The Facebook of "Bartleby": Due 12 February

For this writing assignment, let's imagine "Bartleby the Scrivener" taking place in a contemporary setting. Office administrative staff spend their time on computers, now always on work-related tasks. Let's imagine that the characters of the story have Facebook accounts. Your task is to pick one character and describe his Facebook account. What is the profile picture? What personal info do they list? What is on their wall or do they write on others' walls? What kind of apps do they use? Etc. As you describe their account, be sure to write about your reasoning: explain why you think their account has these features.
200-300 words.

pic credit: http://www.cinecultist.com/archives/bartleby-poster2.jpg

William Wordsworth companion poem to "The Tables Turned"

I thought you might find this poem interesting. It comes right before "The Tables Turned" in Lyrical Ballads and is often read as the conversation starter to which "Tables" is a reply...


"EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY"


"WHY, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

"Where are your books?--that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:

"The eye--it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.

"Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

"--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away,"

Jane Austen goes zombie

I always thought Jane Austen novels were pretty creepy as they were, but Seth Grahame-Smith is taking it quite a bit further.



http://irreference.com/?p=8084.

Midterm Exam: Fiction Form Terminology

We've covered these terms while looking at the stories by Poe, Bierce, and Faulkner. As with the poetry terms, be prepared to define the term and name a text that uses it.

Point of View
1st person
2nd person
3rd person, omniscient, limited, objective

Methods of Characterization:
Showing
Telling
Dialogue
Interiority
Names

Film Recommendation: Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard is a classic from 1950. Yes, I know, it's in black and white, but I think you'll still find it incredibly watchable.

haiku for today

somewhere in oakland
a poet called sinister
is reading your blog

Faulkner's Nobel Prize Speech

Here's the link to William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Banquet Speech, 1949.
Please read this in addition to "A Rose for Emily" for Thursday's class.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html

pic credit: http://nighthawknews.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/faulkner2.jpg