Subject vs. Theme

In class we talked about the difference between a poem's subject and its theme. Give me an example of a work of art--poem, story, film, song--where the subject is quite different from the theme. For example, I am posting a photo by photographer, Rob Hann. The subject of the photo is simple: football uniforms. But the theme is more complicated. By looking at the photo you get a sense of loneliness or absence, you see the outline of young boys' bodies without the boys there. Perhaps the theme of the photo is adolescence or manhood, how the uniform makes the boy into a man.

You may include a link to the work of art if you have one.

Dead Poets Society--You Must Set Him Among the Dead

What does T.S. Eliot mean by the following quote? What does the quote have to do with the movie's themes and its title?

"No poet, no artist of any art, has complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation, is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead."

-from Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

Job, a Perplexed Optimist?

The English writer, G.K. Chesterton, once said about the Book of Job:

"Job does not in any sense look at life in a gloomy way. If wishing to be happy and being quite ready to be happy constitutes an optimist, Job is an optimist. He is a perplexed optimist; he is an exasperated optimist; he is an outraged and insulted optimist....He shakes the pillars of the world and strikes insanely at the heavens; he lashes the stars, but it is not to silence them; it is to make them speak."

What do you think Chesterton means by calling Job a "perplexed optimist"? What is an optimist? What does Chesterton's analysis imply about the importance of doubt and suffering for any optimist?

Jacob, Joseph, Abraham

Choose one of the following men, Jacob, Joseph, or Abraham, and trace his story according to the "Hero Quest" model. What was this man's moment of separation or cross over the threshold? His initiations/tests/temptations? His abyss? His transformation or rebirth and return? (P.S. If you use one or two of the Chapter 8 vocabulary words in your response you will have a very happy English teacher!)

Abraham

Rembrandt, "Abraham and Isaac"

Pietro Berettini da Cortona, "The Return of Hagar"

In your opinion, which of these two images best depicts one of the stories you read in the Bible as/in Lit story about Abraham? Why? Explain to me how the artist succeeds at bringing to life your image of what happened in the story. What is the relationship between these two paintings? Between Hagar's story and Abraham's test from God with regard to Isaac?

Mentor?

Ithaka, by Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.