Monthly Archives: March 2012

Junior Cycle, Senior Cycle, Transition Year

Who is your favourite Irish writer?

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With St Patrick’s day around the corner, it is worth thinking about who is your favourite Irish novelist, playwright, poet or director.

Here are a few suggestions:

Novelists

  • James Joyce (1882-1941)
  • John McGahern (1934-2006)
  • Brian Moore (1921-1999)
  • Jennifer Johnston (b. 1930)
  • Bram Stoker (1847-1912)
  • Roddy Doyle (b. 1958)
  • Emma Donoghue (b. 1969)
  • John Boyne (b.1971)
  • Maeve Binchy (b. 1940)
  • Cecelia Ahern (b. 1981)

Playwrights

  • Brian Friel (b. 1929)
  • John B. Keane (1928-2002)
  • Sean O’Casey (1880-1964)
  • John Millington Synge (1871-1909)
  • George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
  • Oscar Wilde (1845-1900)
  • Hugh Leonard (1926-2009)
  • Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
  • Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

Poets

  • Seamus Heaney (b.1939)
  • Eavan Boland (b. 1944)
  • Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
  • Thomas Kinsella (b. 1928)
  • Austin Clarke (1896-1974)
  • William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
  • Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
  • Michael Longley (b. 1939)
  • Derek Mahon (b. 1941)
  • John Montague (b. 1929)

Directors

  • Neil Jordan (b. 1950)
  • Damien O’Donnell (b. 1967)
  • Jim Sheridan (b. 1949)
  • Gerry Stembridge (b. 1958)
  • Kenneth Branagh (b. 1960)
  • Rex Ingram (1892-1950)

Of course this list is not exhaustive. Feel free to mention any other writer and tell us what novel, play, poem or film you liked and why.

Junior Cycle, Senior Cycle, Transition Year

Literature’s feistiest females

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On International Women’s Day it is worth a thought to consider who you think are the most admirable / interesting / provocative female characters in literature.

www.stylist.co.uk has made a list of 40 gutsy fictional heroines. They include:

  • Elizabeth Bennet
  • Lisbeth Salander
  • Little Red Riding Hood
  • Scout Finch
  • Catherine Earnshaw
  • Connie Chatterley
  • Emma Bovary

See http://www.stylist.co.uk/books/literatures-feistiest-females for the full list.

Are there any other female characters that should be added?

Senior Cycle

Past exam questions on Theme or Issue

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2011

‘A reader’s view of a theme or issue can be changed or reinforced through interaction with texts.’

Compare the extent to which your understanding of a theme or issue was changed or reinforced through your interation with at least two texts on your comparative course. [70]

or

‘The study of a theme or issue can offer a reader valuable lessons and insights.’

(a) Identify and discuss at least one valuable lesson or insight that you gained through the study of a theme or issue in one text on your comparative course. [30]

(b) Compare at least one valuable lesson or insight that you gained, from studying the same theme or issue (as discussed in (a) above), in two other texts on your comparative course.

The valuable lesson or insight may be the same, or different, to the  one discussed in (a) above. [40]

2009

‘Important themes are often expressed in key moments in texts.’

Compare how the authors of the comparative texts studied by you used key moments to heighten your awareness of an important theme. [70]

or

(a) Choose a theme from one text you have studied as part of your comparative course and say how it helped maintain your interest in the text. [30]

(b) Compare how the theme you have dealt with in part (a) is treated by the authors of two other texts from your comparative course to maintain the reader’s interest. [40]

2008

‘The comparative study of a theme or issue allows the reader / viewer to gain a variety of viewpoints on that theme or issue.’

(a) Describe the viewpoint on your chosen theme or issue that emerges from one of your comparative texts. [30]

(b) Compare the viewpoints on the same theme in the other two texts that you have studied. [40]

or

‘There are key moments in a text when a theme comes sharply into focus.’

Compare how key moments from the texts you have studied brought a theme or issue into sharp focus. [70]

2006

‘In careful reading / viewing of key moments of a text we often find important themes or issues which are developed in the text as a whole.’

(a) Compare how key moments of two texts you have studied in your comparative course raised an important theme or issue. [40]

(b) In the case of a third text show how a key moment helped in your understanding of the same theme or issue discussed in part (a). [30]

or

‘The dramatic presentation of a theme or issue can add greatly to the impact of narrative texts.

Write an essay comparing how the presentation of a theme or issue, common to the texts you have studied for your comparative course, added to the impact of the texts. [70]

2004

‘Exploring a theme or issue through different texts allows us to make interesting comparisons.’

Write an essay comparing the treatment of a single theme that is common to the texts you have studied for your comaparative course. [70]

or

‘Any moment in a text can express a major theme or issue.’

(a) Choose a moment from each of two texts you have studied for your comparative course and compare the way these moments express the same theme or issue. [40]

(b) Show how a third text you have studied expresses the same theme or issue through a key moment. [30]

2002

‘A theme or issue explored in a group of narrative texts can offer us valuable insights into life.’

