• How would you describe the genre(s) of the Pillow Book?
• How are poems and poetry used in the text? What is the place of poetry in Heian court life as depicted in the text?
• Whose values are authorized in The Pillow Book? How does this point of view affect the depiction of others (the poor, the elderly, those out of favor with the court, etc.) in the text?
• What’s the purpose of the story of Okinamaro, the court dog? Of the begger nun and the snow mountain?
• Look at the various lists in The Pillow Book: “dispiriting things,” “rare things,” “things that are distressing to see,” “endearingly lovely things,” “things that give you pleasure.” What do the things in each of these lists have in common?
• What are your impressions of Sei Shonagon as a writer, and as a character in her own story?

Come up with one question or discussion topic of your own.

In The Book of The City of Ladies, there are many of female characters are appeared. As Lady Reason persuades Christine, the characters are very brave, intelligent, and tough. For example of the Queen Semiramis in Book 1,
One time, Semiramis was sitting in her room surrounded by her land-maidens,
who were busy combing her hair, …She Jumps immediately and swore on her
kingdom that the half of her hair which had not yet been plaited would remain
loose until she could avenge this outrage and take country back into her control.
In fact, usually during the time that Christine actually wrote this book, women were supposed to be LADY figures that always are neat and nice especially in higher rank society. However, Queen Semiramis did not care about her appearance and took care of her kingdom(we should say queendom).

Each of the female heroes were giving answer to Christine’s dilemma that why the world looks down on female, and all of the information(books) informs about female as God’s imperfect creation. So the Amazon Queens were enough to compare to the great kings or even braver than them. One particular example of Nicpstrata, who invented Latin alphabet ABC and various types of science. This particular character is giving a big answer to Christine that women are intelligent.

She gave this knowledge and this alphabet to the people, in the hope that they would            become universally known. It was truly no small or insignificant branch of knowledge            that this lady invented, nor should she receive only paltry thanks for it.

So, after her invention of new branches of learning, now the descendants of her, could learn about Christianity and science that men’s job to do as men thought.

• How would you describe the genre of the Book? How does it differ in genre from what we’ve been reading so far?
• The Book makes use of several rhetorical devices you’d expect from a persuasive argument. How many can you find? How effectively are they used by Christine?
• In what specific ways does Christine adapt her classical source material for a Christian audience? (see esp. pp. 791, 799, 801)
• Several of Christine’s heroines are warriors and/or tacticians (Semiramis, the various Amazon queens, Dido). How do their military ethics compare to those of other warriors––for example in Homer’s Iliad or elsewhere you’ve heard of or experienced ?
• The character of Reason advises Christine to read misogynistic texts “to [her] advantage, no matter what the author’s original intention was.” Is this a valid reading strategy? When is it ok to disregard an author’s to suit our own argument?

When the brothers were conversing king Shahrayar said to his brother king Shahzaman:

Brother, you were fortunate in  killing your           wife and her lover, who gave you good reason      to feel troubled, careworn, and ill. In my                opinion, what happened to you has never            happened to anyone else. By God, I had been      in your place, I would have killed a hundred        or even a thousand women.

I dont believe that someone can just kill because of adultery. However it is unpredictable when a person is covered with strong negative emotions. King Shahzaman must blocked out when he sliced up the lover and his wife and then threw them out the balcony. It’s very hard to imagine what will be the reaction when you caught someone red handed. It’s really a matter of flight or fight.

King Shahrayar is showing of to his brother that this will never happened to him because if it did he will kill them all. His wife will not going to dare to do it or even think about it because she knows her place. No one should assume they know everything that is going on in his/her life. In addition if you believe you are doing great be humble

I can see in this excerpt the foreshadowing of king Shahrayar. He had it so bad. His wife was having an orgy in his palace while he is gone. It’s more than an orgy because it has role playing, heterogeneous and homogeneous sexual intercourse, mix racial and mix social class.

This is the third and final story to save the merchant’s live. This story is about love, betrayal, magic and revenge. The third sheikh presents his mule wife to the demon. The story begins with the sheikh returning home after a long time away. He finds his wife with another man, and before he knows it, the wife puts a spell on him and turns him into a dog. After being rescued by a butcher, the butcher’s daughter turns him back into a man. The sheikh is grateful and asks for the spell to get revenge on his wife. The sheikh explains to the demon that the mule beside him is none other than his cheating wife. The demon is pleased with this story and grants the last third of the merchant’s life.

This story is similar to the phrase “what goes around, comes around.” Instead of showing guilt, the wife turns the husband to the dog. Her husband should not be punished for her betrayal. He seeks revenge and wins in the end. The third sheikh’s story is funny enough to make the demon laugh and grant the merchant’s freedom.

