Beowulf Translation Debate

The idea for comparing translations of Beowulf as a class exercise in close reading is not mine, but a fellow graduate student's. However, I did modify this exercise to make the group work a bit more dynamic; the students were then required to debate the merits of their translation.



What makes a better translation?
What makes better literature?
How do you challenge someone else's opinion on literature using an identifiable set of criteria?
How do you develop this set of criteria?

I was evaluated based on this class, and it went really well.

The other important thing to note is that you should give them this hand out in advance. When I did this set of debates, I gave them a day to prepare. When I later gave them a week to prepare, the results were much better. 

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Tomorrow in class we will be discussing various translations of the same passage from Beowulf. Please read the translations, and then use the following questions to help draw comparisons between them.

1. How does the form of this translation make use of oral poetic characteristics? (alliteration, repetition, spacing, etc) [NB: I have recreated the text exactly as it appears on the page, including commas, spaces, justifications. Take that into consideration, also!]
2. What kind of imagery is used in the passage?
3. What word choices does the translator make?
4. What can you infer about the translator's intent based on the language? (academic, storytelling, etc) What are the benefits of the intent that the translator uses?
5. Does the passage reflect the model of the heroic mode? How?

Translation #1 (Seamus Heaney):

So times were pleasant for the people there

100 until finally one, a fiend out of hell,

began to work his evil in the world.

Grendel was the name of this grim demon

haunting the marches, marauding round the heath

and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time

in misery among the banished monsters,

Cain’s clan, whom the Creator had outlawed

and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel

the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:

Cain got no good from committing that murder

110 because the Almighty made him anathema

and out of the curse of his exile there sprang

ogres and elves and evil phantoms

and the giants too who strove with God

time and again until He gave them their reward.

(2001-02-17). Beowulf (Bilingual Edition) (Kindle Locations 476-477). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. 

Translation #2: Anne Schotter:

And so the warriors lived in joy

100 happily until one began

to commit crimes, a fiend from hell

the grim demon was called Grendel,

notorious borderland-prowler who dwelt in the moors

fen and stronghold; the home of monsterkind

105 this cursed creature occupied for a long while

since the Creator had condemned him

as the kin of Cain - he punished the killing,

the Eternal Lord, because he slew Abel;

He did not rejoice in that evil deed, but He banished him far

100 from mankind, God, in return for the crime.

(Excerpt from Longman Anthology of British Literature, 3^rd Edition. Eds. Damrosch and Dettmar.)

Translation #3: Allan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy

So the king's thanes

90 gathered in gladness; then crime came calling.

a horror from hell, hideous Grendel,

wrathful rover of borders and moors,

holder of hollows, haunter of fens.

He had lived long in the land of the loathsome,

born to the band whom God had banished

as kindred of Cain, thereby requiting

the slayer of Abel. Many such sprang

from the first murderer: monsters and misfits,

elves and ill-spirits, also those giants

100 whose wars with the Lord earned them exile.

(Excerpt from Longman Anthology of British Literature, 3^rd Edition. Eds. Damrosch and Dettmar.)

Translation #4: R.M. Liuzza [the text assigned to this course]

-Thus this lordly people lived in joy,

blessedly, until one began

to work his foul crimes – a fiend from hell.

This grim spirit was called Grendel,

mighty stalker of the marshes, who held

the moors and fens; thivs miserable man

lived for a time in the land of giants,

after the Creator had condemned him

among Cain's race – when he killed Abel

the eternal Lord avenged that death.

No joy in that feud – the Maker forced him

far from mankind for his foul crime.

From thence arose all misbegotten things,

trolls and elves and the living dead,

and also the gianys who strove against God

for a long while – He gave them their reward for that.

[Anonymous. Beowulf. Ed. R.M. Liuzza. Peterborough: Broadview, 2013. Print.]

The Mathematical Formula of Essays

My students thought I was crazy after I showed them this. Once you've labeled the parts of the essay with a letter, you can show them the structure of how an essay works by building the letters up and complicating the formula with what you want to accomplish. I've taught a variation of this formula twice. This is a better version of the formula, but I taught the other much earlier in the course. I suspect that teaching this formula after the first or second essay (rather than in the second term) would make more of an impact. Certainly, anyone who feels like one of their biggest comments is "tie backs!" or "organization?" or "thesis?" this formula will help them. Students who are a bit more advanced may either find it useful as a nice check, or there are ways to show them how to complicate the formula so that it suits their needs: add more evidence, more paragraphs, address oppositional evidence, etc.
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Formula for writing Essays

Here is a really simple formula for you to figure out the organization of your essays. Keep it on hand. God bless you on your journey if math is a problem for you.

