Prologue Introduction

The Canterbury Tales: Snapshot of an Age
The Canterbury Tales gives us a collection of good stories and a snapshot, a picture of life in the Middle Ages frozen in time. To include the complete range of medieval society in the same picture, Chaucer places his characters on a pilgrimage, a religious journey made to a shrine or holy place. These pilgrims, like a group of people on tour today, are from many stations and stages of life. Together they travel on horseback from London to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, about fifty-five miles to the southeast.
Setting up the frame. The Tales begin with a general Prologue, the first lines of which establish that this pilgrimage takes place in the spring, the time of new life and awakening. Fifty-five miles is a long journey by horseback, especially along muddy tracks that would hardly pass as roads today. An inn was always a welcome oasis, even if it provided few luxuries. The poet-pilgrim narrator, whom many consider to be Chaucer himself, starts out at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, a borough in the south of London. There he meets twenty-nine other pilgrims also bound for Canterbury. It is the host of the Tabard who suggests to the pilgrims, as they sit around the fire after dinner, that they exchange tales to pass the time along the way to Canterbury and back to London. The host’s suggestion sets up Chaucer’s frame story—the main story of the pilgrimage that includes each pilgrim’s story.
A pageant of medieval life. As the Prologue progresses and we are introduced to the pilgrims, Chaucer’s brilliant picture of life in late medieval England comes into focus. Here is what Nevill Coghill, one of Chaucer’s translators, says about the Prologue:
"In all literature there is nothing that touches or resembles the Prologue. It is the concise portrait of an entire nation, high and low, old and young, male and female, lay and clerical, learned and ignorant, rogue and righteous, land and sea, town and country, but without extremes. Apart from the stunning clarity, touched with nuance, of the characters presented, the most noticeable thing about them is their normality. They are the perennial progeny of men and women. Sharply individual, together they make a party."
At its most basic level, Chaucer’s great work operates on several levels. As a pilgrimage story, it is one of the world’s many quest narratives, and it moves from images of spring and awakening at the beginning of the Prologue to images of penance, death, and eternal life in the Parson’s tale at the end of the work. The storytellers themselves are pilgrims in search of renewal at the shrine of Thomas à Becket. Coming as they do from all walks of life and all social classes, they cannot help but represent “everyman,” or all of us, on our universal pilgrimage through life.
Chaucer’s Middle English is here translated into Modern English by Nevill Coghill. While Coghill’s version is true to the spirit of Chaucer’s original poem, you might attempt to read at least bits of the Tales in the wonderfully musical original. (See the beginning of the Prologue in its original Middle English on page 119.)
The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
Make the Connection
If you went on a tour today, what types of people would you expect to meet? Most of Chaucer’s pilgrims are the kinds of people he would have known and perhaps even observed many times riding toward Canterbury on the old pilgrimage road.
Literary Focus
Characterization
To create the portraits of his pilgrims, Chaucer uses the same methods of characterization that writers still use today. He reveals his characters by telling us
• how the character looks and dresses
• how the character speaks and acts
• what the character thinks and feels
• how others respond to the character
He also may tell us directly what the character’s nature is—virtuous, vain, clever, and so on.
Frame Story
When Chaucer chooses to have each of his pilgrims tell a story on the way to Canterbury, he is using a popular literary device called the frame story. A frame story is a story within a story. Chaucer uses the outer story of the pilgrimage to unite his travelers’ individual tales, but the tales themselves also have thematic unity.

Characterization is the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character. A frame story is a story that serves to bind together several different narratives.
For more on Character and the Frame Story, see the Handbook of Literary and Historical Terms.

Reading Skills
Analyzing Style: Key Details
With twenty-nine pilgrims to introduce in the Prologue, Chaucer could not develop any one character at great length. Instead, he had to provide a few well-chosen details that would make each character stand out vividly.
As you read the descriptions of each pilgrim in the Prologue, jot down striking details of dress, appearance, and behavior that give you an immediate impression of what the character is really like. Note that these telling details often undermine what the characters think of themselves or would like others to think about them.