There is another phrase that says, “Revenge is sweet.” Although, the third sheikh is cheated on, turned into a dog and chased away from home, he manages to get the last laugh in the end.

• We know Shahrazad’s strategy in telling this series of tales, but is there any moral or didactic purpose in any of the content of the tales?
• Women and “black” men receive particularly troubling portrayals in the frame narrative and in some of these tales. Do you find 1001 Nights racist or sexist? Can we even speak in terms of “racism” and “sexism” as those terms are used today?
• Repetition and numbers help to structure the tales, and 3s are especially common structuring elements. How many events occur in 3s in the story? What is the effect of sequences of 3 in the tales?
• How many different ways is verse used in the tales? In other words, is there a rhetorical strategy in the use of verse rather than prose in some places?
• The “frame narrative” passages between tales are largely repetitive and formulaic, but is there any development of the narrative or character development within those passages? Think especially of the character of King Shahrayar.

Shahrazad is an impressive character found within the Thousand and One Nights. She devises a clever plan to marry King Shahrayar in an effort to save her live and those of her fellow women. King Shahrayar has a ritual of marrying a woman and then killing her the next day. The reason for King Shahrayar having such a ritual is due to his first wife’s infidelity. This led him to mistrust all women and seek revenge upon them. Shahrazad is a woman full of knowledge and wit who uses this tool compel a plan. The plan includes her urging her father to marry her off to King Shahrazad. “I would like you to marry me to King Shahrayar, so that I may either succeed in saving the people or perish and die like the rest”(562). This is a courage’s act by Shahrazad because it could led to her death should her plan fail. She also has her sister assist her with her plan. The plan is to tell the king a story built up his curiosity to the extent of him wanting to learn more. This process extended her life a day at a time and also allowed her to teach the king valuable lessons. Shahrazad plan worked it forced King Shahrayar to grant her indefinite life. King Shahrayar learned about his soul and how to rule his kingdom better. Shahrazad proves that with knowledge and wit anyone can be outsmarted.

In the story Oedipus the king, Oedipus considers himself to be the child of luck and boasts about his good fortune. Towards the end of the story Oedipus states “Luck is my mother who raised me; the months are my brothers, who’ve seen me through the low times in my life and the high ones. Those are the powers that made me.” He believes that he has good fortune and that it is that good fortune that has brought him to power. Oedipus throughout the story was worried about whether the killer is him or not, but in this text he seems to be reassured that he is not due to the good luck he has had up until now. He says luck is his mother and the months are his brothers thinking that good fortune is on his side but he’s soon to find out luck isn’t his mother but his wife is, and the months aren’t his brothers but more so his sons are.

Oedipus terribly mistakes his good fortune with his wretched one which is the dramatic irony shown here. The fact he saved the town and went on to become king in his own right was the opposite of luck; it was him fulfilling his cursed prophesy. This line shows Oedipus at his cockiest moment and displays his arrogance and blindness to the truth. The fact the fact the Oedipus thinks he is the child of luck is the best display of his mental blindness that has kept him powerful and sane up until the point of his revelation about his birth. This line does more than show dramatic irony, it shows how ignorant Oedipus is to his knowledge of origin and to people like Jokasta warning him to stop his search in order to protect him.

On p.151 there is an wonderful passage where Hrothgar disseminates his thoughts at the Celebration of Heorot:

It is a great wonder
how Almighty God in His magnificence
favors our race with rank and scope
and the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide.
Sometimes He allows the mind of a man
of distinguished birth to follow its bent,
grants him fulfillment and felicity on earth
and forts to command his own country. (1724-1730)

Not only in a fundamental sense is this provoking, but it also raises the question of the implications of its intended understanding.

This passage creates a clear distinction between hero and god. Opposed to the mythologies we’ve read, there is one God who allows for a man to be a hero, thus his actions and accomplishments are in a sense God’s success. Could this have been from the religious scribes?
Words liek “allowed”, “granted”, “gift” reinforce the idea that man is crafted into his existence by a higher power and not solely on the strength of his will.

The line, “favors our race with rank and scope” made me question whether there are undertones of a political agenda. We’ve seen many texts that play a part in influencing public perception, could this be a method of propaganda in favor of monarchy? The text indicates that rulers are “distinguished from birth”, and “favors” the general public with a ranking system. This is a vastly different ideology of other societies and social castes.

It was alarming to notice that such a short passage to explored the different ranking systems on a personal, social, and political level. There’s a difference in rank by human, leader, ruler, hero, and God. But I really liked the wonderment invoked by this section. Who/how/why does God aid certain characters or denounce and condemn them? Even if it is somewhat brandishing religion, it forces these types of questions to come about.