Memory, all alone in the moonlight...

With the use of scents (the cedar tree) or songs ("The Lass of Aughrim") to trigger memories in Snow Falling on Cedars and "The Dead," I thought it would be interesting to ask what some songs or scents are that trigger memories for you? For me, the smell of freshly cut hay brings me back to my childhood living on a farm and the song "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry takes me back to sitting at my father's feet as a young child listening to him play what I thought was some pretty heavy rock n' roll on his acoustic guitar. Anyhow, I am looking forward to your imagery presentations on Monday (and breakfast, of course!).

Snow, Music, Death, and White Whales

Hello all, I hope the reading for the weekend is going okay. The reading from Moby Dick is a little challenging, I realize, but I hope you are making some connections to Snow Falling on Cedars and starting to see why I had you read them. "The Dead" may be a little challenging at first, as well, but I think it is a beautiful short story (one of my favorites) in which Gabriel Conroy learns an important lesson. I want us to start thinking across texts with these examples and see if we can perceive how these stories may be in dialogue with one another through the use of symbols (think of some we have covered in How to Read Literature like a Professor if you have trouble). See if you can pick out some "common threads" between Snow Falling and one or both of the other readings and post your thoughts on this thread. If there is anything that is confusing you with any of the texts, feel free to post that, as well, and we can help each other out. See you Monday; have a great weekend.

Sonnets

I thought our discussion of sonnets today went quite well, and everybody had some insightful comments about the three well-known Shakespearean sonnets we read. I hope you are all finding some sonnets of your own that you like. Here is one of my favorites by John Keats who was so amazing and died so tragically of tuberculosis at only 25:

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No - yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever - or else swoon to death.

Plus, here is a good video somebody made from the film Bright Star about Keats, merging audio and video clips from the movie: