“At last, when his wits were gone beyond repair, he came to conceive the strangest idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world... to become a knight errant and roam the world on horseback, in a suit or armor; he would go in quest of adventures.”
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PRIORITIES FOR THE IMPENDING, PERENNIAL, PROTRACTED PAUSE:
1. Read from page 2217 to 2220 (“Miguel de Cervantes”) and from 2226 to 2233 (chapters 1-2, “I Know Who I Am, and Who I May Be, If I Choose” of Don Quixote).
Monday, December 1 (5) - Homer, Iliad; By Thursday, be sure to have read from 2234-2242 (chapters 3-4, “I Know Who I Am, and Who I May Be, If I Choose” of Don Quixote). By Wednesday, watch the first 10 minutes and minutes 41-52 of the video to the right.
Tuesday, December 2 (6) - Long quiz on Homer, Iliad
Wednesday, December 3 (1) - Cervantes, Don Quixote
Thursday, December 4 (2) - Cervantes, Don Quixote
Friday, December 5 (3) - Sample in-class essays; Over the weekend, read from 2242-2253 (chapter 5, “I Know Who I Am, and Who I May Be, If I Choose” and chapters 7-8, "Fighting the Windmills and a Choleric Biscayan" of Don Quixote).
Monday, December 8 (4) - Cervantes, Don Quixote; Tonight, read from 2253-2256 (chapter 9, "Fighting the Windmills and a Choleric Biscayan" of Don Quixote). EC Vocab Quiz tomorrow.
Remember that Calculus and Don Quixote are equivalent: "[O]ur imagination can narrow the existential gap by giving us in a wide range of human situations the closest approximation to experience that we are ever likely to get" (Achebe, "The Truth of Fiction").
Tuesday, December 9 (5) - EC Vocab Quiz (Oldies, but goodies); Killgallon; Cervantes, Don Quixote; Tonight, read from 2257-2260 (chapter 10, "Fighting the Windmills and a Choleric Biscayan" of Don Quixote).
Wednesday, December 10 (6) - Cervantes, Don Quixote
Thursday, December 11 (1) - Cervantes, Don Quixote
Friday, December 12 (2) - DEAD DAY - NO CLASS
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SEMESTER 1 EXAM - WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 8:15AM
Part 1 - Killgallon (10%)
Part 2 - Quote Identification (30%)
Part 3 - Synthetic Essay (60%)
OVER CHRISTMAS BREAK:
Come back having completely finished reading (perhaps re-reading) your research text.
Also, Read 1.1 (shorthand for Act 1, scene 1) of Shakespeare's Hamlet (Norton 2410-2414). Read the corresponding section of this scene-by-scene analysis BEFORE you read Shakespeare's text. Consult no other reading guides; this is as good as it gets.
Due Dates
Research Text Selection - Monday, December 1
SEMESTER 1 EXAM - WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 8:15AM
Below are 5 of my annotated pages from various texts and 1 of David Foster Wallace's copy of DeLillo's Players. The pages of the texts that you will be working with most closely should look just like these.
Picasso's Don Quixote, 1955
Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The professor introduces himself and the course. He starts explaining the reasons why Don Quixote is a masterpiece and its place and relevance in the history of Western literature. He then comments on the proper pronunciation of the word "Quixote" and the reasons of mispronunciations in French and English.
Here is the official, departmental description of English 4:
Using The Norton Anthology of Western Literature, seniors build on their knowledge of the traditions of American and British literature by studying literature of the wider world, reading excerpts and full-length works from Western and Eastern cultures. Seniors continue their study of writing with The Little Brown Handbook, learning to improve their prose style and to write clearer and more cogent essays of literary analysis and personal reflection. In the spring, students learn the basics of academic research while producing an essay that combines their own insights with their synthesis of the ideas of scholars.
You are, however, to expect for things to vary. We have, for instance, added the Killgallon, Sentence Composing for College to the course syllabus. This will take up a good deal of time throughout the year. Below is a list of texts that we may or may not read. There are also, in fact, a few million texts not on the list that we may or may not read. Be flexible. I am. I like it that way.
First Quarter – The Ancient World
Stories of creation and ancient ideologies - Genesis, Hesiod, Plato, Lucretius
The Epic – Homer, Virgil, Ovid
Ancient drama – Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus
Second Quarter – The Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Narrative fiction before the novel – Boccaccio, Dante, Chaucer, The Arabian Nights, Cervantes
Renaissance thought – Montaigne, Castiglione, Machiavelli
Drama – Shakespeare, Marlowe
Third Quarter – The 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries
The Mock-epic and satire – Swift, Pope, Voltaire
Russian literature – Gogol, Pushkin, Chekhov
Fourth Quarter – The 20th Century
The Novel and the Novella – Conrad, Achebe
The Short Story – Kafka, Joyce
Course Texts
Killgallon, Sentence Composing for College
The Little, Brown Handbook (11th Ed.)
The Norton Anthology of Western Literature (8th Ed.)
Shostak, Vocabulary Workshop, Level H
If you do not mind (even if you do mind) bring in the Killgallon text on each day 5.