Introduction – is very flexible. Introduce topic early; don't talk about history, or fiction, or abstract topics, even if they seem related. Write your intro last so that you don't ramble off topic. It is second-least important beside your conclusion.

The last sentence of your intro MUST be your thesis statement. [ I know I said there were exceptions. You're not there yet. I just didn't want to limit your creative geniuses. But now I am.]

TS= thesis statement. It is your argument. Every other thing you talk about must answer the question of how you are proving this hypothesis to be the case. If your essay is going in another direction, either re-write the thesis, or reign yourself in.

Body 1: Let's call it B1

Must include

To1 = topic sentence – what is this paragraph about?

ExA = explain the relevance of this topic. This is where summary goes. NOT the To1 > 2 sentences

Ev1 = first piece of evidence, introduced as a complete sentence.

ExB = To1 + Ev 1 =explain the evidence in relation to the topic

C1= To1 + TS = To conclude, combine your topic sentence and your thesis statement (rewrite it so it's not repetitive) to show how they're connected. If you got to this point and it doesn't work yet, something is missing in the middle.

B2:

To2

ExA

Ev2

ExB = To2 + Ev2

C2= To2+TS

B3:

To3

ExA

Ev3

ExB = To3+ Ev3

C3=To3+ TS

Conclusion = C1 + C2 + C3

What do you do once you've mastered this formula?

1. Add more evidence. This is the formula for an essay that requires you to use a text with a secondary source (you should have one piece of evidence from each, and you need to relate them to one another).

To4

ExA

Ev4

ExB = To4+ Ev4

ExC – optional, more like an introduction

Ev5

ExD = To4+ Ev5

C4= To4 + TS

2. Deal with opposing evidence (imagine as if you were debating your parents. If you pre-butt their argument with a rational reason for why their argument fails, yours will be/seem more complex)

To5 = Recognize Ev1X

ExA

Ev1X

ExB = To5 + Ev1X

ExC- But!

Ev2

ExD = Ev1X = wrong

ExE = Ev2 > Ev1 because of ExD

C5 = (To5 – Ev1X) + TS

You should be shooting for a paragraph with at least 7 sentences in it.

Your essay should have 6-8 paragraphs. (6 at the very least)

Other ways to play around with this formula:

1. What would you do if you had three texts?
2. Three texts and one source?
3. One text and three sources?
4. Three texts, one source that agrees with you and one that doesn't?
   
   
   

Memory and Reliability: Oryx and Crake

Memory and Reliability

What is a reliable narrator?

A reliable narrator is one which the reader can trust implicitly; usually this is because we have omnipresent knowledge of their thoughts and actions. We believe that what they say is true, because we have no reason to suspect that they are not being truthful.

However, more often than not, we must question a narrator's believability – in literature, we call this their reliability – for a variety of reasons, such as, but not limited to:

• a character who is projecting or presenting themselves to a presumed audience, so they are constructing an image that we are to consume
• a character whose memory is faulty; we presume that a narrator's ability to recall certain details are limited especially in the following cases:
  • those with brain injuries or other physical impairments to memory
  • children
  • elderly
  • those with dementia

• a character who is emotionally compromised. Obviously, characters have emotions. This is sort of obvious. However, a character that has experienced powerful or obsessive or traumatic emotion may sometimes be thought of as unreliable.
  • Trauma such as violence, war, abuse, etc
  • Heartbreak
  • Insanity
    • *** This type of theory of reliability should be used with caution. This does not mean that everyone who has experienced awful things will be a liar (think how unfair that would be to victims of sexual assault, refugees from war-torn countries, etc). It is useful to think about the character's POV and how they might have a narrow perception of events after their trauma; rather than alienate the character, it can help you think meaningfully about how the trauma has coloured their perspective.

Reliability is inherently tied to memory:

How effective is the character's memory?

How embellished is the memory?

How is the presentation of the memory constructed?

And how does that presentation change your perception of the character?

Why is it useful to ask this question (How reliable is the character?) ?

The question forces you to think outside of the text that you are presented; thinking of reliability can help you see more about the character's motivation and perception of self that you might otherwise miss.

Is Jimmy a reliable narrator?

Identify what parts of his memory show his (un)reliability.

(childhood memory – inherently faulty; memory loss (unexplained cause), ie he's losing his words; trauma of the apocalypse and its aftermath; obsession over Oryx and Crake – can't know if his interpretation is coloured by his love for them or not)

February 14^th, 2014

Jimmy Questions:

What do you think Jimmy's happiest memory is? With Oryx? With Crake?

(Besides the moment where he watches Oryx die and kills Crake), what is his saddest memory?

How is Jimmy both hero and anti-hero?