Sensationalism in Ballads

Lesson Objective: Determine how is the sensationalism in Medieval ballads comparable to sensational news stories and entertainment today?

THREE DEAD SONS VISIT MOTHER FOR DINNER

SLIGHTED WOMAN SPURNS LOVERS DEATHBED REQUEST

MAIDEN HEADED FOR GALLOWS; FAMILY REFUSES HELP.

These are not the latest tabloid headlines or current soap-opera summaries; they are the plots of medieval ballads. In the Middle Ages, just as today, certain forms of popular entertainment tended toward the sensational.

Ballads were the poetry of the people, just as popular songs are today, and their subjects were predictably popular domestic tragedy, false love, true love, the absurdity of husband-wife relationships, and the supernatural. Unlike todays music, ballads were not copyrighted by a composer but were passed down orally from singer to singer. Using a strong beat and repetition, ballads were a gift of story passed from performer to performer, from generation to generation.

Take one of the basic situations in either Bar the Door or Lord Randall, and retell it as a contemporary news story. Like a reporter, be sure to tell what happened, where and when it happened, to whom it happened, why it happened, and how it happened.

Choose a headline for your story, and then be sure to cover the what, where, when, who, why, and how aspects in your story.

Extra credit: Email me a drawing or photo that could be used as a graphic for your story. You may draw one of the scenes from either of the ballads.

Welcome to the Middle Ages

In this collection, you will be introduced to the Middle Ages. You probably remember some things about the time period from other courses. This will serve as a small review. You will also be introduced to some new material.

The Middle Ages lasted from 1066 to 1485. For our unit on the Middle Ages, you will become familiar with the works of major writers of the time period. You will also learn about major literary forms, such as the ballad and the romance, used by writers of the time. The centerpiece of our unit will be an excerpt from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

To begin, I would like you to do the same thing for this lesson that you did for our first lesson on the Anglo Saxons. Read the introduction to Collection Two in your Elements of Literature text book pages 89-105. In addition, explore all parts of this website:

The Middle Ages


In the free response box, respond to these questions:


What effects did the Norman invasion have on the way the English were governed?



What were the main features of feudalism? How did feudalism change the social structure of Anglo-Saxon England?


What developments in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries began to undermine the feudal system?


Also, write one fact that you learned from each of the website's categories. So, you should have a fact for feudal life, religion, homes, clothing, health, arts and entertainment, and town life.

Please use complete sentences, and check your work for coherence, spelling, and grammar.

Poets’ Corner

Poets’ Corner is the name traditionally given to a section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey due to the number of poets, playwrights, and writers now buried and commemorated there.

The first person to be interred there was Geoffrey Chaucer, whose burial in the abbey owed more to his position as Clerk of Works of the Palace of Westminster than to his fame as a writer. However, the erection of a magnificent tomb by Nicholas Brigham to Chaucer in the middle of the sixteenth century and the nearby burial of Edmund Spenser in 1599 started a tradition that is still upheld, although the area also houses the tombs of several Canons and Deans of the abbey. Also buried here is Thomas Parr, who it is said died at the age of 152 in 1635 after having seen ten sovereigns on the throne.

Burial or commemoration in the Abbey did not always occur at or soon after the time of death. Lord Byron, for example, whose poetry was admired but who maintained a scandalous lifestyle, died in 1824 but was not given a memorial until 1969. Even William Shakespeare, buried at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, was not honoured with a monument until 1740 when one designed by William Kent was constructed in Poets' Corner.

Not all poets appreciated memorialisation and Samuel Wesley's epitaph for Samuel Butler, who supposedly died in poverty, continued Butler's satiric tone:

While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give;
See him, when starv'd to death, and turn'd to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone.

