Act One Scene 7: Holiday homework

Watch this:            Version 1: Sarah Oldknow & Jonathan Laing


And watch this:     Version 2: Judi Dench and Ian McKellan


Don't worry about version 3... unless you find another good one somewhere!

Is too much choice stressing us out?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/21/choice-stressing-us-out-dating-partners-monopolies?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Is Banksy a post-modern artist?

Cool prezi with some brilliant Banksy artwork...


https://prezi.com/bha5elhzve_3/cultural-analysis-of-bansky-as-postmodern-artist/

Watch this documentary on Witch Hunting

You can watch it on catch-up.

http://www.myonair.co.uk/WitchHuntACenturyofMurder

O'Driscoll and Please Hold

O'Driscoll blog; witty and insightful

This article picks up on some of the underlying currents in O’Driscoll’s work.

In his infuriating experience of an automated telephone system, O’Driscoll finds a

deeper metaphor for modern life. He is trapped in a world of binary response where any

deviation from the set script is met with incomprehension or delay. In his use of

repetition, O’Driscoll creates a horrible maze of language full of wrong turns and dead

ends. Language is reduced to a banality bordering on the meaningless. It has become

purely operational with no room for anomaly or shades of meaning. The irony is that,

should the narrator manage to bypass the system and get through to a real person,

they will treat him in just as robotic a fashion.

The poem has a kind of desperate comedy about it – funny but with a darker undertone,

partly due to the repeated insistence that ‘this is the future’. Whether by that is meant

the dominance of automation in our daily lives, the failure of language to communicate

what we need or the confusions of old age, or all of the above, isn’t made explicit.

However, it’s clear the narrator takes a dim view of the future if this is what it means.

This view is made increasingly clear by the narrator’s internal ‘translator’ who starts to

present alternative, sarcastic meanings to the phrases offered by the automated voice.

The mention of ‘looting’ also brings in the outside world briefly, hinting that the

narrator’s impotence in the face of this system has its parallel in how access to money –

and power – is tightly controlled at a societal level.

The deeper implications of the incident are borne out in the final three lines, set apart

from the rest of the text. Their progression from ‘hold’ to ‘old’ to ‘cold’ is a powerful

warning that a whole life might pass by while you wait for the answer you need.

Shakespeare on Lust

Sonnet 129

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
   All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
   To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Unreal Empire: the real world of Eliot's Waste Land

https://unrealempire.wordpress.com/

Simulacra: a good explanation

http://people.artcenter.edu/~hyang4/mdp01/simulacra.pdf

Great documentary on performance poetry

You've got 26 days to watch this before it expires...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06hhgxs/rhymes-rock-revolution-the-story-of-performance-poetry

Macbeth - context

How Macbeth was inspired by historical events...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06gs5yd

Verse forms - a simple guide

One simple guide: http://www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/stanza.htm#8-line%20stanzas


Please send any others you think are useful.

Material - the poet speaks

http://rosbarber.com/books/material-2008/

Homework - links to TS Eliot and The Waste Land

Harold Bloom and the Anxiety of Influence
One good summary here - pay special attention to the 6 revisionary ratios.
You'll need to do a bit of background research to find out about Bloom himself, too.


Mimesis
This is good - it gets harder as it goes along, mainly because academics keep adding to and refining the idea.


Simulacra
See Mr Douglas - he's got a graphic book on it.

Why Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5lsuyUNu_4

Eat, sleep, breathe poetry

The best way to get comfortable with poetry is to spend more time with it.


Here's a great place to start:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/27wq69x1zsvNcPbcJmFrJfF/contains-strong-language-a-season-of-poets-and-poetry

Eliot: ...not such a Prufrock after all?

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/30/new-edition-of-ts-eliot-poems-challenge-perceptions-of-his-sexuality

Year 10 Homework - due on Tuesday 6th October

Write a letter home to your wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her about your extraordinary day.

In your letter, you must cover:

- Your exploits in battle

- Your encounter with the witches

- Your meetings with Ross and Angus, then with King Duncan

- Your hopes and fears

She will want to know that you can see the opportunity that lies before you.

She will also want to know you didn't show anyone else what you were thinking!

So reassure her about both.

> Remember to act on your last writing targets.

> Bonus points if you can use words from the play correctly.

The nature of time in Modernist thought

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F37YTjKP-U

Modern times in the movies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1kxfiY_1DA – Metropolis

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lp4EbfPAtI – documentary on Chaplin’s Modern Times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjarLbD9r30 – the movie (1936)

Amazing research tool for your essays

http://modernism.research.yale.edu/index.php


I'll show you how to use it in a lesson, but feel free to get a head start.