Welcome to our class blog: World Literature I: Barrington

You'll be using this blog to "post" (create a text entry on the front page) or "comment" (respond to another student's post). Over the course of the semester, each student will create at least 2 posts and at least 8 comments. Number each post or comment as BA #x (according to the one due that week).

For your posts, you should use the class’s evolving definition of a hero to argue why one of the characters from the current text is OR is not a hero. (So for BA #1, you’d choose a character from Gilgamesh; for BA #8, you’d choose a character from Dante’s Inferno.) If someone has already written on a character, you should find another character to write about. You'll need to do the following, in the order given, including the numerals to designate the separate parts of the assignment:
1. Provide the name of the character and where the character first appears in the text. For prose, provide page number; for verse, provide book/canto and line number.
2. Provide a short (no more than 50 words) summary or description of the character’s character.
3. Compare this character to another character, either from the same text or from a text we’ve already read in class. (Again, no more than 50 words.) This should not be a simple observation of how your character is "just like" another: they're both men, they both wander for many years, they’re enemies who try to kill the hero, or they both compromise their aspirations. Such statements are invariably trite overgeneralizations. Maybe the characters you're comparing face similar trials but find different ways to solve them; maybe both try to thwart the hero but for different reasons; maybe two female characters view of a common problem differently. Note that each of these examples presents differences within apparent or surface similarities, an approach which generally isn't a bad way to go. You MUST support your answer with evidence that you quote and cite from the text(s).
4. Argue (no more than 50 words) whether your character is OR is not a hero.

For your responses, you should agree or disagree with a post’s conclusions about a character’s heroic qualities by providing and explaining NEW evidence that either supports or questions the post.