“The house [of the White Witch] was really a small castle. It seemed to be all towers, little towers with long pointed spires on them, sharp as needles.” (p. 100)
“As he [Edmund] got into the middle of it [the courtyard] he saw that there were dozens of statues all about – standing here and there rather as the pieces stand on a chessboard when it is halfway through the game.” (p. 104)
“And she [Lucy] stopped looking at the dazzling brightness of the frozen river with all its waterfalls of ice and at the white masses of the tree-tops and the great glaring moon and the countless stars and could only watch the little short legs of Mr. Beaver going pad-pad-pad-pad through the snow in front of her as if they were never going to stop.” (pp. 112-113).
“Wherever is this?” said Peter‘s voice, sounding rather tired and pale in the darkness. I hope you know what I mean about a voice sounding pale.” (p. 113).
Marble sarcophagus with the myth of Endymion. Photo by peterjr1961 on Flickr. Click image to visit
Quiz on LWW chapters 3
Check Study Guide answers for Vocabulary and 1-4 (on pages 15 + 16)
Personal interviews
Homework:
Study Guide questions for chapters 3 and 4, questions 5-10 (pages 16-17). (“For discussion” and “Optional Writing Project” are both options. You get extra points if you do them, but you don’t have to.)
By next (Friday May 27th): are there any publications in Japanese like the Spark Notes for “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”? (see handout). If so, where can they be found and/or bought? What are the contents like? Are they useful?
By next (Friday May 27th), find 10 customer reviews in Japanese about “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (for example on Amazon Japan), and choose the best one (in your opinion).
The reviews can be about the original English book or the Japanese translation, it doesn’t matter. Reviews of this book are OK, too.
The 10 customer reviews should include both positive and negative reviews.
Print out the best one and bring it to class.
Be prepared to explain to the class why you think it is a good review.
By the Friday after next (June 3rd): read a Greek, or Roman myth and summarise it
in English (200-300 words).
And write a short paragraph about the similarities to the Japanese myth you wrote about. What are the common characteristics?
Please think about the following questions:
What is a myth? Is a myth the same as a folk-tale (昔話）? Are they different? How are they different?
Is a myth different from a fairy-story, or is it the same? How are they different? How are they the same?
What is the difference between a myth and an epic poem such as Heike Monogatari?
What is the difference between a myth and a novel such as the Tale of Genji?
What is the difference between a myth and a legend, such as The One Inch Boy?
Share the words and pictures that you researched for homework.
Reading, writing. Questions for chapters 12-13.
Homework:
Finish writing the summaries for chapters 8-11.
Answer the questions for chapters 14-15.
Translate the passage below.
“It goes beyond the expression of things we have already felt. It arouses in us sensations we have never had before, never anticipated having, as though we had broken out of our normal mode of consciousness and “possessed joys not promised to our birth.” It gets under our skin, hits us at a level deeper than our thoughts or even our passions, troubles oldest certainties till all questions are reopened, and in general shocks us more fully awake that we are for most of our lives.” (from the Foreword to George MacDonaldby C.S. Lewis)
Read the Passion of Christ in the New Testament: The Passion begins at Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 12 (see English Wikipedia here: and in Japanese here).
What are the points of similarity between Christ’s Passion and Aslan’s?
Any comments about today’s class? You can leave comments here, in English or Japanese, or send me an email.
(The picture on the right is the cover of Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”. My father had this book on his bookshelf when I was a child. He recommended it to me, but I was not interested in it. I am reading this book now, thirty years later. I felt nostalgic when I saw this picture, so I used it here.)
Homework #1: Please type your comments to last week’s book reports on the blog.
Please protect your own privacy: this is a public blog. Do not use your full name: use your family name only, or given name only, or use a nickname or pen-name.
Your email address is not visible to visitors (only the site administrator sees this).
If you use an email address that you used before, your comment will appear immediately without delay. If you use a new email address, your comment will be held for approval by the site administrator (me!).
Reading and checking homework: chapter 10 and 11.
Book reports: we had the last two book reports today: The Last Battle and The Screwtape Letters. The Screwtape Letters was a very popular book, and was read by many people. Before that, Lewis was not well known except to other academics (professors) and students of English Literature. His BBC broadcasts (1944) were so popular that he was asked to do more. He collected his talks into a book called Mere Christianity キリスト教の世界。In these talks, he talked to ordinary people about Christianity.