[edit] People buried in Poets' Corner

* Robert Adam
* Robert Browning
* William Camden
* Thomas Campbell
* Geoffrey Chaucer
* William Congreve
* Abraham Cowley
* William Davenant
* Charles Dickens
* Adam Fox
* John Dryden
* David Garrick
* John Gay
* Thomas Hardy
* Dr Samuel Johnson
* Rudyard Kipling
* Thomas Macaulay
* John Masefield
* Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier
* Thomas Parr
* Matthew Prior
* Charles de Saint-Évremond
* Richard Brinsley Sheridan
* Edmund Spenser
* Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

[edit] People commemorated with memorials in Poets' Corner

* Jane Austen
* John Betjeman
* William Blake
* Charlotte Brontë
* Anne Brontë
* Emily Brontë
* Rupert Brooke
* Fanny Burney
* Robert Burns
* Samuel Butler
* Lord Byron
* Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
* Thomas Stearns Eliot
* Oliver Goldsmith
* Adam Lindsay Gordon
* Thomas Gray
* Robert Herrick
* Gerard Manley Hopkins
* Alfred Edward Housman
* Henry James
* John Keats
* Jenny Lind
* Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
* Christopher Marlowe
* John Milton
* John Ruskin
* Walter Scott
* William Shakespeare
* Percy Bysshe Shelley
* William Makepeace Thackeray
* Dylan Thomas
* Anthony Trollope
* Oscar Wilde
* William Wordsworth
* Noel Coward

Ballads from the Middle Ages

Lesson Questions for Today: (You do not need to answer these questions. They are here to guide you)

* What is a ballad?
* What are some well-known ballads from the Middle Ages?

Review page 108 in your text book for the full history and definition of a ballad.

The definition of a ballad:

A song or songlike poem

Sensational or tragic subject matter

Omitted details

Supernatural events

A refrain (a repeated word, line, or group of lines)

Read the famous ballad from the Middle Ages: Lord Randall on page 109.
I strongly suggest that you click the bullhorn graphic at the top of the poem to hear it read. It is much easier to understand if you do so!

The ballad is made up of a conversation between a mother and her son. The son has returned from a long day, and the mother senses that something is wrong. She keeps asking questions to figure out what has happened.
Assignment:

After you have listened to and read the poem, please explain which parts of the poem make it a ballad. For instance, what are the sensational and tragic things that happen in the poem? This will show me that you understand what a ballad is, and that you understand what Lord Randall is about. If you are having difficulty understanding the poem, let me know, and I will help you.

Father takes son to court for idleness

LAGOS (Reuters) - A father took his 20-year old son to an Islamic court in northern Nigeria for idleness, asking that he be sent to prison for refusing to engage in productive activities, state news agency NAN said Friday.

"He is not listening to words and he is bringing shame to my family. I am tired of his nefarious deeds. Please put this boy in prison so that I can be free," Sama'ila Tahir, a market trader in the northeastern town of Bauchi, was quoted as saying.

Tahir told the court that his son had refused to go to school and accused him of belonging to a criminal gang.

The court sentenced the son to six months in prison and 30 strokes of the cane -- which were immediately administered on the premises -- for being disobedient to his parents, NAN said.

Phillies in the World Series!!

 

 

Teens, Slang and the Internet

The Boston Globe
Talk amongst yourselves
While teens still 'marinate,' slang travels faster these days with help of the Internet

By Taryn Plumb, Globe Correspondent | October 4, 2007

Much like a condiment, "gnar" can punch up almost any sentence.

Eighteen-year-old Casey Aylward employs the throaty derivative of "gnarly" in instances where everyday adjectives can't quite describe his shock, distaste, amazement, or admiration.

Example? The Groveland teen referred to a stylized skateboarding trick he witnessed recently with "That was gnar!"

"Gnar is its own entity," mused Aylward, standing on the Hampton Beach strip, shaggy thicket of brown hair corralled by a backwards baseball cap.

Other colorful expressions in his cache include "bunk," for disgust, "dank" in cases where "awesome" might normally apply, and "smash" for contentment.

"It's more or less just coming up with your own stuff," he said from behind mirrored sunglasses reflecting hordes of pedestrians, right hand flicking a half-smoked cigarette. He and his friends "take expressions that have been around for a while and make them our own."

