Mary Shelley is very best known for her science fiction novel of Frankenstein which was written in the early 1800s. However, her personal life and the issues she faced in society at the time are not widespread despite the major impact it had on her professional writing career. Mary Shelley, Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was largely overshadowed by her poet husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. At age 16 Mary had fallen in love with one of her father’s 21-year-old protege’s. Percy had been married at the time and had an affair with his wife and had abandoned her when he impregnated Mary and run off to Europe. Her father disapproved of the relationship and refused to communicate with his daughter for two years. Mary had given premature birth to her first daughter Clara in 1815 who would die two weeks later. However, a year later she would have a successful birth of her son William. Mary would again try for daughter in 1817 which she named Clara. Following the faith of Clara before her, she would die just after her first birthday and the demise of William would come the same year. The death of all three of her children was intriguing as Mary would try again for the fourth time and coming away with successful childbirth to Percy in 1819. An interesting fact that was mentioned is that at the time of publication of Frankenstein the author was unknown. The first edition of Frankenstein had a preface by Percy Shelley, causing some to believe he in fact had written the book. Could this have been done on purpose to hide the fact that the work was written by a woman to gain more publicity? What is most intriguing is that Mary would continue to write novels under the alias of “Writer of Frankenstein” after the loss of her husband Percy in a boating incident in 1822. Mary decided to support herself and her son by writing more novels. Percy Shelley’s father, Thomas Shelley, would offer his financial support for Mary and her son but would threaten to cut her off if she had published any more of his son’s unpublished poems. Mary’s intention for publishing her late husband’s poems was to salvage his legacy and to try to write anew. What I found most interesting is that “In 1838 he finally gave Mary permission to publish her husband’s poems, as long as no memoir of Percy’s scandalous life was included.” Thomas Shelley wanted to hide his son’s antic lifestyle to preserve his family’s reputation. Mary would work around this by including a preface and biographical notes to the poems. Mary Shelley would then continue to write more novels and poems until her death in 1851 at her london home. 

            William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era.

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. Before Shakespeare’s birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582 in Worcester. They had three children, Susanna Hamnet and Judith, but Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11. There are seven years of Shakespeare’s life where no records exist in which scholars call this period the “lost years,” and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period. By the early 1590s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career.  The company soon changed its name to the King’s Men following the crowning of King James I in 1603. The King’s Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature. Shakespeare wrote more than thirty plays which were each divided into four categories: histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. His earliest plays were primarily comedies and histories such as Henry VI and The Comedy of Errors,and later switched to tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet. Some of his best plays in which he is known for is plays for are Julius Caesar, Hamlet and MacBeth. In his final years, Shakespeare turned to the romantic with Cymbeline, A Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.

Sometime after 1612, Shakespeare retired from the stage and returned to his home in Stratford and passed away on 23, 1616. One thing that I found most interesting about Shakespeare was the fact that he has absolutely no records for 7 years. Nobody knows what happened to him or what shaped him which makes him seem mysterious and gives us  sense that we don’t know the full story to him. This sense of mystery as to what his life entails and intrigues the reader. Whatever happened in those 7  years very much shaped him into the amazing writer that he is. Another thing I found very interesting was the broad categories in which he wrote his plays.During his lifetime, Shakespeare wrote histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. To me this is very impressive and shows what an amazing writer Shakespeare is.

Information source:

“Shakespeare, William 1564–1616 English Writer.” Renaissance: An Encyclopedia for Students, edited by Paul F. Grendler, vol. 4, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2004, pp. 83-89. Gale eBooks,

