LITERATURE HU 300 6/13/20161

HU 300 6/13/ Greetings and Welcome to our seminar for Unit 5. I have been reading some good Discussion Board Questions for this week so far, and the Week 3 projects that I read overall were very good.  Now for my Upper Michigan slide of the Week.  This is to me an interesting one. It is the Pickle Barrel House, and is located in the tiny one time fishing village of Grand Marais, MI on the shore of Lake Superior.

The Pickle Barrel House 6/13/20163

HU 300  The Pickle Barrel House was built in 1926 as a vacation cottage for a cartoonist who worked for the Chicago Tribune.  His name was William Donahey and he created a comic strip called the Teenie Weenies.  I put this site in the Webliography also. 6/13/20164

Reading in America  In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts put out a study called “Reading at Risk,” about the decline of reading in America. In 2007, another study showed that 1 in 4 adults read no books in (Fram, 2007)  What do you think of these findings? Do they seem accurate to what you observe?  What might a decline in reading say about a culture? 6/13/20165

Update on Reading  For the first time since the NEA began surveying American reading habits in and less than five years after it issued its famously gloomy "Reading at Risk" report -- the percentage of American adults who report reading "novels, short stories, poems or plays" has risen instead of declining: from 46.7 percent in 2002 to 50.2 percent in 2008 (Thompson, 2009).  (Note: Nonfiction is excluded from the study)  What might explain the increase of reading in the last 6 years? 6/13/20166

Which books/authors do you enjoy? Which have inspired you? 6/13/20167

Poetry  In our unit we discussed poetry, which is rarely a best- seller. Why might poetry be less popular than fiction?  Where are some places that poetry does exist and thrive in our culture? 6/13/20168

Why Poetry?  What are some of the unique benefits poetry can offer to the reader or listener? 6/13/20169

HU 300  Did you know that the story of the Trojan War is actually a poem?  Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey is a poem and a very long one at that. 6/13/ ical/heroes2.html#Paris

HU 300  Did you know that the first books were printed on animal skins? The skin was called “vellum.”  The earliest Bibles were handwritten and illustrated by monks and one Bible could take years to produce. 6/13/201611

HU 300  Then came the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg and it was originally intended to produce Bibles with and then the idea of commercial printing came later. 6/13/ Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg

HU 300  Then the Reverend Father, Martin Luther was responsible for the next leap forward in printing. 6/13/ Martin Luther's 95 Theses which sparked off the Reformation in a print edition from Within the span of only two years, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies throughout Germany and Europe. [24]95 Theses Reformation [24]

HU 300 6/13/ Martin Luther

HU 300  The first really successful novel in Western Literature was written by Voltaire back in 1759 and it is called Candide. 6/13/201615

HU 300  Lord Alfred Tennyson was a poet and a war reporter. 6/13/ Quite possibly his most famous poem was about the Crimean War and he wrote the Charge of the Light Brigade.

HU 300  Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay’d? Not tho’ the soldier knew Some one had blunder’d: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 6/13/201617

HU 300  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the Song of Hiawatha which was set right in the region your instructor lives in.  By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big- Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water, Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big- Sea-WaterGitche GumeeNokomis 6/13/201618

HU 300  One final poem that your instructor really likes is about the far north and was written by a Canadian named Robert Service:  The Shooting of Dan McGrew  A bunch of the boys were whooping it up In the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box Was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, Sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, The lady that's known as Lou. 6/13/201619

HU 300 6/13/ We are Done for this week. The End