Walk up to anybody anywhere - whether it's Hampton Beach's main boulevard, a swarming city street, or even a white-collar office building - and you'll get a notebook-full of slang. Everyone, the teen crowd especially, has a reservoir of witty, inventive, and sometimes crude sayings - so much so that it might seem like lingo has overrun formal American English. In some cases, it has, with terms such as "dis" and "phat" finding their places in modern dictionaries.

But while it's tough to quantify whether slang is, in fact, more prevalent these days, it's clear there's a growing effort to create, share, catalog, and foster it.

A Web search of "slang," for instance, yields an ecosystem of sites, covering anything from 1960s flower child lingo to Japanese jargon. The giant of those is urbandictionary.com, a wellspring of slang that contains more than a million entries - with at least 2,000 new ones a day - and allows users to vote on and contribute their own unique phrases. Since its launch in 2001, the site's popularity has skyrocketed, according to Alexa.com, a company that tracks Internet trends; site traffic has grown 7 percent in the past three months.

In addition, there are the traditional and continuing drivers of slang: hip-hop, linguistically creative TV shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and hundreds of books, such as "Knickers in a Twist: A Dictionary of British Slang."

Noting its prevalence, some scholars and philologists - thought to be the traditional defenders of proper English - even call slang an essential component of speech.

"It enriches language," said Rod Kessler, a professor of English at Salem State College who pointed out that Geoffrey Chaucer used some risque slang in his landmark work, "The Canterbury Tales."

"You show creativity when you use slang. It's colorful, picturesque, imaginative, and shocking."

Poetic, too, says Michael Adams, an English professor at Indiana University Bloomington and author of the book, "Slang: The People's Poetry." For instance, slang is inherently metaphorical, he explains - take the perennial favorites "what's up" and "cool," which ultimately have nothing to do with gravity or temperature. Also, "it allows people to be inventive," he said. "Everybody has the capacity to make it up."

Madeleine Revill and her friends certainly do.

Their unusual way of speaking involves playfully clipping the endings from words - a technique they call "abbrevs."

The abbrevs most frequently peppering the Middleton 16-year-old's speech include "presh," "essench," "whatev," "ridic," "awk," "totes," and "obvi." To decode: precious, essentially, whatever, ridiculous, awkward, totally, and obvious.

As for using them in a sentence: Someone with "ish" ("issues") might create an "awk" (awkward) situation because they're acting like "a sketch."

"Why do I abbreve? It's just fun. People laugh at it," said Revill. "It sets me and my friends apart from other people. It's our own language."

Aylward and his crowd have similarly improvised their own dialect.

If they want to get going, for instance, they say "let's hit it" or "let's get hustlin'."

If they see a good-looking girl, she's "slammin" or "brutal." (Those with less luck in the beauty lingo department get hit with "haggard.")

If they're talking amongst themselves, they use "son" or "bro."

They occasionally pull out some retro terms, too, including "rad," "solid," "tubular," and "peace out."

"We try to keep it real sick," said Aylward, taking a cigarette break from his job emptying quarters from arcade games and loading piles of candy into claw machines at Hampton's Funarama.

Alyward's "bro," 19-year-old Ryan Jackson of Merrimack, N.H., agreed, "We try to bring West Coast back, with a lot of vintage slang."

Stratham, N.H., 16-year-old Ellie Willis's supply of maxims is also of the Cali persuasion.

"The cheese" refers to money, and "emo" is a qualifier for overly sensitive people, she explained as she prepared slushies and sugar-sprinkled gobs of batter at Blink's Fry Doe on the Hampton strip. And if she's bored? "I'm gonna commit."

Given that expanse of tastes - and the fact that slang comes and goes rather quickly - it's difficult to pinpoint trends or determine which phrases are ragingly popular and which are stale. "Cool can't be universal," noted Adams. "That's against the whole purpose of slang." Which is, he explained, to test social limits. "Slang is an instrument of rebellion."

