DEAD POETS SOCIETY - 1959, Vermont, Welton Academy for Boys, Vietnam war
Neil - Finny
Todd - Gene
Cave - tree
Neil's dad - Brinker's dad
Geese - boys of Welton - boys following Finny
Scapegoat
Haven vs. Wilderness
Ritual
Initiation
Four Pillars of Welton Academy: Tradition, Honor, Discipline, Excellence
Juxtaposition of "typical" teachers followed by Mr. Keating's dramatic first class
Put
the quotes is your own words. Express
their meanings.
"No matter what people tell
you, words and ideas can change the world.”
"Gather
ye Rose-buds
while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying:
And this same flower that
smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
"
"The
universe is wider than our views of it."
"Carpe Diem! Seize the day.
Make your lives extraordinary.”
"I
went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and
not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live
what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation,
unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow
of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not
life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and
reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the
whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if
it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of
it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange
uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat
hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and
enjoy him forever."
"We
cannot refer to "the tradition" or to "a tradition"; at
most, we employ the adjective in saying that the poetry of So-and-so is
"traditional" or even "too traditional." No poet, no artist
of any art, has his 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."
Analyze
the poem for the usual. How could
this connect to war?
"O
Captain! My Captain!"
by Walt Whitman
O
Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O
Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My
Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.