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<title>Jessie&#x27;s RSS Feed</title><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/index.html</link><description>Hot News&#x21;</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2007</dc:rights><dc:date>2007-05-25T07:13:34-05:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:22:33 -0600</lastBuildDate><item><title>Who Cares Where?</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-25T07:13:34-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/ad2088d45009be62d480e862fb346f71-17.php#unique-entry-id-17</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/ad2088d45009be62d480e862fb346f71-17.php#unique-entry-id-17</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[While we were in the Houghton Library, we saw the chest of drawers where Emily Dickinson&rsquo;s poetry was found, her piano, her writing desk, and many other personal belongings. ...  The house didn&rsquo;t contain many items that belonged to her growing up, but had been decorated and made to look authentic enough that tours could get the picture.   The visit to her house illustrated the conflict we&rsquo;ve heard so much about on this trip, which appears to be so common among historic preservationists: where is the true spirit of the person and how is his or her history best taught and experienced? 

...Should the drawers be at the house so that tour groups can view the actual piece of furniture where her poems were found? ...  I can see this debate is reasonable; however, I see it as merely a debate over money and the ability to stake a claim on an historical figure. 


The answer, at least with the literary figures we&rsquo;ve studied these past two weeks, is that it shouldn&rsquo;t and doesn&rsquo;t matter where the objects are.   In each of the homes, whether or not the true furniture was present, I was aware of the strong spirit of the house, bringing the author and his or her words alive inside of me. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Close Proximity</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-24T20:45:06-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/14545e75e0b880cb018e3b469ea785c9-16.php#unique-entry-id-16</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/14545e75e0b880cb018e3b469ea785c9-16.php#unique-entry-id-16</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Of course, on this trip, I have become used to hearing that artistic people of the time were all friends with each other &ndash; that the man who sculpted the Lincoln Memorial received his first sculpting lesson from Louisa May Alcott&rsquo;s sister, that Emily Dickinson&rsquo;s literary friend was Longfellow&rsquo;s student, that the Alcott sisters were taught about nature by Henry David Thoreau &ndash; but it still surprises me each time. 


Our next example to add to the list is the close proximity of Harriet Beecher Stowe&rsquo;s home and Mark Twain&rsquo;s not-so-humble abode. ...  They became proficient in German because a German woman lived with them for awhile, and she was instructed only to speak with the children in German. 

...I loved her house because there were many small pieces of furniture that had been made to fit Stowe, who was 4&rsquo;11&rdquo;.   Her tiny desk looked slightly too small for me, and the mirror on her vanity was just big enough to fit my whole frame inside of it.   I felt I could&rsquo;ve lived there and that this furniture could&rsquo;ve been made for me instead of her. ...  Many pieces of her art hang on the walls inside the home now; she enjoyed painting nature scenes and never once painted a portrait. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Houghton Library</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-22T19:50:22-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/b2ca514d006ce498165e282a09f1ca38-15.php#unique-entry-id-15</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/b2ca514d006ce498165e282a09f1ca38-15.php#unique-entry-id-15</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Our first stop was The Emily Dickinson Room, where her writing desk, the dresser that, upon her death, held all of her sewn-together poetry, and her piano are on display.   In a display case were her poetry manuscripts; she often wrote a poem and, when she couldn&rsquo;t decide on the perfect word, would put a + mark next to the word and write the other options at the bottom of the page. 

...We were presented with the journals of Bronson Alcott while reading Walden, a journal of Thoreau&rsquo;s nature essays, and the manuscript of The House of the Seven Gables, which was wrapped in nice red fabric.   There were a few other books, and our presenter took us around each one, having a different student read a passage (if he or she could read the script!) 

...She laughed and told me they had all been real people at one point and announced we were allowed to page through each volume on our own &ndash; no need for gloves, even! ...  I read a list of the books Melville purchased while in Europe, which he had listed in his journal.   I read a poem written by Longfellow, on the death of his friend Hawthorne, which was pasted into the back of The House of the Seven Gables. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A City of History</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-21T22:49:42-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/769a236d079cbbb91079f50ffad1ebe2-14.php#unique-entry-id-14</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/769a236d079cbbb91079f50ffad1ebe2-14.php#unique-entry-id-14</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The first subway system in America was built right underneath it, and we used that subway stop many times to get from our hostel to the heart of Boston. 