Are there heroes in this novel? Are there villains? Is there comedy?

Oryx Questions:

Why does he continually return to the memory of Oryx in the porn film? (Where does his obsession come from?)

Why does Jimmy ask Oryx so many questions about her life before she's with him and Crake?

How does Oryx participate in Jimmy's construction of her? Why does she present herself in certain ways?

What makes Oryx (un)reliable?

Craker Questions:

How do Jimmy's memories of the past influence the Crakers?

How are the Crakers both harmed and enhanced by his memories?

How are the Crakers defined by their own memories? (How do they take the information that Snowman gives them and reconstruct it to suit their own needs?)

The Crakers encounter three humans and tell Snowman about it. Atwood employs some literary strategies to give them reliability. Obviously, Snowman confirms that they exist, so we know that the Crakers were right. What exactly do they say that convinces Snowman, and how do they say it? (What does this say about the kind of characters whose testimony we take at face value?)

Creative Writing Prompt: Body Biography

NB: This writing prompt was inspired by bpNichol's "Selected Organs." All credit is due to him for that inspiration.

Creative Writing Prompts: Mystery Recipes

Mystery Recipes

Writing a mystery story can be challenging. Where do you even start?


Mystery writers will tell you different things: sometimes, they start with a problem: a missing person or item or a strange occurrence. Sometimes, they start with the ending and then try to figure out how the characters got to the resolution: this way, they work out the clues backwards so that they figure out what their characters had to be given or had to find before they could come up with an outcome.


There are no right or wrong ways to start writing a mystery story, but most mystery stories need to have some parts:

1. setting
   
2. characters
   
3. a problem
   
4. clues
   
5. A suspenseful mood
   

Today, we will start with these items to create our own mystery stories. You may take a recipe card that has an assortment of suggested parts to create your mystery. Or, you can pick out your own setting, characters, problem, clues, and mood if you are comfortable doing so.


Remember to include all of the parts of the recipe card! Introduce your setting and your characters early. And then decide how they find the clues; do they see the clues?

• Are the clues given to them by somebody else? (like a newspaper, the tv, the news, etc).
  
• I have given you one clue, but there may be more than one clue necessary to solve the problem. How many clues do you need and when do your characters find them?
  
• When do your characters discover that there is a problem? (do they see a clue before they know what's happening? It's ok for your audience to know more than your characters do! In fact, that makes it more of a mystery story!)
  
• How do you create suspense or mystery? Are there weird looking characters or bits of weather? Remember that you can still have sunny days in a mystery, but your weather can be useful in making certain times more suspenseful; it could be cloudy during the end of the story, for example.
  
• Remember that suspense is just the act of making your audience wait and feel anxious to see what happens. So what will make them wait? Your characters getting caught in anxious or panicky situations will help you create the mood. (But the mood doesn't have to be scary; giving them a deadline and putting them in traffic will make your audience squirm!)
  

Setting: Forest
Characters: two boys
Problem: A missing toy
Clues: a broken piece of the toy
Mood: cloudy sky


Setting: A city
Characters: two detectives
Problem: A jewel thief
Clues: a muddy footprint and a special jewel
Mood: Scary


Setting: Castle in the middle ages
Characters: A prince
Problem: A murder
Clues: the body
Mood: Stormy


Setting: Your house
Characters: You, your family
Problem: Your dessert is missing
Clues: A trail of crumbs
Mood: Funny


Setting: A park
Characters: You and a friend; a pet owner
Problem: A person has lost a pet
Clues: ????
Mood: Mysterious


Setting: A party
Characters: two girls
Problem: A missing cake
Clues: ????
Mood: Funny


Setting: An art gallery
Characters: An art lover and a detective
Problem: Missing paintings
Clues: are on the art that has not been stolen
Mood: suspenseful


Setting: A city
Characters: a lonely detective
Problem: A bank robber
Clues: a torn piece of cloth
Mood: Mysterious




Setting: Your city
Characters: You; a mysterious masked man
Problem: Who is the masked man?
Clues: a set of juggling balls
Mood: suspenseful


Setting: A fairytale
Characters: three weird princesses
Problem: all of their shoes have gone missing
Clues: the cat has been acting strangely
Mood: Funny


Setting: Halloween night
Characters: Zombies, werewolves, and vampires
Problem: Who is the real werewolf?
Clues: A tuft of grey fur
Mood: Scary; suspenseful


Setting: A concert
Characters: a rock band
Problem: the guitars are missing
Clues: the strings have been cut up
Mood: Mysterious


Setting:
Characters: Your Choice!
Problem:
Clues:

Mood:

Creative Writing Prompt: Superhero Origin Story

Superhero Origin Stories



Superheroes make great topics for stories. They have impressive powers, unique enemies, and interesting things always seem to happen to them. But how did they get those powers? Where do their enemies come from?




