ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Can heroes be monsters too?
Learners shares their definitions of "hero" and "monster."
We discussed our discussion about Campbell's "The Hero's Journey," and I asked learners to consider that Campbell's "map" describes story telling from it's early existence, when it was only created as oral "text."
I distributed the textbook and we read together the introduction to the middle ages, in particular the historical context of including the Germanic invasions (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), Anglo-Saxon ideals and literary styles. I highlighted Anglo-Saxon ideals:
- allegiance to lord and king (comitatus)
- love of glory as the ruling motive for a noble life
- the inevitability of fate (wyrd)
We looked at an excerpt from the the Prologue of Beowulf, in the original Anglo-Saxon ("Old English"). I assigned learners 6-7 lines each and gave them a pronunciation guide. Learners used the rest of the period preparing an oral reading of their assigned lines in Old English.
NEXT CLASS: Prologue, Beowulf, Grendel, Antigone
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