Use the  Passcode: x#K6x#x# to access the recording.  After watching the video, please share a comment on this post offering one possible motive a slave or former slave might have for writing his/her autobiography.  Please share your comment by Monday, March 22nd.
3. Choose a passage or quotation from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass that made a strong impression on you in your reading. Post the passage on our class blog and provide a brief (300 word) analysis of its significance. Some things to consider: What does this passage add to our understanding of slavery in America? What does it reveal about Frederick Douglass? What do Douglass’ diction, syntax, and literary style add to his story here? What questions are raised for you by the passage you’ve selected?  Please share your response as a “new post” (not as a comment on this post), and include your name in the title of the post.  Your post must be up by Wednesday, March 24th in order to receive full credit.  Please be prepared to share your passage during our zoom call on Wednesday.
4. After reading the excerpts from Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl that I have linked to on our “Readings” page, please compose a two-part response post.  Your post must be shared by Sunday, March 28th.

• First,  what does Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl add to our understanding of the experience of slavery? How does this narrative connect to or differ from Douglass’? (As you read Jacobs’ description of her attic hiding spot, which she refers to as a “loophole of retreat,”  keep in mind that she remained in this hiding place for seven years!)

• Second, please address the following prompt:  Although slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, slavery in various forms continues to be an important Human Rights issue even in our own day. Spend some time exploring the topic of contemporary slavery on the internet, and share three important things that you learn about this subject.

5. Office Hours:  I will be holding regular office hours on Monday.  You can sign up HERE. This is a good opportunity to meet with me about your essay!

6.. Essays Due: Your paper must be submitted to me as a Google Doc by Friday, March 26th.  Please share it with [email protected]. While your essay itself should have an engaging title, please give the file the generic title: Your Name. ENG2850 Essay 1.  (As I indicated earlier, you have the option of submitting the essay as late as Sunday, March 28th, but I would encourage you to get it done by the 26th in order to enjoy an unburdened Spring Break.)

Please respond to any two of the following discussion questions by Friday, March 19th.  Share your responses as comments to this post, being sure to refer to specific details in the poems to illustrate your ideas.  Feel free to share your thoughts as responses to your classmates’ posts.

–Wordworth’s poem  “Tintern Abbey”has been described as offering readers a “religion of nature.”  What do you think that term means?  Where do you see evidence of this in the poem?

–Why do you think Wordsworth gives “Tintern Abbey” such a precise and detailed sub-title? What is the significance of this poem’s full title?

–In the final portion of “Tintern Abbey,” the speaker turns to his “dear friend.” Who is this friend and what role does he/she play in the poem?

–“Composed upon Westminster Bridge” and “The World Is Too Much with Us” are both sonnets. Why do you think a poet might choose to work with such a highly structured form?

–Consider the first four lines of “The World Is Too Much with Us”: “The world is too much with us; late and soon/Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;/Little we see in Nature that is ours;/We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”  What do they mean to you?  How do these lines resonate with your own lived experience?

–Describe some of the ways in which Wordsworth’s poetry conforms to the features of Romanticism that we’ve discussed. What evidence can you find to illustrate this?

1. Office Hours – Monday, March 15th.  I will be holding an open office hour from 3-4pm to discuss your essay assignment.  Please come if you are struggling with getting started, you have questions about the assignment, or you want to run your ideas by me or by your peers.
2. This Week’s Reading – William Wordsworth. We are continuing our readings in Romanticism with William Wordsworth.  Please read “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802,” and “The World is Too Much with Us.”  You can find these poems in Vol. E of the Norton Anthology.  Be sure to have the texts available during our call on Wednesday.
3. Hypothes.is.  In preparation for Wednesday’s class, we will be annotating “Tintern Abbey” using the annotation tool Hypothes.is.  Hypothes.is is an application that will allow us to annotate a text virtually in the same way we might if we were making notes in the margins of a physical text, but with the added bonus of being able to see and respond to one another’s notations.  Please use this Guide to Getting Started with Hypothes.is  to walk you through the process of setting up a free Hypothes.is account, adding the Hypothes.is extension to your web browser (ideally Chrome),  and joining our ENG2850 Hypothes.is group using this link. 
4. Once you have set this up, go to this digital version of “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”, click on the Hypothes.is icon in your toolbar, select ENG2850 and begin making annotations on the text.  This could mean sharing definitions of the words you look up, asking questions about the text, or identifying parts of the poem that seem particularly interesting to you and adding your own thoughts.  Please make three annotations to the text in advance of our Zoom session on Wednesday.  Be sure that you have selected “ENG2850” from the pull-down menu, rather than “public”.  This will keep our annotations visible only to members of our class.
5. Wordsworth Discussion Questions. Please respond to any two of the discussion questions I’ve posted about Wordsworth’s poems (see separate post for the questions.). As usual, you can either answer the questions directly or respond to your classmates’ comments.  Please share your responses by Friday,  March 19th.
6. Reminder – Email me at [email protected] with the question you plan to explore in your essay.  I should hear from you by Sunday, March 14th.

Due: Your paper must be submitted to me as a Google Doc by Friday, March 26th.*  Please share it with [email protected]. While your essay itself should have an engaging title, please give the file the generic title: Your Name. ENG2850 Essay 1.

