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About Me
- Olivier P.
- I am an English teacher at Collège Édouard Monpetit in Longueuil Québec. I am currently working on a Student project that will allow a group of Language Arts students to visit Lowell Massachussetts during the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival. I created this Blog to encourage a discussion on Jack Kerouac and the students` adventures "On the Road".
I agree with what Aristotle said about humour, but the element of surprise in the poem wasn't really humourous, I think. I liked the poem for it's storyline, and it made me think of a cross between an Iron Maiden song, "A boy named Sue" by Johnny Cash, mixed with "Spanish Train" by Chris de Burgh.
ReplyDeleteAnyways,what I liked the most about this poem is mostly the rythm. So.... Yeah... See you wednesday!
Valérie Goulet Talbot
Before beginning talking about the poem: “ The Cremation of Sam Mcgee” by Robert W. Service, I simply wanted to say that I totally agree with Valérie when she said that the surprising ending wasn't really humourous.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the little movie picturing the poem in its own story. Sometimes, the poems that we read in class are a little hard understanding rather the meaning of the words chosen or the story itself so it really helped me get the whole story.
This was a pretty long poem but well described and smooth. The tone isn’t positive or negative, it has a weird but adventurous feeling when we get through it. The fact that the author included narrative parts in the text makes it more real as a story.
The poem has a lot interesting elements: day/night, good/bad, cold/ warmth etc...
I don’t know yet what type of poems that I enjoy the most, but I can at least say that I liked that one pretty much.
Looking forward for the next one...
Marilyn Quessy
Maybe since Aristotle is a Greek Philosopher, and that his quote was translated, it wasn't translated well =P some things can't be translated exactly because it can be of cultural meaning
ReplyDeleteSince that didn't apply to the poem ( I wasn't there last class so I base this on the opinions given here so far by classmates ) I guess that maybe what Aristotle roughly meant was that a joke that people already know isn't as funny as a new joke that's out of the blue =P
The way the Greek language is made, it's possible to be funny by saying anything random for some reason ...which can't exactly be something that can be said for all languages and/or cultures
Then again, I might be off topic and stuff >_>
I can't tell why, but I wasn't really surprise at the end of the poem. It can be the reason why I see nothing humoristic in it or maybe the subject was just... not comic.
ReplyDeleteBut in a general way, I disagree with Aristotle, to make a funny story, in my opinion, it doesn't take a surprising end but you have to anticipate what's going on and be captivated since the beginning of it.
Anyway, the poem we had to study this week was not much than weird. I had no surprise and except the little video you added to keep us awake I wasn’t so captivated. I found it a bit too long, BUT I liked the repetition at the beginning and at the end.
Marie-Eve Pilote
The video that you have put in class was an other interessant way to show us an other poem, because it can be a bit long in class to always read poems, so the video was interessant ! I found the poem really captivating. I think what I have liked the most is the tone which inspire, according to my opinion, the fright and a kind of dark side related to the story... The video about the poem looked alike a horror movie . Personally I prefere those kind of poems maybe more dark than other poems which talk about the nature or love... It was interessant!
ReplyDelete-Catherine Lacroix
oups * Interesting ! not interessant
ReplyDeleteCatherine !
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W.Service makes me think of a short story (I don't know if it is the right translation for "nouvelle littéraire"). The poem's surprising ending was not humouristic, as everybody said, but I agree with what Aristotle said.
ReplyDeleteI found enjoyable the video you showed us because it illustrated the mood of the poem and the atmosphere. Furthermore, we heard it, therefore we could feel the rhythm. The voice tone fitted really well the verses.
First of all I want to say that I enjoyed this poem, because (as Sandrine pointed out) it looks more like a short story than a poem. So seeing it as one made it more interesting for me as I don't like poetry!
ReplyDeleteSecond, I have to say that I wasn't surprised either by the ending of the poem, so I don't think Aristotle's quote can relate to that!
It takes more than surprise to make something funny, a lot more than that!!! And besides the element of surprise (for some people) this poem had none of the other things it takes to make it Humour!!!
Since the whole poem is kind of "unreal" I didn't find the ending really suprising, indeed, I knew that something unexpected was going to happen. I agree with Aristotle: "The secret to humour is surprise", but I didn't find the ending really funny. I don't really like this poem , but I think that the style of the rhymes is really interesting AABB, it gives some structure to the poem.
ReplyDeleteVanessa Lavoie
I really liked the poem for it's form. I thought it was really interesting to see the video of the story too. I guess this is the first poem I enjoyed maybe because it was more like a story and everything was very clear to me. You didn'thave to ask yourself it it was suppose to negative or positive it was obvious. I wasn't surprise by the end of the poem and it didn't make me laugh either.
ReplyDeleteMarie-Christine Bélanger
Like a lot of you guys..I liked this poem more than the others because it was more clear and the video also helped me picture the story. I dont agree either that the poem was funny and I didnt think that the end of the story was a surprise...since it ends the exact same way it started...I was even a little bit disapointed because I tought the cremation of sam would be a story more weird or creepy about a murder but the guy just died and his friend crematated him as he asked for his last which...pretty not surprising for me...
ReplyDeleteAnyway..I like the way it's written and I like that we got to see a video of it.
Caroline Robidoux
According to me, the narrative poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee" has a dramatic tone and the surprise ending is not funny. But I agree with Aristotle that surprise is amusing and has a kind of humour.
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that you gave us a poem resembling to a story in form of poem rather than the opposite!
Chloé G.Marcotte
I don't think that this poem is funny at all. It's probably the darkess poem that we saw yet in your class. In the other hand, I really love it beause it was a very sensitive poem and very sad as well. I love the way the author wrote it as if he was telling a story, a «magic» story. Therefore, I really don't think that this is a humoristic ending.
ReplyDeleteI'm a visual person. I understand more when I see thing, when it is demonstrated and shown. It was easy to understand. The video helped me to understand the real meaning of the poem. The end of the story was pretty obvious. But I liked the contrast of the story such as hot and cold. If humour is surprised, then I wasn't laughing because it did not surprised me at all!
ReplyDeleteMarie-Philippe Busque
Personally I couldn't get the ''humoristic'' tone behind this peom. It is not just me since I seen the comments before stating the same fact. Though a surprise is to be encountered if you logically expect something when you read the first lines... but at the end, it gets, somehow, interesting. (part1)
ReplyDeleteContrasts were obvious in this poem, but, as usual... poetry did not have me laugh nor wish to inquire much about its deep meaning.(part2)
ReplyDeleteyou should remove the maximum amount
of words/c.