For Tuesday, February 17

Read Chapters 9 and 10 in The Picture of Dorian Gray.  In Chapter 10, Lord Henry gives Dorian a "yellow book."  Chapter 11 will go into much detail regarding the book and its effect on Dorian. Much of Chapter 11 will mimic the book's own style and preoccupations.  So we will skim parts of Chapter 11 together and focus our attention more on plot line and symbolism.  The "yellow book" is most likely a reference to A Rebours (translated into English as Against Nature or Against the Grain), the seminal Decadent novel by the French author Joris Karl Huysmans.  Wilde first read A Rebours on his Paris honeymoon shortly after its publication in 1884.  We will talk more about this book in class.

Read the College Board sample essays for Question 3 over "ownership."  Before reading the actual grades and explanations, try to put your own grade on each sample.  Look at the differences between your essay and the samples provided.

On Tuesday, we will have a "salon" discussing Dorian Gray and as time allows the nuances of the argument essay.

In this painting, titled "Reading from Moliere," artist Jean Francois de Troy depicts a salon of the French Enlightenment.

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse est"). Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, were carried on until quite recently in urban settings. (Wikipedia)

The Salon by Toulouse-Leutrec