A Short Assignment

TODAY IN CLASS
First, I briefly showed you one version of "summarizing" the Romantic age that will be useful to you both for our study of poetry and also as a framework of expectations that might be of value for you at any point on the AP exam (or as a literate life-long reader . . . ). It is linked below.

Then--informal group discussion of a variety of ideas connected with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," with some point in the direction of how Mary Shelley utilized this work in Frankenstein. We then talked about several of these ideas as a class.

HOMEWORK
Read the Romantic summary carefully and thoughtfully.  You should definitely understand (and internalize) the concept of the Byronic hero.
http://www.enotes.com/rime-ancient-text/reading-pointers-sharper-insights/print

Also read the first three chapters (don't worry--they're short!) of the book of Genesis. Consult http://www.biblegateway.com/
if you need a text. You can read any version you want, of course, but if you have never read/seen the King James Version, I suggest that you use that (or at least check it out after you've read it in a more recent standard translation).


Explanatory Note:
Many AP courses require the reading of assorted Bible passages as part of summer reading or early course assignments because of the great degree to which they are utilized as allusions throughout much of Western literature.  Any perusal of AP lit exams shows that someone who is completely unaware of this tradition will "miss out" on significant implications, just as someone completely ignorant of Greek and Roman mythology would not catch allusions that authors intended to help convey meaning and tone.  Just as reading Edith Hamilton's Mythology does not suggest that the reader develop a pagan view of the world, reading selected passages from the Bible is not intended to be read as "theology" or to influence anyone's personal views.

Having said that, to understand Milton's intentions in Paradise Lost, you need to know his starting point--the rest of what he writes is "imaginative literature," and it's Milton's creative development of the source that inspired Shelley.