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Summarize, in your own words, why Henry David Thoreau went to the woods

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Summarize, in your own words, why Henry David Thoreau went to the woods

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Write down as many thematic concepts and statements as you can. Discuss what you think the film's main theme is ?

Thematic concepts and statements

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Robert Herrick: "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" (1648)

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Robert Herrick: "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" (1648)

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Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

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O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

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Robert Frost: "The Road Not Taken" (1916)

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Robert Frost: "The Road Not Taken" (1916)

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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Character descriptions

Write a brief description of each character; discuss each character and how they are important in the film.

Conflicts

Write down the internal and external conflicts of each character discuss the role their conflicts play in the film

The Types of Conflict

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Henry David Thoreau: Walden (1854). Excerpt.

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Henry David Thoreau: Walden (1854). Excerpt.

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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what is not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God...

- Henry David Thoreau, from Walden

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What does T.S. Eliot mean by the following quote? 

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What does T.S. Eliot mean by the following quote? 

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No poet, no artist of any art, has complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation, is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.

- T. S. Eliot, from "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

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1. What are the four pillars of Welton Academy?

2. In what year does the story take place?

3. What do the Latin words ‘carpe diem’ mean?

4. What is the point of Mr. Keating's first class with the boys?

5. According to Mr. Keating, why read poetry? Why does he have them rip pages out of their books?

6. What was the Dead Poets Society? What did they do? Where do you think the name comes from?

7. What is the symbolism in the scene where the boys go to the cave?

8. How does Mr. Keating get the boys to look at life differently?

9. What is it that makes Todd come out of his shell? What does Mr. Keating do to help him come out of his shell?

10. Do you think Mr. Keating is a bad influence? Why or why not?

11. Who is most to blame for Neil’s death? Mr. Keating? Neil’s father? Neil himself?

12. Do you think Neil would have committed suicide if Mr. Keating had never come into his life? Why or why not?

13. Who, do you think, was the bravest of all the Dead Poets boys?

14. In the initial screenplay, Todd specifically does not sign the paper at the end. In the movie, we are not told one way or the other. Did Todd sign it or not? What do you think?

15. What happens next? What does the future hold for Keating and the boys?