You have the chance in today's class to think about a superhero's origin story. Remember that a superhero's Origin Story is different from a regular story because it explains how they got their powers, and it usually shows some kind of obstacle or extreme hardship which inspires them to use their powers – this should be the moral of the Origin Story. Use the answers to the following questions to help guide your story:

1. Who is your superhero, and what does he or she look like? You can use an existing superhero, or make one of your own.
   
2. What are his or her powers?
   
3. How did they get their powers? Did they discover them? Pay for them?
   
4. What does his or her costume look like?
   
5. Where were they born and where did they come from?
   
6. Who are their sidekicks/friends/butlers (etc) and how did they meet them (if they have any of those)?
   
7. What kinds of obstacles do they face? How do their hardships inspire them to use their superpowers to help other people?
   

Here are some ideas for superheroes that you could use:

• Batman
  
• Wonderwoman
  
• Superman
  
• Batgirl
• any of the Xmen (Wolverine, Jean Grey, Professor X
  

How about other fictional characters with heightened human abilities, or famous people?:

• James Bond
  
• Nancy Drew
  
• Sherlock Holmes
  
• Cleopatra
  

Or, make up your own superhero:

• The Princess Ninja
  
• The Homework Assassin
  
• Nerdgirl
  
• Lightningboy
  

Once you have written your story, try turning it into a poem!

Creative Writing Prompt: Poet Trading Cards

Poet Trading Cards


You may have heard of an art form called “Artist Trading Cards.” To make this type of trading card, you create a small piece of art on a 2 1/2” by 3 1/2” card, and share it with your friends. The object is not to create art for yourself, but to share it with others. Today, we will be modifying that idea to make a “Poet Trading Card.” The object will be to create some beautiful words or phrases or word images that you would like to share with others. At the end of class, we will encourage you to trade your Poet Trading Card with some of your classmates, or take some home to share with friends and family. Here is the trick about these trading cards:

1. You can only exchange them for another card, so if your family wants a piece of your beautiful writing, they must also create a card for you.
   
2. You may not ask for or accept money for the cards; the purpose of these trading cards to share your ideas with other people, to get ideas from other people, and to create a community of writers.
   

These are the steps:

1. Write at least six different phrases, ideas, or short poems. These can be anything you think is creative and beautiful. For example:
   

Images:
a) “I tear nervous shreds of paper in my hands, let them fall and float away, but they gather at my feet like shameful crumbs of memory. The call out to me, You are alone. You are alone.”

b) “The ladybug crawls across the ground, unaware of my presence. I am struck by the thought – what towering creature looms above me, watching my movements, wondering about my thoughts? I am dumbfounded by the bigness of my littleness.”

                               


Short poems:
a) Sunshine crawls across the floor
like fingers feeling the carpet
What is it reaching for?
I watch the flickering light
Stretching. Extending.
What is the sunray's plight?
Then it touches my face;
Sunshine's radiant hand
warms my cheek,
And then I understand.
And then, I understand.

2. Copy your collection of words and poems onto separate pre-cut cards. These are small pieces of card stock paper; make sure you plan out your poem or words so that they fit.
   
3. Once you have written your poems on the cards, you may decorate them using the supplies provided. Don't spend a lot of time on each card; remember that you are making them so that you can give them away. (That is to say, don't be careless or reckless with your work; make it something pleasant to look at, but try not to get so attached that you wouldn't be willing to give it away). Make sure you sign your card with your name, so everyone will know who it belongs to!
   
4. Once you have completed each of your cards, sit down in the sharing space of our room. When we are all seated, we can share one or more of our cards, and then trade them with one another.
   

Here is an excerpt of a website that explains how to trade Artist Trading Cards. You might use these ideas to create a network of poet trading cards with your friends and family!


The whole point of ATCs is to trade with other artists, so once you have a selection of cards, trade them.

• Find artists or groups in your area that trade cards.
  
• Attend gatherings of artists in your area, and remind them to bring ATCs to share.
  
• Carry them with you as you would business cards, so that if you find an occasion to trade or give away a card, they are with you.
  
• Spread the word. If your local artist community is unfamiliar with artist trading cards, you may have to give away a few cards or offer them with a request for one in return before you get many back.
  
• Organize a gathering to swap ATCs. Let people know what ATCs are about, and get together to try trading some.
  

Collect others' ATCs. Because they are the size of other standard trading cards, most will fit in trading card sleeves. ATCs should be as unique as the artists who create them, so enjoy the selection. Start a collection of atc's and try to get as many as you can.