For the Last Week of October
Folks,
For the last week of October, this is what we’ll be doing:
1. In class on 29 October, we will finish discussing the question I raised and asked you to consider–regarding the attitude toward religion implicit in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?–and discuss your ongoing process of trying to adapt The Odyssey to a modern Korean setting. I’m going to give you an extension until 31 October before you need to hand in those adaptation synopses, just because I was hoping we could discuss them in class on the day you hand them in.
2. On 31 October–since it’s Halloween–we’re going to look at a poem I’m going to give you, which involves the section of The Odyssey where Odysseus visits the underworld and talks to the ghosts. After all, it’s Halloween, so it kind of suits the day!
That poem is available online here. Make sure you print up a copy and read it a few times. It’s pretty challenging (though one of Ezra Pound’s easier poems), so you can’t just read it once if you want to make sense of it. We’ll discuss that, and your adaptations…
… and something fun will be coming for the first week of November, so keep an eye on our class’s Dropbox folder! Hint: you should check out the story of Pygmalion in Bulfinch, if you haven’t read it already. (By now, you should have.)