The Lives of Others

For a really good article about Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, click here.

For a summary of Bertolt Brecht's play The Good Person of Szechwan (Der gute Mensch von Sezuan), click here.

For ideas about how Brecht's play and Donnersmarck's film may be related, use your brain.

Scholarship English

Hello Year 13 students who are interested in sitting Scholarship English.

Please find under the heading "Scholarship documents" (left), links to three documents that I've prepared for you. Scholarship Booklet Part I contains an introduction to the exam. Scholarship Booklet Part II gives you access to a series of famous poems, spanning several decades. Scholarship Booklet Part III has plenty of suggested readings, plus some tips on creating your own blog.

Poems of the week are the extracts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Troilus and Criseyde, which you'll find in Scholarship Booklet Part II. Please enter your comments on this blog, in response to any or all of the following questions:

1. What do you notice about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?

2. What do you notice about Troilus and Criseyde?

3. These two poems are roughly contemporary with one another. What can we then deduce about English in the 14th century?

The Lives of Others

Hi Year 13s.

Now that we've viewed most of the film, I've got some questions for you:

1. What, for you, is the most memorable moment from the film so far? Why?

2. Which moment from the film has the most emotional impact? What gives it its power?

3. The music that Jerska gives to Dreyman is entitled 'Sonata for a Good Man'. Who in this film is good? Justify your answer.

Year 12 English - Lord of the Flies

Hi Year 12 - here's your chance to join the blogging action.

I've got two questions for you. Feel free to answer either or both, by adding a comment. The questions are:

1. If you could compare the setting of the novel to a real-life place, where would it be? What are the similarities?

2. If you had to be abandoned, just as the boys have been abandoned, where would you choose? Why?

Let's get blogging,

EG

Henry V

David Lawrence (director of the Victoria University production of Henry V), has this to say:

"My starting point with any Shakespeare play is always about the here and now. What makes the play worth performing in the here and now? The plays have survived on the one hand because they're great stories with lots of scope, but the most important reason has to be because they're about aspects of human psychology and emotion that are as pertinent and true now as they were 400 years ago.... [W]ith Henry V it's impossible to look beyond the US of the past decade. Henry V is, at its basic level, about a guy nobody actually voted for invading a country who've got nothing to do with any of their political turmoil and toppling their government under the claim of being liberators."

YOUR TASK: Comment on any or all of the following excerpts from Henry V, in light of what David Lawrence has written:

III.i.3-8
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage (Henry)

III.i
The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' (Henry)

III.vi
We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs. (Henry)

IV.i
O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear (Henry at prayer before the battle at Agincourt)

IV.iii
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother (Henry)

IV.vii
MONTJOY:
The day is yours.
KING HENRY:
Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!

V.ii
KATHARINE:
O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies.

KING HENRY: What says she, fair one? That the tongues of men are full of deceits?

ALICE: Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits: dat is de Princess.

V.ii
KATHARINE:
Is it possible dat I should love de enemy of France?

KING HENRY:
No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate;but, in loving me, you should love the friend of France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it, I will have it all mine; and, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.


Finally...
1. Do you think, in writing this play, that Shakespeare wanted audiences to sympathise with the English and be against the French? Why/ why not?

2. How does Shakespeare position us in relation to the characters? (How does he manipulate us to feel how he wants us to feel towards them?)

3. Is Henry just a George W. Bush prototype? Or is he more than that?

4. Did you like the Henry you saw at the production on Wednesday night?


Some links
- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19449.htm for an article on the modern-day Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan
- http://www.william-shakespeare.info/script-text-henry-v.htm for the play script
- http://www.grovel.org.uk/henry-v-the-graphic-novel/ for a review of a graphic novel version of Henry V
- http://www.rsc.org.uk/content/3104.aspx for Royal Shakespeare Company notes on Henry V
- http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/henryv for Spark Notes on Henry V

Questions about Fleur Adcock

Here are the questions we generated in class the other day. Use them as a springboard for your own personal research:

1. How did her father die?
2. What is "esoteric symbolism"?
3. What does "oeuvre" mean?
4. Why does she not acknowledge other New Zealand poets (apart from Ursula Bethell) as having influenced her?
5. Is her status as an "ambivalent outsider" related to issues of national identity?
6. Who are the "lake poets"?
7. Why is she so "anti-erotica"?
8. Why does she translate Latin and Romanian poetry?
9. Why didn't her marriages last?
10. Does she have siblings?
11. How did she and her former husband decide which son would live with who?
12. How does she feel about her national identity?
13. What made her return visit to New Zealand in the 1970s so traumatising?
14. What has made her return since then?
15. Why did her family return to New Zealand after World War II?
16. Which poetry of hers helped her to win the Queen's Medal?
17. Why does she always write her poems as an outsider?
18. How many poems has she published?

These questions are a good starting point for your own investigation of Fleur Adcock's life and poetry. A helpful website could be http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=11940, where you'll find an excellent interview with FA.

'Ngauranga Gorge Hill'

Right class, let's get responding. Post your thoughts on the poem in response to this message. Nothing like explicating a poem, eh.