AjaHannah

Well, I'm a journalist (kind of) and I have a different outlook on W. Virginia than J. does.

"Now the road dives between peaks, past towns...The speckling of quiet houses and rusted trucks draws itself from the much and develops culture and evolves into strip malls, bright knots of gas stations and fast food outlets, before collapsing again into a barbarism of shacks and rusted trucks" (20).

This is a very not glorious version of life around rural W. Virginia, but it's accurate. When my grandfather was alive we frequented the area. I'm not from the city, but I am from suburbia and I could see how it was more "country bumpkin." At the same time, in suburban MD we had exits for towns that were so small it's hard to even call them towns.

I'm also one for the beauty of nature. At least, J. knows that he is jaded by the city.

After Jerz explained in class that many people didn't think of John Henry as a hero anymore, J.'s coldness to the region, his bias, and the differences in the prolouge make a lot more sense.

SO

As a student in the Honors Program at Seton Hill University, one of my final requirements is an Honors Capstone.

I chose to combine the two distinct disciplines of New Media Journalism and Photography. I signed up for three weeks of training in Thermopolis, Wyoming through the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and Big Horn Basin Foundation. As a volunteer, I will become certified in Specimen Preparation, Field Work, and Molding and Casting.

I will takes notes and pictures, and blog my experience for the duration of the trip. My departure date is set for May 31 and my return date is June 22.

In Roberts "Writng About Literature" (Ch 11), his setup and descriptions of irony really work for me. A lot of the time I have problems figuring out irony and understanding it especially double entendre's that have sexual meanings. Then again, I'm quite innocent in mind and I forget/don't know these things.

I have a question though what kind of irony is in "The Necklace" when she finds out it was fake. Is that irony? Situational?

Humor is funny (golly, you think?) in that we laugh at people's misfortune. I love hearing comedians talk about their relationship problems or fights, but during those fights those couples (including myself) it is the farest from fun. The same when watching people fall down slides or something. That could really hurt someone as long as it's not us. "Safety and/or good will prevents harm and insures laughter" (167).

SO

This reminds me of our recent assignment for Writing of Poetry to speak in a voice (like ethnic) different from our usual voice. How am I supposed to do something as effective like this? I don't have the personal experience or emotion to hold an effective tone like Hughes does in "Theme for English B".

He seems to be cordial and equates himself to his white, older professor in a polite way, but at the very end it slips in: "and somewhat more free" (40). This is really forward from his underlying tone and its a distinct example of where he sets himself apart as a black man from his white teacher instead of pulling each other together because "that's American" (33).

I don't know much about Hughes or the 60s, but it surprised me that be attended Columbia University.

SO

Wow this chapter was long and it covered so much stuff. At the same time, I felt a lot of it was review. For example, the strategy to look for a topic: "If you still cannot decide on a topic after rereading the words you have liked, then you should carry your search for a topic into your school library" (260).

Since I'm indecisive, this is the same strategy I take each time and I look for a long article or book. The bibliography section was like the bibliography exercise that we did and the online library services is like what we went over on Friday and in Intro to Lit last year.

The notecard idea was interesting and I remember using it in high school once, but it costs money and it's time consuming. It's easier today to copy/paste links, bibliographies, notes, and quotes onto Word and save it.

This information actually seemed so outdated to me that I checked the publication date. Most recent: 2006. Originally published: 1964. Maybe this section needs to be updated.

SO

She shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but still I feel for the lady. She'd just started thinking positively of herself. Unlike Mathilde in "The Necklace," I didn't get the feeling that Miss Brill was stuffed up or wanted to be prettier or more popular than everyone else. She was confident, but not conceited.

And then hero and heroine shattered her "theatre" world, not only because they pretty much said she wasn't an actress and was actually and old hag, but also because they weren't the beautiful hero and heroine. The boy seemed to be inconsiderate of the girl's boundaries and the way he spoke about Miss Brill wasn't gentelmanly at all. The girl, despite her protests, doesn't seem to the pure heroine and is also very rude.

Poor Miss Brill didn't even finish her routine/act/play by stopping at the baker's for her honeycake that sometimes had an almond in it, that was "like carying home a tiny present - a surprise" (351).

SO

Unlike the boat poem we read before, I understood John Keats's "On First Looking..." for the most part. I was still a bit lost in translation because I didn't know who Chapman was or why he was important or really about the controversy between the original greek (I think it is) and the English translation, but I still loved the poem.

I wanted to note that in chapter nine on page 141 there is a paragraph of information summarizing the poem. This summarization really helped, but I see how (with all the lost metaphors/similies) it loses its greatness and its depth.

This reminded me of the middle and high school books that we would read Shakespeare or other old works. On the left page was the original text (or older English translation) while the right page had notes that explained what a certain passage was saying or an old phrase/reference. The paragraph is Roberts reminded me of this. It's clarification, it's like Sparknotes, it's helpful (sometimes necessary), but not nearly as good.

I'm torn though between liking that old high school style where the answer/message was delivered alongside of story or the new college level of struggling through it, but getting more out of it.

If you had something similiar, which do you prefer? Do you think as college students it's our duty to decipher everything now? What about those still not skilled in the meanings of poetry?

SO

I love how the famous poem "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" by John Keats can be so moving, yet very wrong. Perhaps it was common at the time for someone to mix up Cortez and Vasco de Balboa. As a student in teh 21st century, I didn't even know it was wrong until I looked in the notes.

What struck me was that even though his information was wrong, it was still printed and reprinted. It is still talked about for it's great figures of speech and it didn't lose any of the meaning. Either he was already a really famous poet and nobody questioned him, it was an insignificant fact, or the poem was just so good that it didn't matter. Perhaps it was all three.

"Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes/He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men/Look'd at each other with a wild surmise" (141 line 11-13).

SO

This is a good example of using sound imagery. I could hear the overlapping cries because of the repetition, alliteration, and different uses of the expression of sorrow and darkness:

• "sessions of sweet silent thought" (line one)
• "And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste" (line 4)
• "in death's dateless night" (line 6)
• "And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe" (line 7)
• "Then I can grieve and grievances" (9)
• "woe to woe" (10)
• "fore-bemoaned moan" (11)
• "Which I new pay, as if not paid before" (12)

Really it reminded me of the Halloween spirit. Then came the couplet ending as usual in a Shakespearian sonnet that turned the whole feel around and said "It's not that bad" and "sorrows end" (line 14).

SO