Assignment for Friday, November 17, 2006

On an index card or sheet of paper, write down two examples of words or phrases from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court in which a knowledge of the context is important. Explain the meaning of the word or phrase. Bring this to class with you on Friday, November 17.

If you want to, you can choose two examples that relate to the "context area" for which you signed up in class on Thursday.

If you did not sign up for an area on Thursday, you can do so using the signup form.

Here are two examples from Chapter 7:

1. It made me homesick to look around over this proud and gaudy but heartless barrenness and remember that in our house in East Hartford, all unpretending as it was, you couldn't go into a room but you would find an insurance-chromo, or at least a three-color God-Bless-Our-Home over the door; and in the parlor we had nine.

Explanation: A "chromo," or chromolithograph, is an inexpensive, mass-reproduced picture, often a sentimental one ("God-Bless-Our-Home") printed using a process common in the nineteenth century. The closest modern analogy would be the calendars given out by real-estate agents and insurance companies. In this passage, Hank prefers the chromo to artistic tapestries, thus showing that he prefers modern commercial art to classic art. His choice shows that he lacks good taste.

2. Raphael was a bird. We had several of his chromos; one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes," where he puts in a miracle of his own-puts three men into a canoe which wouldn't have held a dog without upsetting. I always admired to study R.'s art, it was so fresh and unconventional.

Explanation: A "bird" is a peculiar person. Hank's funny comment about the "miracle of his own"--Raphael's denying the laws of physics by putting three men into a canoe too small for them--shows his practical knowledge and his disdain for Raphael's lack of it. Hank entirely misses the point of the art, and he isn't impressed by Raphael's genius because the picture doesn't represent reality. His comment about Raphael's art being "fresh and unconventional" isn't a compliment; Hank is being sarcastic. Of course, the irony is that Raphael's art really was "fresh and unconventional" for his day, but Hank is too conventional and too immersed in nineteenth-century commercial culture to see that.