 3-5 pages – 12pt. type, double-spaced

In a thoughtful, well-organized analytical essay, grounding your response in a close, detailed reading of the text at hand, please address one of the following topics.  These topics pose general, theme-based questions.  In formulating your essay topic, you will want to articulate your topic in the form of a more specific question about the text you’ve chosen to work with.  You may use any of the texts we’ve read beginning with “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger” and continuing through the poems by William Wordsworth.

1.Concentrating on any one of the readings we’ve done so far, consider the relationship between appearances and reality. How are appearances used to deceive or to manipulate? What does this text seem to be saying about the difference between what we think we perceive and what is actually true? How do characters use masks (real or figurative) to deceive those around them?

2.Discuss the theme of passion as it relates to any one of the texts we’ve read thus far. Here you can focus either on passion in the context of romantic love or on passion in the sense of any strong feeling or emotion. What does your text seem to be saying about passion, particularly when passion is in conflict with other more rational values?

3.Choose any one of the texts we’ve read thus far, and identify what you consider to be its central message with respect to human destiny. In several of the texts we’ve read, characters or authors appear to be struggling to determine their purpose in life or to chart their own course.   What does freedom look like in your text?  How does your text balance human agency with the idea of a pre-ordained fate.

4. Wild Card:  If none of these prompts is calling to you, you may create your own topic.  To to this, please submit a focussed question to me for approval by Monday, March 15th.

* I have listed the paper’s due date as Friday, 3/26.  However, I will be accepting papers as “on-time” through Sunday, 3/28.  I leave it to you to decide what works best for you given your workload and personal preferences.

General Guidelines

–All successful papers will illustrate their claims by quoting directly from the text. When you include a quotation, be sure to explain its significance.

–Quotations should include parenthetical citations, providing page or line number as necessary.

–Assume that your reader is familiar with the text and does not require any plot summary.

–Always use the present tense when writing about literature.

–Your essay should have a title. Use your title as an opportunity to let your reader know what your paper is about!

–As a general rule, the question that you find genuinely perplexing will yield a stronger paper than the question whose answer seems readily apparent to you, so resist the impulse to shy away from tough topics.

–My prompts are meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive. Use my questions as a guide to thinking about your subject, but don’t feel that you have to address every question I raise in an essay prompt.

–You should be able to articulate your paper topic in the form of a question. Be sure that the question will yield a thoughtful, complex response – rather than a yes or no answer.

–Test your main idea or central claim (a.k.a. your thesis) by asking the following: “Could a reasonable reader conceivably disagree?” If the answer is “No, no reasonable reader could conceivably disagree with what I’m saying in this paper,” then you need to do more work to refine your thesis. You want to be staking out an interpretive claim that someone else might disagree with; otherwise you’re simply articulating ideas that are readily available to any reader of the text.

–The opening paragraph of your paper should introduce your topic to the reader (i.e. what question are you asking?), and it should also tell the reader where you’re going to be going in order to answer your question. In that way, even without necessarily spelling out a thesis, your introduction acts as a road map for the rest of the paper. For this reason, you might find it useful to go back and rewrite your introduction after you’ve completed a first draft of the paper.

–Your introduction should lead the reader straight to your topic without resorting to any kind of sweeping generalizations or universal claims.

–Rather than simply restating your introduction, your conclusion should both summarize the important interpretive claim you’ve made in the paper and indicate how your analysis might help readers to understand the text in question.

1.Our readings this week come from the Romantic poet William Blake.  In preparation for Wednesday’s class, please read the following poems (found in Vol. E of the Norton Anthology): Introductory Poem (untitled), “The Lamb”, “The Chimney Sweeper” (There are two poems with this title; read them both), “The Tyger”, and “London.”

2.Choose one of the poems listed above to explore more deeply.  For your chosen poem, please share a post on our blog in which you: a)explain what drew you to select this poem b) identify a line, pair of lines, or stanza that seems to you to be particularly meaningful or perplexing c) offer some analysis or explanation of your selected passage and d) connect it to the overall theme of the poem.  Please post your work before our Zoom call on Wednesday, March 10th.

3. In addition to being a poet, William Blake was a fine artist and published illustrated editions of his own work, using a special engraving technique to create amazing prints that accompanied the two volumes of poetry that we are reading selections from: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Choose an image that accompanies one of the poems we are reading, and provide a brief comment that explains how the image and the poem work together. What do you see in the image you’ve selected that helps you understand the poem more fully? Be sure to include details from both the poem and the image in your discussion.  Please post your response to the blog by Friday, March 12th.

4.  Please read carefully the assignment (posted separately) for your first formal essay of the semester, together with the more general guidelines for essay writing I also shared.  Please use our Slack channel to ask any questions you have about the assignment.  Send me a short email by Sunday, March 14th, letting me know what text you are thinking about writing about and which topic you have chosen to pursue.  Please combine the two into a single question you are asking.  For example, if I am writing about masking or deceit in the short story “Bewitched,” perhaps my question might be, “What does “Bewitched” tell us about the linking of femininity and deceit?”  Don’t worry if you have difficulty formulating a question; just do your best!

5.  I have recorded a few words about Romanticism, particularly hoping to connect the dots between Rousseau’s early Romanticism and the Romantic poetry we will be reading over the next few weeks.   You can access the video HERE,  using Passcode: ^eo0.!gk   Please watch this short video and share in the form of a comment on this post one thing that you see in either Blake or Rousseau that could be characterized as “Romantic.”  Please do this by Wednesday, March 10th.

5.  Stay tuned for your Group Project assignments.  I am just waiting for a few stragglers to submit their Group Preference forms, and I will post the groups as soon as I can.