Hyperlinks

February, 2010

For this assignment, we were asked to choose either a sonnet or an excerpt from one of Shakespeare's plays. We were then asked to use this excerpt to illuminate the text by adding hyperlinks to it. Below is a monologue from Julius Caesar, where Brutus is telling Cassius that he is against the idea of killing Antony. This assignment was interesting in that it led to discovering sites and information that I would not have otherwise searched for. It also proves effective in getting students to closely read each word of their chosen text and think abstractly about the images and links they choose to attach to the text as a hyperlink.

From: Julius Caesar, 2.1.169-187.

"Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off and then hack the limbs
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar.
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,
And in the spirit of men there is no blood.
O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds;
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage
And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make
Our purpose necessary and not envious,
Which so appearing to the common , eyes
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers."