27 lines
12 KiB
XML
27 lines
12 KiB
XML
<annotatable parent_sequential_url="i4x://HarvardX/CB22x/sequential/bf06d525251c432696650f1a8b1b8e12" index_in_children_list="0">
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<instructions>
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<p>
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<strong>Hour 1 has <em>four</em> separate (two-part) annotation questions. To complete an Annotation Exercise in this course, hover your mouse over each highlighted portion of the focus text. When the Instructor prompt appears, read the question and click "Reply to Annotation." This will take you to a two-part task: an open-ended response question, and a question that will be answered by choosing one of multiple semantic tags. </strong>
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</p>
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<p>Each of these exercises, one per hour, is meant to improve your understanding of the given text (in this case, Hour 1 Text C) by helping you analyze the context after you finish your slow reading of the text. But these exercises of annotation after slow reading do much more than that. They will build up your ability to understand not only the context but also [[1]] all other texts that contain similar contexts and [[2]] all the texts you will be reading in general. I can make this big promise because the texts that you are analyzing are part of a system, and the systematic thinking that went into the original texts can be decoded by analyzing the building blocks of the system. The way you analyze these building blocks is by trying to figure out how they are connected to the other building blocks in the system. That is what these annotation exercises are all about: they help you figure out the connections. And the more things you figure out, the more mental connections you can make on your own. But the exercise of making such connections through your annotations is a gradual process, and you need to be patient with yourself. You will get better and better at it, I am sure. The more connections you are able to make, the more powerful will be your reading ability. That is the beauty of analyzing something that was created by way of systematic thinking in an ancient tradition that took many centuries to develop (I estimate at least ten centuries). The tradition actually helps you think about the tradition. It will help you figure things out. </p>
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<p>By now you have seen that I really like the expression <em>figure out</em>: it puts the emphasis on reading <em>out of the text</em>, not <em>into the text</em>. When you read into the text, you lose sight of the system that had built that text. </p>
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<p> In the next exercise, I will switch metaphors in describing the system that had built the text. In the present exercise, I have been using the metaphor of building a structure with building blocks. In the next exercise I will start using the metaphor of weaving a fabric. </p>
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<p> (Here is a working definition of metaphor: it is an expression of meaning where one thing is substituted for another thing. For example, when we use the metaphor “thread of thought,” the idea of a thread, as used by someone who is weaving or sewing, is substituted for the idea of a way of thinking. For another example: when Nietzsche speaks about reading with delicate fingers, the idea of a goldsmith touching gold is substituted for the idea of reading a text with the eyes.) </p>
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<p><strong>The main goal of this first exercise is to start practicing the art of slow reading.</strong> The best way to make a start, I think, is to read a story within a story. The inner story in this exercise is the story of the hero Hēraklēs, as retold by Agamemnon and as quoted by “Homer” in lines 78-138 of <em>Iliad</em> XIX. The outer story is the story of the <em>Iliad</em> itself, as retold by “Homer.” </p>
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<p> So the story within a story is 60 lines long, while the story of the <em>Iliad</em> itself is over 15,000 lines long. Your task in this exercise is to do a close reading of the short story of 60 lines, which is embedded in the long story of the Iliad. </p>
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<p> You can perform this task even if you haven’t started reading the Iliad, since I can summarize for you all 15,000+ lines of this huge epic in just three sentences here:</p>
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<p>
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<ol>
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<li>Achilles experiences a cosmic kind of anger, <em>mēnis</em>, after being insulted in a quarrel with Agamemnon, who is superior to Achilles socially but is inferior to him as a hero.</li>
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<br/>
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<li>As Achilles sits out the war, staying in his shelter, the Achaeans (= Danaans = Argives) are in danger of becoming the losers while the Trojans become the winners.</li>
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<br/>
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<li>The Achaeans are demoralized, and many of their leaders are wounded, including Agamemnon, who finally decides to settle his quarrel with Achilles.</li>
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</ol>
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</p>
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<p> Now that you have the “big picture” of the <em>Iliad</em> as the outer story, you can have a very interesting experience as you do your slow reading of the inner story, contained in the 60 lines spoken by Agamemnon and telling the story of Hēraklēs. </p>
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<p> Here is something to keep in mind. The research of the great literary critic I. A. Richards, who was once a professor at Harvard University (he retired in 1963 and died in 1979), shows that the relationship of any kind of an outer story to any kind of an inner story is not necessarily a “one-way street,” as it were, leading from the outer into the inner story: there can also be a “two-way street,” with the inner story communicating with the outer story as well as the other way around. Where I use the expressions “outer story” and “inner story,” Richards used the terms “tenor” and “vehicle.” I have always found those terms rather forbidding, but, as you see, they stand for things that are fairly easy to explain.</p>
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</instructions>
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<p> |76 Then Agamemnon, the king of men, spoke up at their meeting, |77 right there from the place where he was sitting, not even standing up in the middle of the assembly. |78 “Near and dear ones,” said he, “Danaan [= Achaean] heroes, attendants [therapontes] of Arēs! |79 It is a good thing to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it is not seemly |80 to speak in relay after him. It would be hard for someone to do that, even if he is a practiced speaker. |81 For how could any man in an assembly either hear anything when there is an uproar |82 or say anything? Even a public speaker who speaks clearly will be disconcerted by it. |83 What I will do is to make a declaration addressed to [Achilles] the son of Peleus. As for the rest of you |84 Argives [= Achaeans], you should understand and know well, each one of you, the words [<em>mūthos</em>] that I say for the record. |85 By now the Achaeans have been saying these words [<em>mūthos</em>] to me many times, |86 and they have been blaming me. But I am not responsible [<em>aitios</em>]. |87 No, those who are really responsible are Zeus and Fate [Moira] and the Fury [Erinys] who roams in the mist. <annotation title="Question 1" body="Agamemnon says that atē or ‘derangement’ was the cause of his actions: why could Zeus say the same thing?" highlight="yellow" problem="0">|88 They are the ones who, at the public assembly, had put savage derangement [<em>atē</em>] into my thinking [<em>phrenes</em>] |89 on that day when I myself deprived Achilles of his honorific portion [geras]. </annotation>|90 But what could I do? The god is the one who brings everything to its fulfillment [<em>teleutân</em>]. |91 That goddess <em>atē</em>, senior daughter of Zeus - she makes everyone veer off-course [<em>aâsthai</em>], |92 that disastrous one [<em>oulomenē</em>], the one who has delicate steps. She never makes contact with the ground of the threshold, |93 never even going near it, but instead she hovers over the heads of men, bringing harm to mortals. |94 In her harmfulness, she has incapacitated others as well [besides me], and I have in mind one person in particular. |95 Yes, once upon a time even Zeus veered off-course [<em>aâsthai</em>], who is said to be the best |96 among men and gods. Even he |97 was deceived; Hērā did it, with her devious ways of thinking, female that she is. |98 It happened on the day when the mighty Hērakleēs |99 was about to be born of Alkmene in Thebes, the city garlanded by good walls. |100 He [= Zeus], making a formal declaration [<em>eukhesthai</em>], spoke up at a meeting of all the gods and said: <annotation title="Question 2" body="When Zeus speaks the ‘words’ of a mūthos here, his words are for the record, and these words translate into the story of Hēraklēs and Eurystheus. How are these same words relevant to the story of Achilles and Agamemnon?" highlight="green" problem="1">|101 “hear me, all gods and all goddesses, |102 and let me say to you what the heart [<em>thūmos</em>] in my chest tells me to say. |103 Today the goddess who presides over the pains of childbirth, Eileithuia, will help bring forth a man into the light, |104 revealing him, and he will be king over all the people who live around him. |105 He comes from an ancestral line of men who are descended from blood that comes from me.” |106 Thinking devious thoughts, the goddess Hērā addressed him [= Zeus]: |107 “You will be mistaken, and you will not be able to make a fulfillment [<em>telos</em>] of the words [<em>mūthos</em>] that you have spoken for the record. </annotation>|108 But come, Olympian god, swear for me a binding oath: |109 swear that he will really be king over all the people who live around him, |110 I mean, the one who on this day shall fall to the ground between the legs of a woman |111 who is descended from men who come from your line of ancestry, from blood that comes from you.” |112 So she spoke. And Zeus did not at all notice [<em>noeîn</em>] her devious thinking, |113 but he swore a great oath. <annotation title="Question 3" body="How is the ‘veering off-course’ or aâsthai experienced by Zeus comparable to the veering off-course experienced by Agamemnon?" highlight="blue" problem="2">And right then and there, he veered off-course [<em>aâsthai</em>] in a big way.</annotation> |114 Meanwhile, Hērā sped off, leaving the ridges of Olympus behind, |115 and swiftly she reached Achaean Argos. She knew that she would find there |116 the strong wife of Sthenelos son of Perseus. |117 She was pregnant with a dear son, and she was in her eighth month. |118 And she brought him forth into the light, even though he was still one month short. |119 Meanwhile she put a pause on the time of delivery for Alkmene, holding back the divine powers of labor, the Eileithuiai. |120 And then she herself went to tell the news to Zeus the son of Kronos, saying: |121 “Zeus the father, you with the gleaming thunderbolt, I will put a word into your thoughts: |122 there has just been born a man, a noble one, who will be king over the Argives. |123 He is Eurystheus son of Sthenelos son of Perseus. |124 He is from your line of ancestry, and it is not unseemly for him to be king over the Argives.” |125 So she spoke, and he was struck in his mind [<em>phrēn</em>] with a sharp sorrow [<em>akhos</em>]. |126 And right away she grabbed the goddess <em>atē</em> by the head - that head covered with luxuriant curls - |127 since he was angry in his thinking [<em>phrenes</em>], and he swore a binding oath |128 that never will she come to Olympus and to the starry sky |129 never again will she come back, that goddess <em>atē</em>, who makes everyone veer off-course [<em>aâsthai</em>]. |130 And so saying he threw her down from the starry sky, |131 having whirled her around in his hand. And then she [= <em>atē</em>] came to the fields where mortals live and work. |132 He [= Zeus] always mourned the fact that she ever existed, <annotation title="Question 4" body="The story of Hēraklēs and Eurystheus leads to the story of the heroic deeds of Hēraklēs, known as his āthloi or ‘labors’ or ‘ordeals’. Why are the heroic deeds of this hero comparable to the heroic deeds of Achilles in the Iliad?" highlight="orange" problem="3">every time he saw how his own dear son |133 was having one of his degrading Labors [<em>āthloi</em>] to work on.</annotation> |134 So also I [= Agamemnon], while the great Hector, the one with the gleaming helmet, |135 was destroying the Argives [= Achaeans] at the sterns of the beached ships, |136 was not able to keep out of my mind the veering [<em>atē</em>] I experienced once I veered off-course [<em>aâsthai</em>]. |137 But since I did veer off-course [<em>aâsthai</em>] and since Zeus took away from me my thinking, |138 I now want to make amends, and to give untold amounts of compensation.<br/><br/><em>Iliad</em> XIX 76-138</p>
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</annotatable>
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