While most teens didn't put it so bluntly, many did defend their freedom to speak as they choose.

"I don't want people telling me I can't say what I want," Kelly Sunderland, 18, who lives in Pepperell but "chills in Bedford."

"The way people talk shows how different they are."

Her most flavorful phrasings have to do with coming and going: For the former, she'll "post up"; for the latter, she "dips."

She admitted - none too regrettably - that her mother often responds to the way she talks with quizzical looks.

Naturally, though, not all adults are flummoxed by today's barrage of sometimes-indecipherable teen lingo.

John Walsh, a 41-year-old from Hampton, for instance, said it's important for each generation to have their own idiom. He compared language to branded clothing, noting, "It gives teenagers a way to be part of a group."

In some cases, adults, too. Greg Revill of Salem, for his part, found his daughter's pruned manner of speaking so catchy that he adopted a few phrases, including "whatev," "awk," and, for extreme instances of weirdness, "awk city."

"Color in any language is good," he said.

Madeleine shares that mindset. "If everyone talked the same way," she said, "everyone would be the same."

And that, as Aylward might say, would be gnar.

Illiad Part Two

Homer was a great Anglo Saxon writer. He wrote what we call epic poems: Very lengthy, detailed, exciting poems full of adventure. You may have heard of The Odyssey, another of Homer's pieces. Have you seen the movie Troy? It was based on some of Homer's poetry.
You may click here to read more about Homer.
Today, you will be using your Holt Online textbook (my.hrw.com) to read the first half of an excerpt from The Iliad, one of Homer's most famous works. The text is challenging--but treat it as a game! Can you understand what is being said? Once you can, the story is very exciting... it gets kind of gory, too...
Here is some background information to get you started:
When the story begins, the war between the Greeks and the Trojans has been going on for over 10 years! Each army has fought bravely, and each army has the help of the gods. The goddess, Athena, has been helping Achilles and the Greeks. The god, Apollo, has been helping Hector and the Trojans.
Hector has killed Patroclus, Achilles best friend. But, that's not it! Hector stripped the armor off of Patroclus, and left his body there, exposed and unburied. Achilles is FURIOUS. Not only did Hector kill his best friend, he didn't give him a correct burial, either! Greeks believed that if people were not buried correctly, their souls could not find rest.
Achilles wants REVENGE. When the story opens, Achilles is running towards Hector; he wants to kill him. At first, Hector is brave and will not go in the Trojan gates--he wants to meet Achilles and fight to the death. But then, he chickens out and starts to run. Achilles chases him.....
Assignment
Sign into your account at my.hrw.com. Then, go to page 57 in the online book to begin reading.
To help you understand what is happening in the story, I'd like you to answer each of the following questions, as you come across certain lines in the text. Please answer the questions in the free response box.
When you get to line 18 Answer this question:
Achilles keeps preventing Hector from getting close to the city gates, where his friends can give him extra weapons!
What words and comparisons describe Achilles speed?
When you get to line 31 Answer this question:
How does Zeus decide the fates of Hector and Achilles? What is the final judgment?
When you get to line 52 Answer this question:
What does Athena tell Achilles she is going to do? How does Athena trick Hector?
When you get to line 79 Answer this question:
What does Hector vow? Why does he now have courage?
When you get to line 98 Answer this question:
What pact has Hector offered Achilles? Why does Achilles refuse the pact?
When you get to line 117 Answer this question:
Hector gains confidence when Achilles first attack is unsuccessful.
What is Hector unaware of? What do you think will happen next??
That's as far as you have to read in this lesson. In the next lesson, you will continue reading.

In the last lesson, you read the first half of the excerpt from the Iliad. Today, you will finish the excerpt and answer some more questions.
Remember to come to the help chat on Tuesday, September 25th at 3pm for a help session on this portion of the text!
As you know...
The Trojan war has been going on for many years. In this part of the story, Hector and Achilles are fighting. Zeus has already decided that Hector will be the one to die in battle, but Hector does not know that! Athena the goddess is on Achilles side, and transformed herself to look like Hector's brother, Deiphobus. With Deiphobus on his side, Hector becomes braver.
Achilles missed the first time he threw his spear at Hector, and Hector begins making fun of him! Little does he know, Athena gave Achilles spear back to him. At this part of the story, Achilles has his spear back, and Hector is running toward him, getting ready to throw his own spear.

