Lit Device #3 is due next class!

After School Study Sessions and Writing Help

Tuesday (11/4)
and Thursday (11/6)
after school.
If you want to come
in another time,
let me know
in comments
or send an email.
Let's get this right!

Hamlet Reading Schedule Change

For November 5 & 6:        4.1 - 4.4
For November 7 & 12:      4.5 - 4.7
For November 13 & 14:    5.1 - 5.2
For November 17 & 18:    "Hamlet: A Modern Perspective"

Literary Device Assignment: These are the Keys!

Listen Up!

There are three keys to a quality product here:

First, it is essential that you establish the basic situation for the line or lines that contain the literary device you will be analyzing. What has happened just before? What plot developments are relevant? This should take no more than a sentence or three.

Second, you must D>E correctly. Quote properly and explain your brains out. Shakespeare often has all kinds of multiple meanings and connections to other ideas and plot developments. Unpack metaphors; discuss emphasis. Seriously, say as much as you can.

Third, and perhaps most challengingly, connect to larger issues that are evolving. This can include plot and conflict, character development, motifs, themes, and other imagery, metaphors, etc.

"Ozymandias" Grades

I believe I have corrected all the analyses of "Ozymandias". If you do not have a score in StudentVue, it is because you are yet to make up the test from an absence, your assignment did not reach me, or you are blowing it off. Please, if you have no grade, let me know which it is. (Option three is not recommended.)


Sorry, not the greatest representation here; the "visage" is not "half sunk" and I am not sure that facial expression qualifies as a "sneer of cold command", but you get the idea. I can only assume this image is a photoshop. But it is interesting how this poem, taught in high schools and colleges everywhere, keeps old Ozy alive, barely, for another generation. Does anyone currently "despair" while viewing it?

(You guys and gals could comment every now and then.)

Hamlet Reading Schedule

Day 1     1.1
Day 2     1.2 - 1.3
Day 3     1.4 - 2.1
Day 4     2.2
Day 5     3.1 - 3.2
Day 6     3.3 - 3.4
Day 7     4.1 - 4.7
Day 8     5.1 - 5.2
Day 9     "Hamlet: A Modern
                Perspective"


Reminder: Your first Lit Device Assignment for Act 1 is not due until next week. You should, however, be keeping up on the Scene Themes.

Hamlet Assignments

The following are your two play-long assignments for Hamlet. Keep all entries together, organized, and shared with me. Name the document “Hamlet: Themes and Devices".

Scene Themes and Tone

Each of the scenes in Hamlet, generally speaking, has a kind of thematic concern that emerges through the action and dialogue along with an overall tone that reinforces the thematic concept. This part of the assignment is to simply make a list of each scene’s theme and tone along with a quick list of plot elements that demonstrate them.

1.1

theme: uncertainty

tone: mysterious, apprehensive, tense

events: setting is at night, outside; characters are on watch (opening words of play “Who’s there?); the appearance of ghost (what is it? what does it want? what should we do? what does this mean?);  why the preparations for war; tell Hamlet?

Literary Devices and Techniques in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Literary devices are what puts the art in literature. Each has a specific function and adds meaning and depth to a text. One of our goals with Hamlet is to gain experience identifying these techniques as they appear in a text and then appreciating how they enhance meaning of that particular passage, but also contribute to larger ideas of the text as a whole. (This is essentially D>E, right?)

Step 1: Learn the meaning of the following terms and begin to identify them in the text as we read.

•Alliteration  •Allegory •Allusion  •Ambiguity  •Anaphora   •Anastrophe  •Analogy •Anecdote •Antihero •Aphorism  •Apostrophe  •Aside  •Assonance  •Antithesis •Asyndeton  •Cacophony •(Metaphysical) Conceit  •Connotation  •Caesura •Colloquialism •Consonance  •Chiasmus •Denotation • Deus Ex Machina  • Dialect  •Double Entendre  •Enjambment  •Epanalesis • Epigraph •Euphemism •Euphony  •Flashback  •Form  •Hyperbole  •Foreshadowing •Imagery •(Situational) Irony  •(Verbal) Irony  •(Dramatic) Irony  •Juxtaposition  •Litotes •Meiosis •Metaphor •(Extended) Metaphor •(Implied) Metaphor •(Mixed) Metaphor •Metonymy •Malapropism  •Mood  •Motif  •Onomatopoeia •Oxymoron •Paradox •Paralipsis •Parallel Structure •Parody •Periphrasis •Personification •Polysyndeton •Pun •Rhyme •Sarcasm •Simile •Soliloquy •Stream of Consciousness •Symbol  •Synecdoche •Synesthesia •Tone •Tragic Flaw  •Understatement  •Zeugma

Step 2: For each act of Hamlet, choose one device and create a literary device analysis assignment. Follow the format of the example below precisely.

Literary Device Glossary Act One: Alliteration in Hamlet

Alliteration is the use of repeated sounds (usually consonants) at the beginning of words for various poetic effects. When used properly, alliteration places special emphasis on words essential to the meaning of the poem or passage or creates sound effects resonant with the ideas or events of the text.

Example: “A little more than kin and less than kind.” (1.2.67)

Description and Effect: Hamlet’s first words, as an aside in response to Claudius, are this alliterative line which repeats the ‘l’ sound in “little” and ‘less” and the ‘k’ in the words “kin” and “kind”. “Kin” and “kind” are worthy of the emphasis the alliteration imbues, as his mother’s “o’er hasty” marriage to his father’s murderer Claudius is the initial conflict and impetus for the plot (2.2.60). “Kin” and “kind” are juxtaposed with their descriptors “more” and “less” to suggest that Hamlet resents the marriage and his new position within his restructured family. He and Claudius are now “more than kin” in that his uncle is now his father – that is, twice related; further, the line, taken with a bit of sarcasm on the word “little”, suggests Hamlet’s lack of love and respect for Claudius who he values at “little more than kin.” The second half of the sentence, “less than kind”, reiterates his distaste for Claudius. Shakespeare surely intended “kind” to be also read as “natural”; in other words, the marriage of Claudius and his mother is unnatural, even “incestuous” (1.2.162). Further, Hamlet may be implying that Claudius is of a less worthy stock than he or his Father, as in “less than” their “kind”. That Hamlet’s opening line is phonetic wordplay rich with multiple connotations fits well with his wit and his inscrutability. The less obviously alliterated measuring words “little” and “less”, spoken as an aside rather than a direct verbal confrontation, underscore Hamlet’s “measured” thinking, his introspective nature and lack of commitment to decisive action that will haunt and torment him as his tragic flaw throughout the play.

Notice:

The first part is a formal definition in complete sentences. As a resource for definitions of the terms, use a literary glossary, not a standard dictionary; paraphrase definitions.

The second part is a quote of the passage that contains an example of the device you have defined; include an MLA citation.

The third part is the analysis. The analysis clarifies the use of the device in the quotation, provides basic context of the situation, discusses, in depth, the contributions the device makes to the meaning of the passage (D>E), and attempts to connect the device and its meaning to large issues such as character or plot development and thematic ideas.

Hey DingBat!

Are you still reading this?

What is the significance of that little life detail?
...

You left your Psychology text in my room.

Acquainted with the Night

Acquainted with the Night (1928)

Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat 5

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye; 10

And further still at an unearthly height

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

1. How many stanzas does this poem contain?
2. What do the numbers to the right of poem delineate?
3. Who is the speaker of this poem?
4. What, in the most literal sense, does the speaker talk about in the poem?
5. Give an example from the poem that illustrates each of the following literary term and concepts:
1. a word possessing connotative significance
2. an image
3. a metaphor (extra credit)
4. a repetition
6. When considering the opening stanza, what words or phrases seem most worth commenting upon?
7. What is suggested by the speaker’s claim that he has “outwalked the furthest city light” (3)?
8. What do you think a “watchman” is? How does the speaker react to him? Why?
9. Describe what happens in lines 7-10. What does this suggest about the speaker?
10. What is the “luminary clock” (13)? What does it do and what does that mean?
11. Overall, what mood is created by the series of images that largely comprise this poem? Suggest at least three adjectives.
12. Is there anything about what the speaker says that suggests his tone is different than this mood? Explain.
13. What does this poem do? What is this poem about?
14. What is the affect of the speaker repeating the first and last lines?
15. Write an analytic paragraph dealing with a basic interpretation of this poem.

Turn It In

I want to try grading papers on Turn It In. And anyway, you guys are jamming my Gmail Inbox something fierce, so I gotta figure something else out. I am not sure I will continue to use Turn It In regularly, but I do want to try it. Please get your account active by the beginning of next week.

Here is how you enroll in your class:

Period     Class ID
AP 1       8799292
AP 2       8799315
AP 3       8799322
AP 5       8799326

Password: verse