Daily Agenda 2/6

Today's Agenda ~

* Watch the myth of Icarus and Daedalus on the Jim Henson Storytellers DVD.
* Shortened schedule due to 1/2 day.

Daily Agenda 2/4

Today's Agenda ~

* Meet in library
* Notes on Greek mythology
* Icarus and Daedalus poems, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and "Musee des Beaux Arts" about the painting
* Discuss poems
* Write your own poem

"It's Greek to Me" questions

1. According to Foster, there are three kinds of myth. What are they?
2. What kind of myth is "so much a part of the fabric of our consciousness, of our unconscious really, that we scarcely notice" (Foster 66)?
3. Explain, in a sentence or two, the myth of Daedalus and Icarus.
4. Who is the main character or focus of The Iliad?
5. Homer gives us four great struggles. Name them.

Involvement in Other People's Affairs

Read the statements below; respond according to your gut instinct. There is no "it just depends." Agree or disagree.

• When September 11 happened, I didn't really feel that bad about it because I didn't know anyone involved.
• If I saw someone I didn't know trip or fall down in the hallway and drop his/her things, I wouldn't help them. They'd probably think I was strange for getting involved; they might be embarrassed.
• People tend to keep to themselves; I am one of those people.
• When I get my license, if I'm driving and see someone stranded, I wouldn't help, especially if I had some place to be. They probably have already called for help.
• Sometimes people tend to 'not see things,' like someone getting hurt because they don't want to get involved or be held responsible in some way.

Daily Agenda 2/1

Today's Agenda ~

* Purchasing books? Please have money by next Friday
* Shortened schedule due to 2-hour delay
* Iliad / Trojan War background notes
* Begin reading / discussing chapter 9: "It's all Greek to Me"
* Begin discussing myth of Icarus / Daedalus

Icarus and Daedalus Help

The Complete Story of Daedalus & Icarus, according to MythMan

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

About the Painting

Musée des Beaux-Arts

Poetry Pages (many outside links)

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, painting

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

"Landscape With the Fall of Icarus"

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

-- William Carlos Williams

Musee des Beaux Arts

"Musée des Beaux Arts"

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

-- W. H. Auden