On the way through history, we saw the graves of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and James Otis, who we found out was a huge help in the revolution but was forgotten in history because he went a little crazy later in life. ...  Because no one in Boston wanted the church there, the British took it upon themselves to build it right on top of half of a graveyard; today it is a Unitarian Universalist church. ...  For example, on the night of the Boston Tea Party, a meeting was being held there, and people became enraged during the speeches to help support dumping the British tea. 


...She explained that the propaganda following the incident really became a reason for people on the fence to join the revolution because what most people saw was a print that included a dead dog in addition to a few adults sprawled on the ground. ...  Still used today as it was when it was built, Faneuil Hall hosted  John Kerry during his concession speech in the 2004 election. 


Hannah gave us some useful advice (if we lived during the revolutionary time period and were British): In order to avoid being caught as a British spy, always remember when someone asks you what is atop Faneuil Hall that it is a grasshopper; if you dare to call it a cricket, you&rsquo;d better watch out, you British spy, you!]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Whaling Museum</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-20T19:45:22-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/2c0f179cafc86c106e9a005af00c60e8-13.php#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/2c0f179cafc86c106e9a005af00c60e8-13.php#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Pretty soon, the Nantucketers discovered the Sperm whale and, because of the huge profits on Sperm whale oils and because of their huge size that does not permit them to be close to land, Nantucketers voyaged out for years at a time to capture them and bring back their bounties, returning rich men. 

...He had a knack for storytelling that made the listeners put themselves into the characters&rsquo; minds, which helped make the cannibalism that happened between the crew and other terrors seem more understandable in order for any crewmembers to survive. 


...Some of them were pieces of bone with artistic carvings in them, and some were bigger and had been made into things like canes or a device for rolling string or yarn.


I really enjoyed the museum for its well-put-together history and story, but I had a hard time coming to terms with the large weapons and devices to kill the whales.   There is a lot of talk of changing the whaling laws to make it more legal, but I have a huge problem with that, especially after seeing how amazing the creatures are through my own experiences.   If they ever legalize whaling and the use of such weapons again, it will be hard to ignore how sad I felt for the whales being caught years ago.   At least at the time of heightened whaling practices the whales were the only form of profit; legalizing it now would be for nothing but sport, and the extinction of the magnificent creature is just not worth it for a sport.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Twinkling Telescopes</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-19T20:20:07-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/b98cc531e384871ef042322be7fa1aac-12.php#unique-entry-id-12</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/b98cc531e384871ef042322be7fa1aac-12.php#unique-entry-id-12</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[After walking around all afternoon, I didn&rsquo;t see much to do besides eat expensively, go sailing on expensive boats, shop for expensive clothing or&hellip;walk around. 

...He gave us a brief history of Maria Mitchell, who was the first woman astronomer and the first woman to see a comet.   She was taught by her father, also an astronomer, and later taught herself everything she knew; she was obviously a brilliant woman and would have been considered especially brilliant in her time when women weren&rsquo;t much more than mothers. 

...There are two types of telescopes - reflecting and refracting - and he moved us on to see the other, brand new telescope that had been his dream for years and years.   It was shaped a lot less like what one expects a telescope to look like; instead of being long and thin, it was very short and wide and transmitted the images it captures onto a television screen. 


...I could have listened to him teach for much longer, especially if it had been a clear night so that he could&rsquo;ve shown us the sky.   For a minute there, I considered being an astronomer so that I could come to his institute and have him teach me for an entire summer!]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Enchanted Gables</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-17T20:12:17-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/9c69ceb1d84a30a474106125921149bd-11.php#unique-entry-id-11</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/9c69ceb1d84a30a474106125921149bd-11.php#unique-entry-id-11</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The House of the Seven Gables, as written about in Hawthorne&rsquo;s book, is located in Salem, as is Hawthorne&rsquo;s boyhood home.   The houses are right by the water and right next door to each other because his boyhood home was bought and moved two blocks from a lot that is now a parking lot to the lot behind the House of the Seven Gables.   It was interesting to see the history of the house because at one point a very rich sailor decided the gables were too intricate and not stylish enough so he had them removed.   His daughter, after taking over the home upon his death, later told her cousin Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived a few blocks away, how the house had looked before her father changed it so drastically. 

...Later, after the book was written describing the house with seven gables, the owner realized that in order to give tours and hopefully make money for the acclamation program she started for immigrants, she would have to rebuild the gables that had been removed. 

