Author Archives: Shawn Tucker
Music: Heaven and Hell
The Latin lyrics that accompany the plainchant “In Paradisum,” say, in part, “May angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival, may the martyrs receive you and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem” and “may you have eternal rest.” This is set over the long echoing sounds of beautiful male voices. The plainchant feels like the song of … Continue Reading
Aristophanes + Martin: The More You Know the Funnier It Is Part Two
So, the Demitri Martin chapter is example of the entire theme of this unit: the more you know the funnier it is. You have to know so much about Socrates in order to really understand what is going on. Socrates is the annoying waiter with lots of intrusive questions and he’s not good as a tour guide because he doesn’t … Continue Reading
Aristophanes + Martin: The More You Know the Funnier (?) It Is Part One
Hopefully you can see now why I had you read Socrates and then Aristophanes. Socrates even refers to Aristophanes as part of his defense. Of course the Aristophanes play came first, but you need a more serious sense of Socrates in order to understand the funny criticism that Aristophanes uses. So hopefully it’s a lot funnier now that you understand. … Continue Reading
Aristophanes + Martin: Comedy Genius
It’s hard for me to say how brilliant I think Aristophanes is. His play is so funny! There are lots of things about it that make it funny. First I would say is the exaggerations of certain characters. I really like, of course, the country bumpkin father whose trying to get out of all of his debts— Strepsiades. His complaining … Continue Reading
Plato’s Apology: Socrates was one of the greatest people in human history
One way to read Plato’s apology is to see it as the record of a truly great man and his untimely death. From the very beginning we see Socrates as a man who speaks plainly in contrast with the eloquence of his accusers. He claims that the older accusations are the more serious ones, because those accusations were made when … Continue Reading
Plato’s Apology: Socrates was at best a quack and at worst a con man
Socrates sure seems wise for someone who claims to be ignorant. He does a masterful job of using rhetoric, all the while claiming that he knows nothing about it. Also, Socrates turns some story about a dead guy into a call from God to be the town not job or annoying man. Socrates claims that he’s trying to disprove the … Continue Reading
Plato’s Apology: One man dealing with the death of a friend
True story— when I was 17 my best friend died from bone cancer. He was 19 years old, and he had spent two semesters at college. He came home from school and started to work to save that money to work as a Mormon missionary. One day during that summer, he hurt his leg. When they went to look at … Continue Reading
Sorry, my mess up today
So I’m the “expert of the day” for today, and I’m sorry that I didn’t have the three post up on time. I won’t let it happen again. Sorry again! Dr. Tucker Shawn TuckerMore Posts
Billy Collins: Shall I compare thee…
First let me say that the best source to answer the study questions was Wikipedia. It has excellent articles on sonnets and so forth. One of the themes that seem to connect some of the poems was describing the beloved’s beauty by comparing her to other things. The two Shakespeare sonnets do exactly this. The first one, Sonnet 18, describes … Continue Reading
Billy Collins: How Collins Made Me Love Poetry (Again)
I thoroughly enjoy Billy Collins’ poetry. Part of that love is the diction or word choice. The words are so straight-forward yet evocative. For example, in “Introduction to Poetry,” the lines “I want them to waterski / across the surface of a poem / waving at the author’s name on the shore” is easy to read from the first try. … Continue Reading