Compare the texts you have studied in your comparative course in the light of the above statement. Your discussion must focus on one theme or issue. Support the comaprisons you make by reference to the texts. [70]

or

(a) Compare the treatment of a theme or issue in two of the texts you have studied as part of your comparative course. Support the comparisons you make by reference to the texts. [40]

(b) Discuss the treatment of the same theme or issue in a third text in the light of your answer to part (a) above. [30]

2001

‘Narratives can broaden our understanding of a theme or issue.’

Compare the texts you have studied in your comparative course in the light of the above statement. Support your comparisons by reference to the texts. [70]

or

‘A key moment in a narrative text can illustrate a them or issue very powerfully.’

(a) Choose one of the texts you studied as part of your comparative course and show how an important moment from it illustrates a theme or issue. [30]

(b) Write a short comparative commentary on one key moment from each of the other texts you have studied in the light of your discussion in part (a) above. [40]

Senior Cycle

Exam-style questions on Rich

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2010

‘Adrienne Rich explores the twin themes of power and powerlessness in a variety of interesting ways.’

Write a response to the poetry of Adrienne Rich in the light of this statement, supporting your points with suitable reference to the poems on your course.

2008

‘the desire to be heard, – that is the impulse behind writing poems, for me.’ (Adrienne Rich)

Does the poetry of Adrienne Rich speak to you? Write your personal response, referring to the poems of Adrienne Rich that do / do not speak to you.

Sample Question 1

‘Adrienne Rich is a complex but rewarding poet.’

Give your response to this assessment of Rich. Support your point of view by referring to the poems of Rich on your course.

Sample Question 2

‘Adrienne Rich explores the position of women in society in language that is clear and direct.’

Give your response to this assessement of Rich. Support you point of view by referring to the poems of Rich on your course.

 

Junior Cycle, Senior Cycle, Transition Year

Wordplay Wednesday – malapropisms

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The term malapropism comes from a play called ‘The Rivals’ by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, which was first performed in 1775. This play featured a character called Mrs Malaprop who frequently misspoke, with great comic effect. Her name, of course, comes from the French term mal á propos, meaning inopportune or not to the purpose.

When someone uses a malapropism it is because:

  • They’ve used a word that was not what they intended, given the context
  • The word sounds similar to the one intended
  • The word used actually means something different (i.e. it is not a made-up word)

Malapropisms are often the same part of speech, begin or end in the same way, or have the same rhythm when spoken.

Here are some expamples from ‘The Rivals’:

  • ‘Promise to forget this fellow, to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.’ (obliterate)
  • ‘She might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying.’ (comprehend)
  • ‘He’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.’ (alligator)
  • ‘He is the very pineapple of politeness.’ (pinnacle)

Here are two examples from ‘The Merchant of Venice’, both spoken by Launcelot:

  • ‘Certainly [Shylock] is the very devil incarnal.’ (incarnate)
  • ‘That is the very defect of the matter sir.’ (effect)

Some other funny examples:

  • Dad says the monster is just a pigment of my imagination. (figment)
  • He’s a wolf in cheap clothing. (sheep’s)
  • My friend has extra-century perception. (sensory)

Bushisms

President George W. Bush was famous for some of his malapropisms, and not without good reason:

  • ‘We cannot let terrorists or rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile.’
  • ‘It will take time to restore chaos and order.’
  • ‘They have miscalculated me as a leader.’
  • ‘I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for my predecessors as well.’
  • ‘We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.’
Junior Cycle, Senior Cycle, Transition Year

Avenge or revenge?

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In our discussions on ‘Hamlet’ some queries have arisen on the use of ‘avenge’ and ‘revenge’ – when is each word to be used? It is very simple. Avenge is a verb and revenge is a noun.

Avenge (v.) to inflict harm in return for (an injury or wrong); to inflict retribution on behalf of (a wronged person).

Hamlet was instructed by the ghost to avenge his ‘murder most foul’.

Revenge (n.) retaliation for an injury or wrong; the desire to repay an injury or wrong.

Hamlet’s revenge was a drawn-out affair. He did not keep his word when he said ‘that I, with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love, / May sweep to my revenge’.

The noun revenge may be put into verb form in the following ways:

to revenge oneself, to be revenged, to take revenge, to exact revenge.

It may also be used as an adjective:

It is easy to see that Hamlet’s murder of Claudius is a revenge killing.

Junior Cycle, Senior Cycle, Transition Year

One College, One Book: March

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The book that our whole college will (hopefully!) be reading for the month of March is ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world where children aged from 12 to 18 are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle where only one person can survive. Since its first publication in 2008, it has been translated into 26 different languages and sold in 38 countries across the world.

It is the first book in a trilogy and a movie adaptation will be released in the United States later this month. The trailer for the movie is on www.thehungergames.co.uk

I encourage all students, staff and other members of the College Community to read this book and post a comment here if you would like to tell us what you think of it.