Month: May 2010

  • A Personal Connection to Art

    Identify a work of art that for you holds a personal connection or significance. Select one of the following quotations and write an essay explaining how your chosen work of art does or does not support the quote. “Art is coming face to face with yourself.” – Jackson Pollock “The task which the artist implicitly…

  • Alienation and Helplessness

    Many twentieth century artists have explored humankind’s shared feelings of alienation and helplessness. Identify a modern song that you think helps to illuminate Prufrock’s character or some of the ideas in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Quote the lyrics of the song and write an explanation of how the song reflects…

  • The Artist in Society – Alone, Isolated, and Alienated

    Northrop Frye, the famous Canadian literary critic, said “…we may come to realize that two essential facts about a work of art — that it is contemporary with its own time and that it is contemporary with ours — are not opposed but complementary facts.” Tennyson‘s “Lady of Shalott” and Elton John‘s “Candle in the…

  • Sailing to Byzantium

    Research Byzantine paintings or mosaics. Describe how human forms are presented in the examples you find. How do these works of art relate to William Butler Yeats‘s poem, Sailing to Byzantium.

  • Separation from a Loved One

    Compare and contrast how the following two poems deal with the theme of separation from a loved one: The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter by Ezra Pound(a translation from original by Li Po) A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne Focus on such aspects as imagery, symbolism, archetypes, mood, and characterization. Quote directly from the…

  • Credibility of School in Film

    Write a review of a feature-length film that depicts some form of school. In your review assess the credibility of the central character’s point of view on school and on learning.

  • Walls

    Research and find pictures and news stories about: The Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Walls of Jericho, the wall from Pyramus and Thisbe, Pink Floyd’s The Wall (film), and the Berlin Wall Explain any literal, symbolic, or archetypal connections of these walls to a text you have read.

  • Hierarchy of Needs

    Research Abraham Maslow’s theory of the Hierarchy of Needs. Prepare a response to a text you have read that connects to the highest need – the need to reach beyond oneself.