Assignment
Sign into your account at my.hrw.com. Then, go to page 62 in the online book to begin reading.
To help you understand what is happening in the story, I'd like you to answer each of the following questions, as you come across certain lines in the text. Please answer the questions in the free response box.
When you get to line 139 Answer this question:
What truth does Hector now realize? What does he decide to do?
When you get to line 155 Answer this question:
What descriptive words does Homer use to create a vivid image of Achilles’ charge?
When you get to line 165 Answer this question:
Here we are reminded that Hector is wearing Achilles old armor. Achilles had given the armor to his dear friend Patroclus, whom Hector had killed.
How does Achilles mortally wound Hector?
When you get to line 182 Answer this question:
This exchange between Hector and Achilles emphasizes the importance the Greeks and Trojans placed on a proper burial. Without fitting rites, both men believed, the soul of the departed would never find rest.
What does Hector plead?
When you get to line 194 Answer this question:
How does Achilles react to Hectors plea?
When you get to line 218 Answer this question:
Achilles comrades gather around the great warrior and the body of his victim.
What do the Greek soldiers do to Hectors body?
When you get to line 253 Answer this question:
Achilles anger is so great that he cannot stop at merely killing Hector.
How is Hectors body transported from the scene of death? How do you feel as you read this description?

Homer and the Iliad Part One

Homer was a great Anglo Saxon writer. He wrote what we call epic poems: Very lengthy, detailed, exciting poems full of adventure. You may have heard of The Odyssey, another of Homer's pieces. Have you seen the movie Troy? It was based on some of Homer's poetry.
You may click here to read more about Homer.
Today, you will be using your Holt Online textbook (my.hrw.com) to read the first half of an excerpt from The Iliad, one of Homer's most famous works. The text is challenging--but treat it as a game! Can you understand what is being said? Once you can, the story is very exciting... it gets kind of gory, too...
Here is some background information to get you started:
When the story begins, the war between the Greeks and the Trojans has been going on for over 10 years! Each army has fought bravely, and each army has the help of the gods. The goddess, Athena, has been helping Achilles and the Greeks. The god, Apollo, has been helping Hector and the Trojans.
Hector has killed Patroclus, Achilles best friend. But, that's not it! Hector stripped the armor off of Patroclus, and left his body there, exposed and unburied. Achilles is FURIOUS. Not only did Hector kill his best friend, he didn't give him a correct burial, either! Greeks believed that if people were not buried correctly, their souls could not find rest.
Achilles wants REVENGE. When the story opens, Achilles is running towards Hector; he wants to kill him. At first, Hector is brave and will not go in the Trojan gates--he wants to meet Achilles and fight to the death. But then, he chickens out and starts to run. Achilles chases him.....
Assignment
Sign into your account at my.hrw.com. Then, go to page 57 in the online book to begin reading.
To help you understand what is happening in the story, I'd like you to answer each of the following questions, as you come across certain lines in the text. Please answer the questions.
When you get to line 18 Answer this question:
Achilles keeps preventing Hector from getting close to the city gates, where his friends can give him extra weapons!
What words and comparisons describe Achilles speed?
When you get to line 31 Answer this question:
How does Zeus decide the fates of Hector and Achilles? What is the final judgment?
When you get to line 52 Answer this question:
What does Athena tell Achilles she is going to do? How does Athena trick Hector?
When you get to line 79 Answer this question:
What does Hector vow? Why does he now have courage?
When you get to line 98 Answer this question:
What pact has Hector offered Achilles? Why does Achilles refuse the pact?
When you get to line 117 Answer this question:
Hector gains confidence when Achilles first attack is unsuccessful.
What is Hector unaware of? What do you think will happen next??
That's as far as you have to read in this lesson. In the next lesson, you will continue reading.

