Remember--Historical Intro Quiz on Friday!

TODAY IN CLASS
Subject--Content of "The Seafarer" (104-107)
1.  Depending on your class period, we either went over or took some time to complete the chart indicating the concrete evidence (words/phrases from the poem's text) regarding both physical and emotional hardship.  Although there were plenty of examples of the misery caused by the elements and other physical aspects of life at sea, most students agreed that the emotional effects took the great toll on the speaker.

2.  And yet--despite all the hardship--the speaker keeps returning to the sea.  WHY?  So we read the rest of the poem (well, okay, I read the rest of the poem), with frequent stops to discuss meaning, particularly the big shifts in the speaker's train of thought.  (This is where your responsibility as a student comes in--do not rely on the blog to record every single thing that you should be noting as we move through our discussions).

3.  But one big "take-away" is that the speaker seems to blend pagan thought (belief in Fate, which in Old English was called wyrd) with belief in God, revealing at least some exposure to the creation account in Genesis (first book of the Bible) as well as concepts concerning Heaven.  At various points, the speaker provides principles of a good life drawn both from pagan warrior tradition and from Biblical teaching.  Expect to see this clash/conflict/overlay (whatever term best suits this mixture) in many of these early works.

A heads up:  Know that we will come back to this poem from time to time next week as we look at some of the specific literary terms and traditions associated with the Anglo-Saxon period.  So we're not "done" with it yet.

FOR TOMORROW
Short quiz covering pp. 23-27 in their entirety plus supplemental material provided in class.  The additional material is summarized as brief lecture notes, handed out in class on Wednesday but linked here .

Special note to anyone absent today:  we did nothing in class today concerning tomorrow's quiz.  If at all possible, you should try to take it as scheduled rather than arranging an after school make-up on Monday or Tuesday.