Homework #2: I assigned each student 2 words or phrases from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Please check the Japanese meaning of your words. Next week, bring to class the meaning, a picture or photograph to illustrate the words/phrases, and (if you got the illustration from the Internet) the URL (web address) where you got the illustration.
Mini-lecture on some key ideas or themes in C.S. Lewis’ books:
Seeing and believing. In “Prince Caspian“, at first only Lucy can see Aslan while the older children do not, and they do not believe Lucy at first. In “Till We Have Faces” 顔を持つまで, the older sister Orual cannot see the palace where her beautiful sister, Psyche, lives, because Orual is jealous and does not accept that Psyche can be happy without her. In the New Testament, in Matthew 5:8, it is written “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Perhaps Lewis’ message is that the pure in heart can see certain things that others (who are not pure in heart) cannot see.
Natural Law. Lewis believed that there was a natural law that all people everywhere understood. This law is deeper than religion, because it can be found in almost every religion on Earth. In “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, Lewis writes about Edmund on page 97, “deep down inside him he really knew the Witch was bad and cruel.” There is more to the Natural Law than this, but this is a good example of it.
Homework: Quiz questions for chapters 10 and 11:
Chapter 10 questions:
QUIZ
Which of the following things could the Beavers not take?
ham, tea, sugar, loaves, matches, handkerchiefs, sewing machine
At the Beavers’ house, which character stayed calm?
Can the Beavers and the children get to the Stone Table before the witch? Why/why not?
Was it snowing when they began their journey?
What did they do in “the old hiding place for beavers”?
Discuss your answers to chapter 8 and 9 discussion questions with your partner.
Teacher’s comments on last week’s discussion questions.
Checked the answers to chapters 8 and 9 quiz questions.
Mini-lecture: the change in children’s reading. For about 2,500 years, until the late 17th century in England, there were no children’s books. Children who learned to read began reading the famous classic works of literature. These are what C.S. Lewis read as a boy. He read Latin and Greek and so read Homer and Virgil in the original languages:
Homework: Finish reading your book by C.S. Lewis and prepare a short oral report (about 2 minutes) for next class. If possible, bring the actual book to class. Give the main points of the book, and tell us if you liked it or not and why.
in Japanese, because I want to encourage students to read other books about C.S. Lewis.
presentations on June 18th. Presentations in Japanese, 2-4 minutes in length
you must give me the title of the book you read using the MLA style. Here is an example. Let’s say you read this book: カスピアン王子のつのぶえ You would write, C.S.Ruisu. kasupian ooji no tsunobue. Trans. Teiji Seita. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2000.
Returned last week’s homework. List of C.S. Lewis books in the DWC library – list ALL the books which are in English AND the books which are in Japanese in the library. If your homework has an X on it, please do the assignment again CORRECTLY.
Some things we can know, some things we cannot really know, we must believe them (or not); we must either rely on and believe other people, or we mus rely on and believe our own heart or conscience.
What can we know and what cannot we know? What can we know and what must we believe? How can we tell the difference?
For example, is it raining now? We can know by looking out the window or opening the window. We do not need to believe. It would be stupid to believe when we can know for ourselves. We should not believe or rely on other people when we can confirm facts for ourselves.
On the other hand, where are you now? In Japan? In Kyoto? How do you know? In fact, you do not know, you cannot know, you can only believe. This is Japan because everyone agrees that it is Japan. In such a case, we would waste a lot of time if we insisted on confirming for ourselves; we can save time by believing, by relying on other people.
To know something for ourselves means to check, using our own 5 senses (seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling or tasting).
Another way to know something instead of believing, is to use logic, as the Professor does.
In chapter 6, Edmund asksPeter, “How do we know which side [the robin] is on?” It is an intelligent question. In this case, logic is not the answer. It is impossible to know, to confirm for oneself. The only thing to do is to trust one’s instinct or listen to one’s heart.
If you were absent on Friday and did not hand in your homework for last week, you must either email me your homework or give it to me next Friday. Next Friday is the last day I will accept it.
Class blog for Sheffner's Academic Skills & Writing Strategies at DWC
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