Kathleen's happy news: Baby Lorelei. I am very pleased to announce that Kathleen, who is in both the Myth-Folklore and the Indian Epics classes this semester, has had her baby!!! The new arrival is a little girl, and her name is Lorelei. Congratulations to Kathleen and her family!!!
Storybook stack. There are still quite a few assignments in the Storybook stack. If you turned in your assignment on Sunday or earlier, you should have comments back from me now. Assignments turned in on Monday or Tuesday are probably still in the stack. You can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment.
Week 13 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) Now that Week 13 has begun, the Week 13 Internet assignment is now available: you will be asked to nominate your favorite Storybook projects in various categories, and also to leave some thank-yous to the people whose comments were most helpful to you this semester. You have all of Thanksgiving break to complete this Internet assignment. Then, after Thanksgiving, on Monday afternoon, November 30, when everybody has submitted their nominations, I will put up a ballot based on the most nominated Storybooks.
Week 13: Thanksgiving. (repeat announcement) It is now Week 13 begins today, and have the usual Wednesday and Thursday assignments due this week. The Week 13 Responding assignment will become available on Friday, November 20, as usual - but nothing is due until after Thanksgiving. You will have one week off: There are no assignments due between Friday November 20 until after Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving Day is November 26). The grace period for turning in your Week 13 weekend assignments will be until noon on Monday, November 30.
November 18: William Caxton. Today, November 18, is a remarkable day in the history of English literature because on this day, in the year 1477, William Caxton produced the first printed book in England! The first printed book in Europe, the famous Gutenberg Bible, had been printed in Germany in 1453, and it was about 25 years later that William Caxton started printing books in England. You can read more about William Caxton's life and career in this Wikipedia article. The first book that William Caxton printed was not a Bible, but a book about Greek mythology: Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye. I am most interested in Caxton because one of the other books he published was the first printed edition of Aesop's fables in English in 1484! The image below shows the fable of the man who debated with the lion from Caxton's edition of Aesop:
