Amber's Blog

Week 7

2008-02-29T14:30:00.000-08:00

Week 7 is done. Elliot has been a lot harder for me to understand than anything we have done so far. I ended up enjoying Mrs. Dalloway, but The Dead and The Waste Land really left me wondering what it was Elliot wanted me to come away with after reading it. I guess some of this interpetation is just beyond the way I understand things. Oh well, I don't think that makes me a bad person, just one that lacks the understanding of the great poets of modern English. See you all next week.

Week 6

2008-02-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

Well friends, it is six down & two to go. The web page is all new to me and I hope I am able to get it done. I really enjoyed Keats poems this week, but reading and staying with Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is proving to be tougher than I thought. I jumps from present to past then from thoughts to actual speaking, then back again. It requires a lot of effort to stay with it. Oh well, whats new. See you all next week.

Week 5

2008-02-14T14:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, week 5 is just about over. I just finished up my 2nd essay. It seems like to me that each period that we progress through the poetry gets harder to understand and . But the stories we read seem to be easier. I wonder if that is because more none educated people read the stories and less of the poetry as time went on and the authors adjusted their writting styles accordingly. I am interested to see if that is also true for the modern period we start on next week. I am nervous about the web page assignment. I have never done anything like that before. I am glad it is a group thing. That should help. See you all after week 6.

Week 4

2008-02-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

Well, week 4 is done, and so far, I am still hanging in there. I thought going into this week that the poems we would read and post on would be easier for me to understand than those in the 1st and 2nd week because they were written closer to our time. I was completly wrong. The Woman's Cause is Man's and My Last Duchess were so hard for me to understand that had I not seen the question and other peoples thoughts, I am not sure, when I re-read it, I could have even figured anything out about it. Now as far as Great Expectaions, I really have enjoyed what I have read so far. I did read this back in 9th grade in High School, so some of it I remember. I think I will like it better than I did then, though.

Week 3

2008-02-03T13:03:00.000-08:00

Week 3 ended up being a little easier than I thought it might with having to read a book, post, and turn in our first essay, along with everything in my other classes. Not a lot of time left over for work and getting ready for my wedding. Oh well, I am still hanging in there.
I ended up really enjoying this last week's reading. I got a whole new view of a story I only thought I knew. See what happens when we only let the TV/movies entertain us? We miss out on what may be a completely different way of looking at things.

Week #2

2008-01-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

Ok. Week number 2 is just about over with and I am still hanging in there. I was not sure at first if I was going to be able to do a class on English poetry from the 19th century, but I am still in it. It does feel a little bit like an "Albatross around my neck". Not really, but I have wanted to use that line ever since we read the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. If I get nothing else out of the class, I will always remember where that saying came from.
As for me, I really enjoyed Blake's poem the best. My favorite was the Chimney Sweeper. I guess because I understood what message he was wanting to get across. The least understood poem for me was Hymn of Intellectual Beauty. I still am clueless to what Shelley was trying to say in that poem. I am looking forward to next week's reading of Frankenstein. I remember watching the black and white version on TV when I was little and hiding behind the recliner, but so spell bound, I could not keep from watching it. I'll let you know know next week if I ended up reading the book from behind a recliner. LOL