Dead Poet Society 2025

• Engels
• WO
• Studiejaar 4

The Wanderer above the sea of fog' is an oil painting composed in 1818 by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich. 

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. 

A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday, rather than believing in a distant heaven. Transcendentalism emphasizes subjective intuition over objective empiricism

ROMANTICISM

TRANSCENDANTELISM

Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Henry David Thoreau   

             Jean-Jacques Rousseau           

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Here’s one who thinks he is the master of others, yet he is more enslaved than they are. (Rousseau, 1762, Social Contract)
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Dead Poets Society

PART I

0 - 24 min

Motif

A motif is a repeated pattern—an image, sound, word, or symbol that comes back again and again within a particular story; an idea that appears repeatedly in the work of an artist or in a piece of writing or music.

0 - 24 min

0 - 24 min

0 - 24 min

to have to meet high expectations about something that came before

What is the meaning of "have big shoes to fill"?

The meaning of "have big shoes to fill" is:

to have to meet high expectations about something that came before

Our new teacher has big shoes to fill, because our old teacher was so great!

0 - 24 min

In Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating uses Robert Herrick's poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" to teach Carpe Diem - Latin for "seize the day". It serves as a stark reminder of human mortality urging the students to avoid conformity, pursue their passions, and make their lives extraordinary before it is too late

' What is a major theme of "O Me! O Life?" '

Existence, expectations versus reality, and struggle are the major themes of this poem. The poem revolves around one question that hinders the bliss of the speaker’s life. The poet questions the existence and futility of life. Although man has invented various objects for his ease and comfort, still he is unable to cope up with the challenges of life. He acknowledges that human achievement and speedy development is normal. Hence, people get disappointed in their lives. However, he does not suggest any solution to these problems. He only wants his readers to stop and realize how they are contributing to humanity simply by living.

(12.11)

O Captain! My Captain!

"O Captain! My Captain" by Walt Whitman

• Why is "O Captain! My Captain!" considered to be a romantic poem?
• What happened in 1865?
• Who was Abraham Lincoln?

Historical Context

The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863): Issued by President Abraham Lincoln, this declared free all enslaved people living in territories still in rebellion against the Union. Because it only applied to Confederate areas, it did not end slavery everywhere. 

Juneteenth (June 19, 1865): Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, finally freeing the last enslaved people in the deepest parts of the Confederacy.

The 13th Amendment (December 18, 1865): The Secretary of State officially certified the amendment, permanently outlawing slavery across all U.S. states and territories, including the border states that were exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation.

O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

elegy

metaphor

Abraham Lincoln (1809 -1865)

Civil War   (Union vs Confederation States) (1861 - 1865)

reunification

abolishment of slavery

An elegy is a sad poem, usually written to praise and express sorrow for someone who is dead. Although a speech at a funeral is a eulogy, you might later compose an elegy to someone you have loved and lost to the grave.

Dead Poets Society

Part II

24 - 47 min

  24 - 47 min

unfettered: unrestrained or uninhibited; unrestricted

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

  24 - 47 min

• What is the essence of TRANSCENDANTALISM?
• What did Thoreau discover in the cabin? 

   Part 2:  24 - 47 min

     Part 2: 24 - 47 min

  Part 2: 24 - 47 min

yield: surrender; capitulate

Odysseus and Ulysses are the exact same legendary Greek hero; Odysseus is the original Greek name, while Ulysses is the Latinized version used by the Romans and in many Western European literary traditions

  24 - 47 min

24 - 47 min

Eliot emphasizes both the way that tradition shapes the modern artist and the way that a “really new” work of art makes us see that tradition anew.

In “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot advocates for the separation of art from artist and argues that tradition has less to do with imitation and more to do with understanding and expanding upon the intellectual and literary context in which one is writing

Part 3: 45 - 1.10 min

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

What is the message of this poem? 

Vocabulary Part 3:

sonorous: (of a person's voice or other sound) imposingly deep and full

make a collect call

' If it had been collect, it would've been daring' 

a long-distance telephone call that is to be paid for by the person or station receiving it.

  Part 3: 45  - 1.10 min

  Part 3: 45 - 1.10 min

Part 3: 47 - 1.10 min

Part 3: 47 - 1.10 min

' What is a major theme of "O Me! O Life?" '

Existence, expectations versus reality, and struggle are the major themes of this poem. The poem revolves around one question that hinders the bliss of the speaker’s life. The poet questions the existence and futility of life. Although man has invented various objects for his ease and comfort, still he is unable to cope up with the challenges of life. He acknowledges that human achievement and speedy development is normal. Hence, people get disappointed in their lives. However, he does not suggest any solution to these problems. He only wants his readers to stop and realize how they are contributing to humanity simply by living.

PART IV

 Part 4: 1.10 - 1.33 min

 Part 3: 47 min - 1.10 min

Speaker is amazed<div>Beaty is compared with vast; starry night</div><div>Poet compares his belowed beauty</div><div>to night - rather than daylight.</div>

Inner life - her external beauty is an expression of her thoughts that dwell in her mind or her beautiful face.&nbsp;

Her facial expressions eloquently but innocently express her inner goodness and peacefulness.&nbsp;

 Part 3: 47 min - 1.10

PART V

Part 5: 1.33 - 

24 - 47 min

Eliot emphasizes both the way that tradition shapes the modern artist and the way that a “really new” work of art makes us see that tradition anew.

In “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot advocates for the separation of art from artist and argues that tradition has less to do with imitation and more to do with understanding and expanding upon the intellectual and literary context in which one is writing

Part 5: 1.33 - 

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream

gentles do not reprehend

idle: pointless

yield: give away to arguments

reprehend: reproach; rebuke

make amends: make compensation

Yield: succumb; to concede under some degree of pressure, but not necessarily to surrender totally:

Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

Ulysses is a man of adventure. The poem focuses on whether he could ever tolerate a simple, traditional home life. Instead, he imagines life on the open seas, the perils of his adventures, and the chances to demonstrate his bravery.

Ulysses, who symbolizes the grieving poet, proclaims his resolution to push onward in spite of the awareness that “death closes all”. As Tennyson himself stated, the poem expresses his own “need of going forward and braving the struggle of life” after the loss of his beloved Hallam.

Part 5: 1.33 - 

Musee des Beaux Arts by W. A. Auden

Eliot emphasizes both the way that tradition shapes the modern artist and the way that a “really new” work of art makes us see that tradition anew.

In “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot advocates for the separation of art from artist and argues that tradition has less to do with imitation and more to do with understanding and expanding upon the intellectual and literary context in which one is writing.

Musee des Beaux Arts is a poem that focuses on human suffering, tragedy and pain by contrasting the lives of those who suffer and those who do not. The vehicle by which this is achieved is the world of painting, in particular the work of the old masters.

Written in 1938, just before the start of WW2, it signalled an important change in Auden's way of life and expression. He left behind his political persona and began to develop one that was more spiritual in nature.