First Year Reading Comprehension 2014-2015 (II semester).

Readings:

The reading will focus on the significance of the horse in literature, art and language.

Week 1 and 2

Introduction and The myth of Pegasus

inGreek Gods and Heroes

Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek Mythology, was involved in some of the most intriguing tales of the times.

From his birth to his death, Pegasus remained a mysterious creature capable of everything, symbolizing the divine inspiration or the journey to heaven, since riding him was synonymous to “flying” to the heavens.

Pegasus was represented as a goodhearted, gentle creature, somewhat naive but always eager to help.

For his service and loyalty, Zeus honoured him with a special immortality turning Pegasus into a constellation on the last day of his life.

Pegasus, son of Medusa and Poseidon

The myth said that Pegasus was the son of mortal Medusa and Poseidon, god of the sea. Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor were born from the blood of their beheaded mother Medusa, the gorgon tricked and killed by Perseus.

A more detailed version of the myth said that two of them were born when Medusa’s blood mixed with the foam of the sea. The myth says that Pegasus was born as a winged horse because his father Poseidon had the shape of horse when seducing Medusa. When Pegasus was born, a huge thunder with lightning pierced the sky, and that’s how his connections to the forces of skies were established.

But the most common version of the myth about Pegasus says that the goddess Athena tamed the winged horse and gave him to Perseus, who later needed to fly far away to help his lover Andromeda.

Pegasus and the Muses

Back to the aftermath of Pegasus’s birth. Parentless, he was raised by the Muses at Mount Helicon, where he was taken by goddess Athena. In all of his excitement for being given to those women, Pegasus was striking the side of the mountain with his hooves and his marks caused springs to turn into flowing fountains of inspiration.

Those springs became sacred to the Muses who loved and respected the “flying horse”. But to one of them – Urania, the Muse of Astronomy and Universal Love, Pegasus was particularly important. She saw a heroic future for Pegasus as well as some, possible celestial honour waiting for him. Urania suffered a lot when Bellerophontes, a mythical hero, took Pegasus away.

Hesiod’s story about the Bellerophontes’s “hijack” of Pegasus confirmed that whenever Pegasus struck his hoof a fountain of inspiration burst immediately. One of those sacred springs was the Hippocrene (meaning “horse spring”) on Mt Helicon.

On Mount Olympus

In any case, Pegasus ended up on Mount Olympus, and served Zeus with his thunder and lightning magic powers, whenever the Supreme God wished for them. And his main caretaker from the youth, the Muse Urania, together with other Muses, welcomed Pegasus’s return in full joy and happiness.

Pegasus lived on Mt Olympus until his last day. Ever since then, he became an inspiration for artists of all kinds, a fantasy for kids who dream of their own Pegasus to reach the mysterious caves and labyrinths of their imagination.

Adapted from:

Reading questions:

  1. Who was Pegasus? What does the Pegasus myth say?
  2. Why is Pegasus an inspiration for artists of all kinds?

Week 3 and 4

The Houyhnhnms. from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Reviewed by Lindsey Hurd.

Gulliver’s fourth and last voyage casts him upon the island of the Houyhnhnmswhere he is almost slain by some vulgar and grotesque creatures, later identified as Yahoos, before two Houyhnhnms arrive to save him. The Houyhnhnms are horses and the rational rulers of the country. The Yahoos, on the other hand, are the Houyhnhnms’ slaves, being contemptible creatures of mean intelligence, full of gross meanness, lasciviousness, greediness, foulness, and other base passions of an irrational creature. Gulliver so much resembled the Yahoos in shape and appearance that the Houyhnhnms believed he was a Yahoo, only surprisingly clean and rational.

As Gulliver recounted the people and government of Europe, his Houyhnhnm master become more and more convinced that the people of England are Yahoos. After Gulliver’s account of the deeds and practices of the people in England, his master came to the conclusion that the necessity for their institutions of government and law was due to their “gross defect in reason, and by consequence, in virtue; because reason alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature…” (IV, 7) Furthermore, Gulliver recounts his observation that “when a creature pretending to reason, could be capable of such enormities, the horse dreaded lest the corruption of the faculty might be worse than brutality. Thus the horse seemed therefore confident, that instead of Reason, we were only possessed of some Quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill-shapen body, not only larger, but more distorted.” (IV, 7) Through the Yahoo, Swift presents a shocking picture of sin’s irrationality, utter degradation, deformity, and vileness.

The Houyhnhnms, on the other hand, require neither government nor law. They scarcely know the meaning of sickness and have no concept of a lie or or wickedness. Unlike the Yahoos, who suffer from Original Sin, the Houyhnhnms represent man in a perfect state. Such is his admiration for them. Gulliver explains, “I had not been a year in this country, before I contracted such a love and veneration for the inhabitants, that I entered on a firm resolution never to return to human kind, but to pass the rest of my life among these admirable Houyhnhnms in the contemplation and practice of every virtue; where I could have no example or incitement to vice.” (IV, 7) Despite these wishes, after six years, the Houyhnhnms send him away because it is beneath their dignity to associate with a Yahoo as an equal, lest he taint them.

True to his irrational Yahoo nature, Gulliver ignores his identity with the Yahoo, pretending to be a Houyhnhnm. When he reaches home, he is so horrified by the sight and smell of the English Yahoos and at the vices of which he knows them capable, that he can scarcely bear to look at his wife and children, much less touch or associate with them. Thus, he reveals still more of his Yahoo nature, for as his Houyhnhnm master observed, “the Yahoos were known to hate one another more than they did any different species of animals; and the reason usually assigned, was, the odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the rest, but not in themselves.” (IV, 7) Because Gulliver is divided from his people, he takes comfort in buying two horses and spends as much time as he can talking and socializing with them.

When confronted with his frailty in Brobdingnag, and with his depravity in Houyhnhnm, Gulliver hides from the truth and learns instead to view himself as something he is not. Reminders of his Yahoo nature upset him terribly. Gulliver wants to perfectly enjoy the pleasure, comfort, and convenience of living in a perfect world, but he wants to do so without acknowledging his sinful nature. Instead of seeking humility and redemption, he escapes from himself and his fellow creatures into the absurdity of a false world.

Houyhnhnms

The Houyhnhnms represent an ideal of rational existence, a life governed by sense and moderation of which philosophers since Plato have long dreamed. Indeed, there are echoes of Plato’s Republic in the Houyhnhnms’ rejection of light entertainment and vain displays of luxury, their appeal to reason rather than any holy writings as the criterion for proper action, and their communal approach to family planning. As in Plato’s ideal community, the Houyhnhnms have no need to lie nor any word for lying. They do not use force but only strong exhortation. Their subjugation of the Yahoos appears more necessary than cruel and perhaps the best way to deal with an unfortunate blot on their otherwise ideal society. In these ways and others, the Houyhnhnms seem like model citizens, and Gulliver’s intense grief when he is forced to leave them suggests that they have made an impact on him greater than that of any other society he has visited. His derangement on Don Pedro’s ship, in which he snubs the generous man as a Yahoo-like creature, implies that he strongly identifies with the Houyhnhnms.

The Houyhnhnms also practice strict family planning, dictating that the parents of two females should exchange a child with a family of two males, so that the male-to-female ratio is perfectly maintained. Indeed, they come closer to the utopian ideal than the Lilliputians in their wisdom and rational simplicity. But there is something unsettling about the Houyhnhnms’ indistinct personalities and about how they are the only social group that Gulliver encounters who do not have proper names. Despite minor physical differences, they are all so good and rational that they are more or less interchangeable, without individual identities. In their absolute fusion with their society and lack of individuality, they are in a sense the exact opposite of Gulliver, who has hardly any sense of belonging to his native society and exists only as an individual eternally wandering the seas. Gulliver’s intense grief when forced to leave the Houyhnhnms may have something to do with his longing for union with a community in which he can lose his human identity. In any case, such a union is impossible for him, since he is not a horse, and all the other societies he visits make him feel alienated as well.

But we may be less ready than Gulliver to take the Houyhnhnms as ideals of human existence. They have no names in the narrative nor any need for names, since they are virtually interchangeable, with little individual identity. Their lives seem harmonious and happy, although quite lacking in vigor, challenge, and excitement. Indeed, this apparent ease may be why Swift chooses to make them horses rather than human types like every other group in the novel. He may be hinting, to those more insightful than Gulliver, that the Houyhnhnms should not be considered human ideals at all. In any case, they symbolize a standard of rational existence to be either espoused or rejected by both Gulliver and us. (from SparkNotes)

Questions:

1.What ideals do the Houyhnhnms represent?

2.Why may we not consider them as ideals?

3.Who are the Yahoos and what qualities do they have?

4. Explain: “when a creature pretending to reason, could be capable of such enormities, the horse dreaded lest the corruption of the faculty might be worse than brutality. Thus the horse seemed therefore confident, that instead of Reason, we were only possessed of some Quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill-shapen body, not only larger, but more distorted.”

Week 5

The Trojan Horse

Still seeking to gain entrance into Troy, clever Odysseus (some say with the aid of Athena) ordered a large wooden horse to be built. Its insides were to be hollow so that soldiers could hide within it.

