Response to Course Material

This past cycle, we have done a lot of work with Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony. I have enjoyed our discussions so far. I especially liked connecting the relationship between the number four and the different poems to the directions, seasons, and colors used throughout the book.

In order to fully understand Ceremony, we read it through twice. The first time, I used a pdf that I printed out online and did not read very carefully. In addition, the strange formatting of the pdf actually detracted from the enjoyment in reading the text because the spaces between lines, especially the within the formatting of the poems, was actually fairly significant. I am guessing that others did not read as closely the first time through, because our discussions were not very meaningful.

The second reading, where annotations were required, I used an actual copy of the novel. While this had more pages, I found it considerably more enjoyable to read and had an easy time annotating. I definitely could have benefited from starting my annotations a bit earlier, but I managed my time more effectively than with the Foster annotations and actually completed the novel hours before what I would consider "late" Sunday night.

We also read Sherman Alexie's "Defending Walt Whitman." I enjoyed reading this poem a lot, and I thought that I contributed to the discussion with my interpretation. Essentially, I saw it as putting Whitman, a great romantic poet that defined the "American" romantic movement into a situation where he is intimately involved, or thinks that he is, with the interactions on the Native American reservation. In fact, he is not even there, and what he sees as part of this great sensual experience is not something he even understands. He believes he is controlling a game that he is not even playing in. I thought that overall, we had a productive discussion of this poem as a class.

Response to Prompt #1 2009

"In the following speech from Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey considers his sudden downfall from his position as advisor to the king. Spokesmen for the king have just left Wolsey alone on stage. Read the speech carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Shakespeare uses elements such as allusion, figurative language, and tone to convey Wolsey’s complex response to his dismissal from court."

            Understanding Wolsey’s soliloquy requires the reader to examine the changes in tone during his response to dismissal, and what these changes indicate about his emotional state. In the process of expressing himself, he uses a variety of literary devices and allusions. The soliloquy can be broken up into three different stages in his reaction. In the first (1-9), he expresses anger and frustration at such a rash decision. In the second (9-15), he is more self-reflective, trying to justify his dismissal by considering his own behavior, and in the final section (16-23), he considers what has happened to him from a more general perspective.

Wolsey’s tone in the first section can be seen as both contemptuous and enraged. This is clear from the first line when he says “Farewell-to the little good you bear me.” He mainly portrays himself as a victim of circumstance, using a metaphor to compare himself to a flowering plant who “falls” because of a “killing frost” (9, 6). In essence, he first sees the king’s hasty decision is one of malicious deliberation, intended to stifle his own potential.

In the second section, Wolsey takes a step back to look at how he ended up in this situation. He uses the simile of the “wanton boys that swim on bladders” to describe his own “high blown pride,” saying that he considered himself more important than how the king actually valued him. The simile relates directly to his fall from power by comparing it to the bladder breaking under him (10, 12, 13). While it would be more clearly elucidated in a live performance, it appears through the shift from accusation to contemplation that Wolsey has calmed down and begun to consider the errors in his ways and not simply the injustice of his predicament.

The final section of the soliloquy is considerably more broadly applicable than the preceding lines. After overcoming his initial reaction and reflecting, he now returns to a more aggravated state to say “how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favors!” (17-18). He considers the service at the hands of royalty a great burden, not only because of the task itself, but because of the pain of a fall from the king’s graces. In fact, he considers the contrast between working for the king and the rejection that he suffered comparable to a fall from the grace of God. This is clear when he states that when a man working for a monarch falls, “he falls like Lucifer.” Not only does this allusion to the Biblical story of the fallen angel express the literal magnitude of his demotion, but how a fall from the favor of Henry VIII is as detrimental as a fall from heaven into hell in this society.

Overall, Shakespeare uses Wolsey’s soliloquy to express a deeply complex, personal reaction in beautifully concise language. Through this reaction, he also succeeds in providing the audience with a historical perspective on the harrows of living in a society ruled by a king as quick tempered as Henry VIII from the intimate viewpoint of one of his closest advisers. 

Closed Prompt 1-11/15/15

2009 Exam-Prompt 1:

Student 1A: This student has a remarkably complete and accurate analysis of Cardinal Woosey's soliloquy. His/her essay is broken into perfectly organized paragraphs that focus on diction, figurative language, and tone. The primary strength of the essay is in its organization. The student uses these different aspects of the poem to demonstrate understanding of the different literary devices present and also provide further analysis and interpretation. Within that organization, however, the content is equally strong. I was especially impressed with how he/she connected the shift in tone with the intricate variety of emotions Wolsey expresses. While the language can be repetitive at times, the argument is sophisticated and such minor imperfections should be forgiven. It is also important to remember the time constraints this essay was written under, making its achievement of a 9 impressive to say the least.

Student 1B:  This essay is overall well-written but generally lacks interpretive depth. The student appears to understand the language of the poem quite well and uses ample textual evidence, but the analysis of the evidence does not justify its quantity. It seems that overall, the student refrained from using the examples and interpretive ideas he/she clearly extrapolated to further an argument based around the literary devices present, choosing instead to use the interpretations as the argument. For example, the student refers to Wolsey’s tone as “cathartic” at one point, but never explicitly demonstrates that he/she really knows what this means. If the student had been clearer, his/her strong understanding of the text could have warranted a score higher than 6.

Student 1C: Glancing at the essay and reading the introduction, I was at first confused over why it scored so low. However, it is clear after the first few lines that the student simply did not organize the content of the essay to fit the argument, nor did he/she even interpret part of the poem correctly. The primary mistake in interpretation was due to a poor attempt to scale back the language to apply it erroneously in too general a context. While the other essays mentioned the universally human qualities of Wolsey’s frustrations, they did not base their entire interpretation off of it. This makes a great deal of sense because, of course, the soliloquy is part of an overall play, and should not be compared to a work with broader intention such as a stand-alone poem or short story. Because of the poor interpretation and lack of organization, the essay scored only a 4.