The Purpose of this Blog

Your task on this blog is to write a brief summary of what we learned in class today. Include enough detail so that someone who was ill or missed the lesson can catch up with what they missed. Over the course of the term, these 'class scribe' posts will grow to be a guide book for the course, written by students for students.

With each post ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is this good enough for our guide book?
2) Will your post enable someone who wasn't here to catch up?
3) Would a graphic/video/link help to illustrate what we have learned?


Thursday, 27 January 2011

Ulysses.

A lot of the work in this lesson wasn't writing, so this is going to be a short blog.

The first thing we did was read a bit of text which gave us background information on Alfred Tennyson's poem Ulysses.

After that we split in to groups of 3/4 and had to pick a part from the text that would be a good freeze frame. My group was going to do a freeze frame of a section which described a "6 headed sea monster" but we figured we didn't have enough heads. So eventually we done a freeze frame on a section that told us "At first he (Ulysses) refused to go to Troy, pretending to be mad by sowing his fields with salt, but the Greeks put his son Telemachus in front of his plow to test his sanity and Ulysses was forced to reveal his pretence." So I sat on what was supposed to be a plough (it looked more like I was driving a car) whilst the other people in my group cowered in fear." Other groups acted out freeze frames that resembled death, fear and anger.

Next we read Tennyson's poem, Ulysses. On the board a quote said the poem was about "the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life". Much of the poem emphasised this, despite the fact we found the narrative to reflect on the speaker as slightly big headed sometimes ("Myself not least, but honour'd of them all").

Homework:
-Analyse more of the poem.
- Answer "How does Tennyson tell the story in Ulysses?"

My bad for posting this late!

Daniel.
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10 comments:

  1. Chris. 张27 January 2011 at 14:35

    Ulysses (Latin for Odysseus) a character from Greek mythology. He was a king of Ithaca Hero of Homer's poem Odyssey (after the trojan war) (he also takes part in Iliad (set in trojan war)

    summary of what happens Odyssey:

    - Ships driven off course by storm after Troy and several raids

    - Encounters lotus -eaters and cyclops (escape via blinding)

    - Aeolus (master of winds) gave Odyssey wind in leather bag except (west wind) to return him and his crew back home (Ithaca)

    -Crew open bag whilst unaware of the "magical properties" creates storm just as their home is in sight

    - Asked Aeolus to help again, encounters cannibals only Odysseus' ship escapes

    - meets with witch-goddess (Circe) turned his men into pigs after feeding them

    -Circe fell in love with Odysseus due to his resistance to her magic (prepared for by Hermes warning and drugs moly), releasing his crew remained on the island for one year

    -Set sail again following Circe's instructions to return home meeting a prophet Tiresias at the western edge of the world

    -encountering his spirit of mother and learn't his wife (Penelope) was threatened by suitors

    - passed sirens, Six headed monster (as Daniel mentioned)

    -not listening to the guides (Thrinacia, and Circe hunting the cattle of the sun god) All crew dies in shipwreck but not Odysseus

    -Befriends Phaeacians (tells them his journey) agreeing to help him get home.

    -Is disguised as a beggar experiencing the problems at his household

    -next day an archery competition to win Penelope's hand (shoot through dozen axe heads) using Odysseus bow. Who takes part in the competition and is the only one to manage this feat.

    - Kills the suitors,and identifies himself to Penolope

    -Goddess Athena intervenes as family members of suitors want revenge

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  2. Anonymous27 January 2011 at 14:43

    What he said ^

    Daniel.

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  3. Anonymous27 January 2011 at 14:44

    lol joking, cheers Chris.

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  4. Chris. 张28 January 2011 at 01:54

    Glad to have helped

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  5. Sonny.31 January 2011 at 10:55

    Chris & Daniel..
    Both your posts were very informative..
    It seems Tennyson enjoyed taking well known characters from different situations and developing them further

    'Sonny.

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  6. Anonymous31 January 2011 at 14:48

    good blog it was very informative
    Tamsin

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  7. Anonymous1 February 2011 at 00:44

    Good blog Daniel...
    Akanksha

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  8. Anonymous1 February 2011 at 09:37

    Kool blog dude :)

    It's weird how Ulysses wishes for immortality when many others would decline that offer.

    Esmeralda ;)

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  9. Dylan Hugs2 February 2011 at 02:15

    In reference to Tithonus, the poem is surely a stark contrast. Would Ulysses really wish for immortality whilst knowing its cost? Also, how he heck did he not know about the other immortal guy, they were both Greek..

    And this comment isn't late, its from the future. <_<

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  10. Anonymous2 February 2011 at 12:45

    Thank you Daniel and Chris for great posts. Ulysses seems like a really selfish person in my opinion

    Chris W

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