Hector one of top five hot literary characters

Five Hot Fictional Characters
by Jamelah Earle November 29, 2007 10:42 pm

CLASSICS, FICTION

1. Hector - The Iliad

Out of the classical epics that have to do with the Trojan War, there are several characters that could potentially go on this list of hotties, because let's face it -- they were pretty badass, and all that fighting has to add hotness points. But Hector is the only one who comes to mind when I think about which ones weren't total jerks. Achilles? Murderous jerk. Agamemnon? Cheating jerk. Paris? Wimpy jerk. Odysseus? Jerk noted for his lying ability. Hector? Not really a jerk at all. Actually rather noble and decent to his family. There you go.

2. Beatrice - Much Ado About Nothing

Beatrice has long been one of my very favorite Shakespearian heroines because she is smart, funny, and strong, and for these reasons, I think she ranks among the hottest as well (way hotter than her cousin Hero who gets most of the attention in the play). Incredibly gifted in the art of verbal sparring (which definitely wins points with me), she could cut someone dead with a single comment, yet even though she does a good job hiding it, she is vulnerable too, soft enough to fall in love, though of course only with Benedick, her very able sparring partner. She's fiery too, raging against the injustice done her cousin: "O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place." She's pretty awesome.

3. Sam Spade - The Maltese Falcon

It would never work out between us, I know this is true. But since I go into most relationships armed with this knowledge, this is not a roadblock. Sam Spade is cool as hell, slightly rumpled, with a cynical grin that I imagine is completely disarming. Let's say it is. Other than the fact that "he looked rather pleasantly like a blond Satan," which, despite all those years of Sunday School I went to, is pretty hot, I fell for Sam Spade a little bit when he tells the femme fatale "I hope to Christ they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck." I'm not sure what that says about me, that this was the line that really got me, and it's probably best if I don't think about it too much. Anyway, in this entirely fictional scenario, I don't know who would leave whom in the end, but I'm sure it would involve sneaking out in the early morning, no notes, no apologies, it was what it was, but it's time to move on, sweetheart.

4. Elizabeth Bennet - Pride and Prejudice

Despite my crush on Emma's Mr. Knightley, I have to say that when it comes to hot characters to come out of Jane Austen novels, Elizabeth Bennet wins easily. Clever and quick-witted, active and lively, she doesn't just sit around in drawing rooms and embroider things. Sometimes mildly self-deprecating, yet strong enough to speak her mind, she's smart and feisty and completely timeless. And a total hit at parties.

5. James Bond - take your pick

Certainly best known from the films, I say he counts because he first appeared in a novel. And really, is there a fictional character hotter than James Bond? No. There's something to be said for a man who looks dashing in a tuxedo. It's a very handy skill to have. Also, he drives the best cars. And always gets the bad guy. And did I mention the tuxedo thing? And yes, I know this has to do with a film version, but after I saw Casino Royale I texted a friend and said "I want to be James Bond when I grow up." Even though I don't want to be a guy or a British secret agent or wear tuxedos or really even drink martinis (I'm more of a bourbon kind of girl), it's totally true.

War Poetry and the Illiad

War Poetry

Listen Now:

Weekend Edition Sunday, April 6, 2003 · Weekend Edition begins a Sunday series on war-related poems for April, which is National Poetry Month. The first selection is from a new anthology, Women on War (The Feminist Press; ISBN: 1558614095), read by the book's editor, Daniela Gioseffi. The second is from Homer's The Iliad (Penguin USA; ISBN: 0140275363), read by its translator, Princeton University's Robert Fagles.

Reflecting on Hector

Commentary: 'Troy' the Movie and Homer's 'The Illiad'

Listen HERE

Day to Day, May 14, 2004 · Amidst the hype surrounding the movie Troy, Wellesley College classics professor Brendan Reay comments on the true essence of Homer's epic poem of the doomed love affair and the siege of ancient Troy, The Iliad.