Starter 1.14: Journal for 10 minutes in response to the following poem (on page 19 in the reader if you want to annotate!). Or write a poem back. Or just react. In light of everything we have been studying lately, where does this poem hit you?
Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
HONORS: Let’s talk literature! The Stranger seminar
TO-DO
- JOURNAL 1.14: Make an (interpretive) claim about the Nietzsche excerpt. Connect it to one (or more) of the principles of existentialism we studied yesterday. Select a quote from Nietzsche to support the claim. Analyze the quote! ONE TEA PARAGRAPH!
- Existentialism Review. Review my Existentialism Lecture for reference.
- Catch up on any other readings or journals that you have fallen behind in.
- Read ahead to the next philosophy! (located on pages 27-32 of your reader): Background on Aristotle’s Eudaimonia
- Read Into the Wild. Be prepared for next Tuesday’s first literature circle meeting.