Once the statue had been built by the artist Epeius, a number of the Greek warriors, along with Odysseus, climbed inside. The rest of the Greek fleet sailed away, so as to deceive the Trojans.

One man, Sinon, was left behind. When the Trojans came to marvel at the huge creation, Sinon pretended to be angry with the Greeks, stating that they had deserted him. He assured the Trojans that the wooden horse was safe and would bring luck to the Trojans.

Only two people, Laocoon and Cassandra, spoke out against the horse, but they were ignored. The Trojans celebrated what they thought was their victory, and dragged the wooden horse into Troy.

That night, after most of Troy was asleep or in a drunken stupor, Sinon let the Greek warriors out from the horse, and they slaughtered the Trojans. Priam was killed as he huddled by Zeus' altar and Cassandra was pulled from the statue of Athena and raped.

From

Virgil’s account:

After many years have slipped by, the leaders of the Greeks, opposed by the Fates, and damaged by the war, build a horse of mountainous size, through Pallas's divine art, and weave planks of fir over its ribs: they pretend it's a votive offering: this rumour spreads. They secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot, there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge cavernous insides with armed warriors. [...]

Then Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights of the citadel, to confront them all, a large crowd with him, and shouts from far off: "O unhappy citizens, what madness? Do you think the enemy's sailed away? Or do you think any Greek gift's free of treachery? Is that Ulysses's reputation? Either there are Greeks in hiding, concealed by the wood, or it's been built as a machine to use against our walls, or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from above, or it hides some other trick: Trojans, don't trust this horse. Whatever it is, I'm afraid of Greeks even those bearing gifts."

From

Trojan horse, was a huge, hollow wooden horseconstructed by the Greeks to gain entrance into Troy during thetrojan War. The horse was built by Epeius, master carpenter and pugilist. The Greeks, pretending to desert the war, sailed to the nearby island of Tenedos, leaving behind Sinon, who persuaded the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athenathat would make Troy impregnable. Despite the warnings of Laocoonand Cassandra, the horse was taken inside. That night warriors emerged from it and opened the city’s gates to the returned Greek army. The story is told at length in Book II of the Aeneidand is touched upon in the Odyssey. The term Trojan horse has come to refer to subversion introduced from the outside.

From

Reading and Writing task:

Summarize the story of the Trojan Horse.

Brief guide to summary writing

  1. A summary should be about one third the length of the original passage, that is, if you are asked to summarise the whole passage. If you are asked to summarise only a part of the passage, stick to the word limit given, such as 20 or 50 words.
  1. Every important idea must be retained, preferably in the order in which it appears in the original. Unimportant points and details must be discarded. Your job is to decide what the important and unimportant points are.
  1. A summary should be written in the third person. This means that if you are summarising a passage written in the first person, you should describe, in the third person, what happens in the passage. If you don’t know if it is a man or a woman who is speaking in the first person, write ‘the writer’ or ‘the author’ in you summary.
  1. A summary should follow the tense of the original.
  1. Even if you do not agree with what you have read in the passage, do not criticise or pass judgment in your summary. Your job is just to summarise the main points of a passage to show that you have understood it. A criticalappraisal of a passage is not called a summary but a review. So, do not include personal opinions, ideas or knowledge in your summary.
  1. Direct quotes, if they are fundamental to the passage and therefore to the summary, may be paraphrased and written in indirect speech.
  1. Try to capture the tone or feeling of the original. Is it humourous, ironic, biased, serious, academic?
  1. Write your summary in your own words

Sample summary:

Read the following passage--how would you summarize it?

The invention of the process of printing from movable type, which occurred in Germany about the middle of the fifteenth century, was destined to exercise a far-reaching influence on all the vernacular languages of Europe. Introduced into England about 1476 by William Caxton, who had learned the art on the continent, printing made such rapid progress that a scant century later it was observed that manuscript books were seldom to be met with and almost never used. Some idea of the rapidity with which the new process swept forward may be had from the fact that in Europe the number of books printed before the year 1500 reached the surprising figure of 35,000.The majority of these, it is true, were in Latin, whereas it is in the modern languages that the effect of the printing press is chiefly felt. But in England over 20,000 titles in English had appeared by 1640, ranging all the way from mere pamphlets to massive folios. The result was to bring books, which had formerly been the expensive luxury of the few, within the reach of all. More important, however, was the fact, so obvious today, that it was possible to reproduce a book in a thousand copies or a hundred thousand, every one exactly like the other. A powerful force thus existed for promoting a standard uniform language, and the means were now available for spreading that language throughout the territory in which it was understood. (Baugh, A History of the English Language)