...I suppose you can&rsquo;t go to Salem and not see something about witches, but this was by far the silliest museum I&rsquo;ve seen. ...  Despite the good parts of the museum, the whole experience seemed to want to demonstrate the horror of the Salem Witch Trials and to discourage that type of behavior; at the same time, however, the entire town capitalizes on the same horrific history and makes incredible amounts of money off of it. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>WHALES&#x21;</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-16T18:17:48-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/b5b2d69aaf06c43e45b3b99cbef0a7ce-10.php#unique-entry-id-10</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/b5b2d69aaf06c43e45b3b99cbef0a7ce-10.php#unique-entry-id-10</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[An older couple on board our boat, who were asking about our trip, told us they had been whale watching multiple times and liked the company we had chosen very much. 

...The boat began to slow at long last, and the announcer said we were in range of possibly seeing whales, and our group - most of which had been inside taking refuge from the cold - made its way out onto the deck. 

...After the first few sightings of the tops of the whales, it began to seem we were watching the whales put on a production of their greatest moves! ...  Every time I chose one side of the boat from which to watch, I heard &ldquo;oohs&rdquo; and &ldquo;aahs&rdquo; from the other side and ran quickly to the other side, only to remember how quickly they submerge back into the water. 


...The water began to turn green in color, which is a sign they are close to the surface, and then one of the three whales came out of the water with its mouth gaping.   The other two followed in the same form, so quickly that the three whales were above water, mouths open so that we could see six individual jaws, at the exact same moment. 


...Never did I imagine that she would reemerge another six or seven times, each time just as close to me, and each time so that we could see a different part of it. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Concord Museum and Emerson House</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-15T19:27:19-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/e9aa4b7814a09ec14c028ca1f868c3ce-9.php#unique-entry-id-9</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/e9aa4b7814a09ec14c028ca1f868c3ce-9.php#unique-entry-id-9</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The thing that stands out most is our tour through Emerson&rsquo;s house, because our tour guide made it feel much less like walking through a museum and more like simply visiting the Emerson&rsquo;s and finding them out.   First, she ushered us into his study, which has been recreated because the furniture is now in the Concord museum on display.   She told us it was fine to sit in the chairs, and we all did, assuming it was furniture that meant nothing.   Then we found out it was similar furniture that had been moved from other parts of the house and all of it had actually belonged to Emerson and his family. ...  I couldn&rsquo;t believe we were allowed to sit on it because all the other homes we were forbidden to even lean on the walls. 

...In addition to that, while up in the master bedroom, she took out the robe that he used to give lecures on the lecture circuit and the robe he put on in the morning when it was chilly in the house. ...  She told us she didn&rsquo;t usually take them out to let visitors see because no one usually cares about such things and she was therefore giving us a special tour. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Old Manse</title><dc:creator>jessie.magee@wku.edu</dc:creator><dc:subject>New England Blog</dc:subject><dc:date>2007-05-14T20:46:34-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/ccab8d6343ed8bda7a5587875f54b788-8.php#unique-entry-id-8</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.wku.edu/~stephen.russell1/LitNE/Blogs/Student%20Blogs/jessie_files/ccab8d6343ed8bda7a5587875f54b788-8.php#unique-entry-id-8</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[This room stood out for me more than the rest in the house both because of the three historical events that took place within and because of the stories our tour guide told us. ...  Believing himself to be a failure because the five generations behind him had been ministers, he traveled to Europe to raise his spirits, and it was in Europe where he discovered the philosophy of Transcendentalism.   The teachings of the philosophy &ldquo;spoke to his soul&rdquo; and, when he returned to America, he practiced the idea that God is within every being and everything in nature and turning it into more of a religion than a philosophy. 

...It was at that desk that he wrote the first drafts of his essay &ldquo;Nature,&rdquo; which is considered by some to be the &ldquo;Bible of the Transcendentalists.&rdquo;   Years later, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife lived in the Old Manse and while they were there, Hawthorne built himself a desk that faced against the wall opposite the windows; he said he could not concentrate while at Emerson&rsquo;s desk because the same nature that inspired Emerson only distracted Hawthorne and instead has his back face the view of outside. ...  The room is also the very same one that his grandmother stood looking out at the North Bridge, where first shots of the Revolutionary War took place.   The fact that many important events of history took place within one room is amazing; the fact that I was standing in the spirit of it all was astounding. ]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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