• The author I chose to research for our final presentation is Leslie Marmon Silko.  I read two articles that touched upon her work and life: one being an article written by K. Wesley Berry from the University of Mississippi, published in 2000 and another called “There are Balances and Harmonies Always Shifting; Always Necessary to Maintain” published in 2005.
• Silko’s nationality is quite mixed, being Laguna, Mexican, and White. Growing up in her New Mexican childhood, religion was very diverse as she grew up worshipping both traditional Pueblo mythology and Christianity. Silko’s grandmother taught her about the Mother Creators who brought the universe into being, while also hearing Bible stories as well. The spirituality expressed in Silko’s writings is of an “earth-centered bent.” In her essay, “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination,” she discusses animism in Pueblo religion, especially when she states in the essay, “The ancient Pueblo people called the earth the Mother Creator of all things in this world. . . . Rocks and clay are part of the Mother. . . . A rock has being or spirit, although we may not understand it. The spirit may differ from the spirit we know in animals or plants or in our selves. In the end we all originate from the depths of the earth.”
• Silko expresses her vision of environmental justice in a very traditional co-creative storytelling way. She does this through all of her written pieces, like “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination” and other pieces of hers, like “Ceremony” and “Storyteller.”
• Silko and her Pueblo family suffered from numerous flooding and droughts throughout her childhood, expressing the frustration through her work and emphasizing that natural terrors of human life are very much the result of human action.
• In many of Silko’s stories, her dad is the one actually taking the photographs that are placed within the story, showing the ancient Laguna culture. What is fascinating is Silko and her father have no relationship to these people, as they are just strangers in the world. They do this to leave it completely open to their viewers’ and readers’ to create and interpretive their own thoughts and ideas.

Articles

Berry, K. Wesley. “Leslie Marmon Silkoand Wendell Berry: Regionalisms for Ecological Work and Worship.” Organization & Environment, vol. 13, no. 3, Sept. 2000, pp. 338–353, doi:10.1177/1086026600133007.

De Ramírez, Susan Berry Brill, and Edith M. Baker. “‘There Are Balances and Harmonies Always Shifting; Always Necessary to Maintain’: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Vision of Global Environmental Justice for the People and the Land.” Organization & Environment, vol. 18, no. 2, June 2005, pp. 213–228, doi:10.1177/1086026604271941.

Describe the most memorable part of “Landscape, History and the Pueblo Imagination.” How does the part of the essay that you chose contribute to a larger ecological message?

The short story “A White Heron” offers its own kind of critique of violence and the narrative of the masculine “hero.” How?

If you like, consider:

How does the story prioritize kinship with animals over violence?

How does gender map onto these issues?

Why is Sylvie is silent in the end?

Write a one paragraph summary of either the essay by Latham or Le Guin. How might you apply the insights from the essay to an analysis of the colonial mission to Athshe?

If you are reading Latham’s essay, you might focus on the concept of “ecological imperialism” or the distinction between different kinds of technology.

If you are reading Le Guin’s essay, you might focus on the relationship she establishes between the “hero” story and the story of the killer.

Write a one paragraph summary of either the essay by Barbour or Le Guin. At the conclusion of the paragraph, reflect on how a key concept from the essay might be applied to an analysis of the Athshean culture.

If you are reading Barbour, you might focus on how the idea of “balance” applies to Athshean culture.

If you are reading Le Guin, you might consider whether the Athshean culture adopts an ecological point of view of the kind described in the essay.

In the end the colonial mission to Athshe proves to be a failure and the Athshean way of life is transformed. Why do you think Le Guin chose to tell a story of failure rather than of success?

You might consider:

Is the conclusion triumphant for the Athsheans? Why or why not? 

What might this ending suggest about Le Guin’s attitude towards violent conflict?

What do we learn about the Athsheans in the last few pages of the novel? Why do you think Le Guin chose to end on this note?

What hope are we left with at the end of the story? What role does Lyubov’s research and/or communication technology play in determining the future of the planet?

What is the significance of dreaming to Athshean culture and/or to the events of the book more broadly?

You might consider:

–Lyubov’s view of the role of dreaming in Athshean culture and the difference between Terran sleeping and Ashthean dreaming.

–The relationship between Selver’s bad dreams and acts of violence.

–The relationship between dreaming and the non-violent, or ecologically-minded “roots” of Athshean culture.

–The relationship between “dream time” and “world time.”

What are the differences between Captain Davidson’s perception of the natural environment and the Ashthean point of view represented at the opening of chapter 2? Draw on quotations to support your point.