January 2009 Archives

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Book Discussion

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"Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" (1886) - Robert Louis Stevenson
Tuesday, January 20, 6pm - 7pm
Caledon Library and Welcome Centre, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/160/117/23

From the final confession of Dr. Jekyll
"With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens".

Stevenson's novel has become a byword for transformations and hidden selves. Many critics see it as a commentary on the straitlaced propriety enforced by standards of the day. Other writers have used the metaphor of the proper and respectable Dr. Jekyll and the dreadful Mr. Hyde to explore the Victorian debate about "demon rum", or to comment on the hidden darkness in every human character -- and of course it is a common image in discussions of the clinical phenomenon of split personalities.
But what is really in the novel? Dame Kghia Gherardi will take us through an examination of Stevenson's skillful depictions of character, personality, and its vagaries. All readers, and their Alts (see the above), are welcome



The Sense of Self in 19th century literature - a discussion series at the Caledon Library, led by Kghia Gherardi

Tuesdays, once a month, 6-7 pm SLT

As exploration, industrialization and colonization expanded during the nineteenth century, the way the individual viewed his and her role within this world also altered. This literature series will look at how the individual defines himself or herself, how societies react to these changes, and how the evolving sense of self succeeds and fails. The readings will included essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, poetry by Walt Whitman, and fiction by Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, and Kate Chopin.

Full Schedule
November  11 2008
"Self-Reliance" and "Circles" (1841) - Ralph Waldo Emerson

December 02 2008
Leaves of Grass (1855) - Walt Whitman
 
 January 20  2009
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1886) - Robert Louis Stevenson

February  10 2009
The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890) - Oscar Wilde

March 10 2009
The Awakening (1899) - Kate Chopi

Mr Toad meets Edna St Vincent MIllay

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Such things happen in libraries.


Wind in the Willows Listening Parties
Inaugural party and broadcast!
Chapter 1: The River Bank
Saturday, Jan 10th
10am-11am SLT
Tinyville Library, Caledon Tanglewood
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Tanglewood/23/214/23/

Come as a character from Kenneth Grahame's novel,  The Wind in the Willows, and join us as we listen to,  and discuss,  a new chapter each month of the adventures of the shy but loyal Mole, the poetical Water Rat, the brave Otter, the gruff but kindly Mr. Badger, the vainglorious Toad, and all the other creatures of wood, stream, and field who populate this much-loved story.
This week, the story begins as Mole, tired of his Spring Cleaning, makes a break for it and meets the Water Rat...and The River...and finds that there's nothing so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.


Big People may join us in Tinyville, or repose in comfort at the Oxbridge Library in Caledon Oxbridge
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Oxbridge/196/96/24

Those who can't be with us in-world are invited to tune in at http://music.radioriel.org

This is a year-long series, the second Saturday of each month, 2009. Sponsored by the Caledon Library and Rachelville, and produced by Radio Riel


Schedule



And, on the very next day.....
(so you see, they do not actually meet after all. This time)

Caledon Library Book Discussion and Listening Party
Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sunday, Jan 11th, 2009
1-3pm SLT
HG Wells Memorial Library, Caledon Wellsian
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Wellsian/235/239/31

Or tune in at http://music.radioriel.org

This month we peer into the future to consider the poetry of Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay's passionate outpourings are rather heightened than constrained by her precise poetic diction. Add to this a strikingly natural and unabashedly frank poetical voice (her works reflect the spirit of nonconformity that pervaded her Greenwich Village milieu) and you have poetry that has been both inspiration and solace for four generations of enthusiastic readers.

Millay is justly celebrated for her ability to combine modernist attitudes with traditional forms,  creating a unique American poetry. From a biographical sketch on the Poetry Foundations site:
A reviewer for the London  Morning Post wrote, "Without discarding the forms of an older convention, she speaks the thoughts of a new age." American poet and critic Allen Tate also pointed out in the New Republic that Millay used a nineteenth-century vocabulary to convey twentieth-century emotion: "She has been from the beginning the one poet of our time who has successfully stood athwart two ages." And Patricia A. Klemans commented in the Colby Library Quarterly that Millay achieved universality "by interweaving the woman's experience with classical myth, traditional love literature, and nature."

This event will be the second of our "interactively DJ'd"  Poetry Discussions. With the kind cooperation of Radio Riel DJ (and Millay enthusiast) Gabrielle Riel, we will listen to recordings of the poems, discuss them, and then listen to them a second (or, who knows, even a third time.)

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This page is an archive of entries from January 2009 listed from newest to oldest.

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