For Credit: Endings (Last Chance to Post on Blog)

Two questions about endings; you can answer either one, or both.

1. Sterne ends his novel in the middle of a sentence, a scene, and the night. What is the significance of this abrupt ending?

2. In what ways does this novel supply a satisfying (or not!) close to the semester's reading in this course?

Deadline: Friday (12/11), noon.

For Credit: Maria (Deadline Extended)

Maria and her dog, Silvio, form the image on the cover of the edition of Sentimental Journey that I ordered for the class. (The painting is by Joseph Wright of Derby, who also painted two depictions of scientific experimentation in your Longman anthologies.)

What makes this image emblematic of the book as a whole?

If the episode with Maria is significantly more important or central than the many other episodes in this novel (some of which we discussed in groups on Friday), what makes it so?

Deadline: Wednesday (12/9), start of class.

For Credit: Propose a Final Exam Question

Respond to this post with your suggestions for a short-essay question for the final. The question should elicit a response of 1 - 3 double-spaced pages, cover material that we've read since the midterm, and require some interpretive work on the text(s) in question.

Deadline: Wednesday (12/9), start of class.

Blog : Why does the caged bird sing?

Consider the chapter "The Captive".
What is the significance of the bird? Why is Yorick so broken up over a captive bird? Is it ignorance? Does he feel sympathy for those who do not travel? He calls the cage a dungeon - typically associated with people, not animals. Or is he comparing the caged bird to his potential imprisonment since he lost his passport and France and England are at war? Or is it a representation of him being lost? Why is Yorick unable to free the bird?
What are your thoughts and why?

For Credit: What is the Plot of this Novel? (LAST CHANCE TO POST FOR WEEK 14)

Does this novel have a plot, and if so, what is it?

Respond to this post with your reflections, supported by citation from the text.

Deadline: Saturday (12/5), midnight.

For Credit: A Sentimental Breakfast (Sterne's Writing Style)

Here are a few of the particularly amusing answers to the first question on Wednesday's quiz:

On pure impulse, I decided to prepare a dish of pancakes and fruit--oh what splendid fruit they were!--and the meal almost brought me to tears.

In a hurried fashion, I devoured the stale oat bar laid before me on the table. Twas not very sufficient a meal, said I--venturing down the stairs of my station to the crisp, melancholy air of the morning.

I was running short on time this morning after I snoozed my alarm three times--Kristin was already sitting down to breakfast when I awoke--and I knew not what breakfast I would have time for.
--Could I have, asked I, a piece of your bread for the making of toast?--Kristin quicky obliged, handing over a hearty piece of bread, enabling yself to have a breakfast of peanut butter toast.

While eating my breakfast, I realized there were three kinds of breakfasts:
Non-existent breakfast
Fast breakfast
And of course my breakfast, hearty breakfast, which not many consume such as I do, oatmeal, milk, fruit, and occasionally, juice.

What strike you as specific, distinctive, characteristic elements of the prose style in this novel?

Deadline: Friday (12/4), start of class.

For Credit: More Questions about Sentimental Journey?

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Ask them here.

Deadline: Friday (12/4), start of class.

For Credit: Another Question about Writing Process

Feel free to reflect here on the challenges of this last essay-writing assignment for the course, the rewrite/expansion of the second paper. What are you finding particularly difficult about revising Part I of the assignment? What difficulties are you encountering as you add in a second text? What writing issues continue to vex you?

Deadline: Friday (12/4), start of class.

For Credit: Alas, Poor Yorick!

In what ways does Yorick (the narrator of A Sentimental Journey) seem to you to be a typical gentleman of the Enlightenment? In what ways does he seem atypical?

Cite text to support your claim.

Deadline: Wednesday (12/2), start of class.