“How many monsters does Beowulf kill? Three—Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. The Old English poem Beowulf is thought to date from the eighth century.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, foreign languages/linguistics, poetry
“Descent to the Underworld: The motif of numerous stories in the mythology and folklore of all peoples. The descent is usually made to rescue someone either abducted or rightfully dead, to find the answer to a question of discover a secret from the ruler of the underworld, or to seize some treasure. To partake of the food of the dead (or of fairyland in later folklore) prevents the visitor from ever returning. Among the most famous descent stories are the Greek myths of Orpheus and Eurydice, Demeter and Persephone, and Heracles bringing of Cerberus up from Hades and his rescue of Alcestis. Also well known are the Babylonian story of Ishtar’s descent to rescue Tammuz and the Norse myth of Hermod’s journey to Hel to bring back Balder. There are similar tales in Hindu, Chinese, and Japanese writings, and among the Ainu, Melanesians, North American Indians, and Eskimos. Descents to Hell are common also in early Christian literature.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Paean: (Greek ‘striking’ from paiein ‘to strike’) A song or hymn of joy, exultation or praise, In ancient Greece it was an invocation (q.v.) or thanksgiving addressed to Apollo the Striker, ‘one who strikes blows in order to heal mankind.'”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged philosophy/religion, poetry, term of art
“Oral Tradition: Poetry belonging to this tradition is composed orally, or made up as the poet goes along. As a rule, it is the product of illiterate or semi-literate societies. It is usually sung or chanted (often to musical accompaniment) and is the earliest of all poetry, in the sense that it precedes written poetry. It is still alive in many parts of the world, and in some regions of Europe: for instance, Sicily, the remoter parts of Greece, and in the central Balkans (especially Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia). In the upland districts of Yugoslavia it is still possible to find a guslar (q.v.) reciting verses on recent events. See also BALLAD; BYLINA; EPIC; FOLKSONG; NARODNE PESME”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
This lesson plan on the Greco-Roman social is the eleventh–see below–or an eleven-lesson unit on the origins of religion and philosophy. I grabbed this from a social studies teacher with whom I worked for several years in Lower Manhattan. The raw documents, which I typed and formatted Microsoft Word, looked like they came from someplace on the Internet similar to Mark’s Text Terminal.
In any case, I attached this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Aesop’s fables as wells as this one on the idiom “When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do” as openers for this lesson, which can easily go for two or even three days. In order to get this activity started, you’re students will need this list of participants in the social and the student worksheet and organizer that will serve as their dance card, so to speak, in this activity. I’ll include this teacher’s copy of the list of participants in the Greco-Roman social as well. I regret that the page numbers given for the readings are for a long-forgotten textbook that my co-teacher and I used for this enterprise. It shouldn’t be hard to replace my page numbers with those from whatever textbook your district uses for globals studies and geography.
As I worked my way through posting this unit, I realized I wanted these lessons to span two days so I could get a look at kids’ short-term memories, whether something they’d read the day before remained with them, and if they could apply that knowledge the next day. This guided my planning and suggested to me what I might do in the way of support for the students I served. Let me reiterate once more than these lessons are the basis for a series of lessons that I recut every year to fit the fashions of the New York State Global Studies and Geography Regents Examination.
In the final analysis, I see a lot of room for improvement in these lessons. You probably will too. Remember that just about everything you download from Mark’s Text Terminal is in Microsoft Word, so you may alter this material to your students’ and your own needs.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Aegis: (fr Gr, aix, ‘goat’) Variously interpreted as a shield made of goatskin or as the awesome thundercloud of Zeus. Homer depicts the aegis as an impregnable shield made by the god Hephaestus. On occasion Zeus lent the aegis to other gods; particularly Athene and Apollo. The aegis symbolized the gods’ special powers. Hence the term has come denote authority and protection.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Here’s another set of documents that to the best of my knowledge I only used once; that means I wrote them for someone with an interest in country music in general and this legend of the genre in particular. So, here is a reading on Hank Williams and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Troubadours: Poets of southern France, northern Italy, and Catalunya who flourished from the 12th to the 13th century and wrote primarily in Occitan. The term is derived from the Occitan verb trobar, to compose. Troubadour poetry is best known through the elaborately formal lyrical Canso which celebrated courtly love and chivalry, and for proposing a fusion of aesthetic sensibility with the ability to love. During the 13th century nonlyrical genres, such as the sirventes, and the narrative works, such as the Canso de la crozada, became prevalent. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a noted patron of troubadours who introduced troubadour themes and lyrical conventions at the courts of northern France. The trobairitz were female poets of southern France who wrote in Occitan in the same period. Most trobairitz, such as Beatrice de Dia, Cara d’Andeza, and Na Castelloza practiced the Canso and other lyric genres. (See TROUVERES; GUILLAUME IX; BERNARD DE VENTADOR; and BETRAN DE BORN.)”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Rotten Reviews: The Prelude (William Wordsworth)
‘The story is the old story. There are the old raptures about mountains and cataracts. The old flimsy philosophy about the effect of scenery on the mind; the old crazy mystical metaphysics; the endless wilderness of dull, flat, prosaic twaddle…,”
T.B. Macaulay, in his journal
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
“Margot Asquith, an English countess, published an autobiography which filled four large volumes, a literary endeavor that Dorothy Parker found tedious and over-personalized. Mrs. Parker predicted: ‘The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.’”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, poetry
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