AP Pot Luck Luncheon

Please post what you will bring so that we don't double up on food. Thanks.

Medea and The Theban Plays

As you know, we have a Timed Writing assignment on Tuesday. If you still have any questions about the works we've been studying, go ahead and post your questions and comments here. I'll try to answer your questions as soon as I can; however, if anyone else wants to contribute . . . feel free.

Mac Flecknoe

Read John Dryden's "Essay of Dramatic Poesie" at the following link:

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/drampoet.html

Answer the prompt in your journals. However, because you enjoy sharing your opinion of the literature we read, post your emotional responses here . . .

According to the satirical point of view conveyed in this poem and in Dryden's "Essay of Dramatic Poesy," what makes poetry bad? What are the key characteristics of bad literary art?

Paul's Case

Okay, I just got home and totally forgot to post a prompt for this short story and I'm too tired to think of one . . . if you want to just place a comment about it, feel free . . . not a requirement, though.

Bobbi Ann Mason's “Shiloh”

Hmmmm, a Southern man!


The feminist literary critics have aided us in analyzing and understanding how female characters are written in literature, often demonizing male characters in the process. Consequently, we have given very little consideration to “how” men are written. In Bobbie Ann Mason’s work we are introduced to the marginalized male – men who once seemed to wield power but are now only remnants of their formerly glorious selves, usually at the expense of the downhome feminist. In “Shiloh,” how are Leroy’s attempts at adjusting to his “new” life – problems with his marriage and troubles with the urbanization of his neighborhood – evidence of a “weak” male?

I’m trying not to write a leading question, but . . . what becomes problematic for feminist/female writers if in order to empower female characters, they “must” write weak male characters? What are the consequences of this literary “movement”?

"Gimpel the Fool"

Consider what Singer himself says in an author's note: "I dreamed of a humanism and ethics the basis of which would be a refusal to justify all the evils the Almighty has sent us and is preparing to bestow upon us in the future."

Has Singer moved "beyond" this position in his story "Gimpel the Fool"? Or is the story best viewed as an expression of it? Explain.

In Honor of Mary Bartolini