Google Docs: Online Assignment 3, Due by midnight Tues, Feb 17
Instructions: With your assigned partner, choose ONE of the passages below and answer
all of the following discussion questions. As always, plagiarism rules apply here. Do
not lift your answers from the internet.
Requirements: You and your partner must meet at least once for a sustained period of
time on Google Docs to answer these questions together and write collaboratively. Cowriting may seem weird at first, but just try to go with it – it can be a very interesting
experience! Once you’ve answered the questions you MUST share your document with
me by midnight on Tuesday at NZeftel@gmail.com (you’ll see the “share” option on the
upper right-hand corner of your doc). You must write together – Google Docs records
activity on the document, and I’ll be able to check and make sure you were both on
the doc together for a sustained period. While you are more than welcome to log on
separately after you’ve met to edit or add to your work, the majority of the
writing/time spent on the assignment must take collaboratively with both partners
logged into the doc.
How to get this done: At the end of class, you’ll be given a few minutes to discuss your
plan with your partner. You should both read The Eumenides before answering the
questions. Early in the week you should familiarize yourself with Google Docs and get in
touch with me (early in the week) if you have any issues. Remember, technical
difficulties are not a valid excuse for late submission of work. After you’ve answered the
questions together, take some time (either together or separately or both) to edit your
work. Once you’ve agreed that your work is completed, share your document with me.
Make sure both partners’ names are at the top of the doc.
How to write together: The idea here is that you’re meeting online (and not in person) to
“co-write.” Co-writing can mean a lot of things, and as you go through the process of
answering the questions how you write together will probably change. It can meet
working together and literally finishing each other’s sentences, it can mean separating for
a few minutes while one of you works on answer question 1 and one of you works on
answering question 2. You should always try to reconvene and, in a friendly and
supportive way, help each other out, edit each other’s writing, etc. Google docs has a
chat feature that can be very helpful, and I recommend that you and your partner
have a chat going as you write.
You’ll find instructions on the blog from Google on how to work on a file at the
same time, and how to chat while you’re doing it.
Questions:
While you can number your answers and you don’t have to write an essay, your answers
in total should be at least 500-words (i.e. a page single spaced). These questions are
geared towards preparing you for your first big assignment—your close reading. We’re
focusing here on really closely analyzing the below passages and then relating them to
the rest of the text. Your work should demonstrate serious attention to the assignment,
and your writing should be grammatically correct.
Choose one of the below passages and answer all of the following questions:
1. Paraphrase your passage. In other words, put the passage into your own words.
2. Find an image in the passage that really stands out to you and your partner. What
is important to you about this particular image? Why does it stand out? How does
it relate to the rest of The Eumenides? (Here’s a definition of literary images:
Image--a word or phrase in a literary text that appeals directly to the reader's
taste, touch, hearing, sight, or smell. An image is thus any vivid or picturesque
phrase that evokes a particular sensation in the reader's mind).
3. Describe the tone of the passage. Why do you think the speaker of this passage is
taking on this tone? How does the tone relate to the content of the passage, in
other words—how does the tone relate to what the speaker is saying? (And here’s
a definition of tone: Tone: the writer's attitude toward the material and/or
readers. Tone may be many things such as playful, formal, intimate, angry,
serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.)
Passage Options:
1. From The Eumenides, page 238, beginning at line 155:
Furies:
The matricide, you steal him away, and you a god!
Guilt both ways, and who can call it justice?
Not I: her charges stalk my dreams,
Yes, the charioteer rides hard,
Her spurs digging the vitals,
Under the heart, under the heaving breast—
I can feel the executioner’s lash, it’s searing
Deeper, sharper, the knives of burning ice—
Such is your triumph, you young gods,
World dominion past all right.
Your throne is streaming blood,
Blood at the foot, blood at the crowning head--I can see the Navelstone of the Earth, it’s bleeding
bristling corruption, oh, the guilt it has to bear—
Stains on the hearth! The Prophet stains the vault,
he cries it on, drives on the crime himself.
Breaking the god’s first law, he rates men first,
destroys the old dominions of the Fates.
He wounds me too, yet him he’ll never free,
plunging under the earth, no freedom then:
curst as he comes for purging, at his neck
he feels new murder springing from his blood.
2. From The Eumenides, pages 238-9, beginning at line 176
Apollo:
Out, I tell you, out of these halls—fast!—
Set the Prophet’s chamber free!
Or take
The flash and stab of this, this flying viper
Whipped from the golden cord that strings my bow!
Heave in torment, black froth erupting from your lungs, vomit the clots of all the
murders you have drained.
But never touch my halls, you have no right.
Go where heads are severed, eyes gouged out,
where Justice and bloody slaughter are the same…
castrations, wasted seed, young men’s glories butchered,
extremities maimed, and huge stones at the chest,
and the victims wail for pity—
spikes inching up the spine, torsos stuck on spikes.
So you hear your love feast, yearn to have it all?
You revolt the gods. Your look,
Your whole regalia gives you away—your kind
Should infest a lion’s cavern reeking blood.
But never rub your filth on the Prophet’s shrine.
Out, you flock without a herdsman—out!
No god will ever shepherd you with love.