Johnstown High School - Spectator Yearbook (Johnstown, PA)

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Englrsh and Amerrcan Lrteratu re 1Contmucdl French Literature readrng The three plays that are studred are ulrus Caesar Mac beth and Hamlet Emphasrs rs placed on characterrzatron vxhrch of course rnxolxes rdeals of lrxrng so dear to the hearts of youth Modern Amerrcan and Brrtrsh Poetry by Lours Untermeyer Mrl stones rn Amerrcan Lrterature and Mrlton s poems make up the vrork Debatrng and publrc speakrng drffer greatly from the other toprcs that haxe been drscussed because they make rt more necessary for the student to use hrs own rnrtratrve Students are not only taught hovx to address an audrence but also how to carry on com ersatron and hovt to rntroduce people properly Debatrng sharpens the vxrts by rts mental combat and also assrsts the students to face problems rn therr later lrfe He vxho loves lrterature lox es lrfe Homer Dennrson The e1rlrest form of French Lrterature to rex e'1l rtself was the play and French Lrterature rs very rrch rn plays Prerre de Cornerlle vxhose most famous work rs Le Crd was the frrst famous playwrrght Com parrsons vsere drawn from hrs artrstry It rs as beautrful as Le Crd Then we hear of Vrctor Hugo a most grfted poet who was knovxn as an rnfant prodrgy At the age of twenty one he commenced hrs wrrt rnq of plays and novels One of hrs famous works rs Les Mrserables vrhrch most of us haxe seen acted on the motron prcture screen Next we come to the great realrstrc wrrter of the Nrneteenth Cen tury Gustave Flaubert who wrote Madam Bovary It vxas one of hrs drscrples Guy de Maupassant who became the most vrvrd yet realrs trc short story wrrter Some of the other drstrngurshed French wrrters are Anatole France a member of the French Academy Edmund Rostand who wrot L Arglon a story of Napoleon s son acted rn recent years by Eva Le Gallrenne Cyrano de Bergerac and Chantecleer rn whrch the char acters are fowls Le Comte de Monte Crrsto by Dumas rs one of the best known of the French novels of the Nrneteenth Century The story tells of the unlust rmprrsonment of Edmund Dantes for polrtrcal reasons Durrng hrs stay rn the state prrson Chateu d If he communrcated xxrth another prrsoner Abbe Farra who was an old prrest by means of a secret pas sage vt hrch they had dug Before hrs death rn the prrson the old prrest had tauqht Dantes a great deal of hrstory and scrence and he also told hrm of a hrdden treasure At Farra s death Edmund Dantes escaped by changrng places vrrth the body of the old prrest He vras thrown rnto the sea srnce rt was the custom to drspose of the dead prrsoners rn thrs way Edmund frnds the treasure and dex otes hrs vxealth and the rest of hrs lrfe to revenge for the rnlustrce done to hrm French prose rs famous for rts clearness and pornt and far surpasses rts poetry Zoe Hughes O . Q 1 . rr . 11 rr 1 ' 1 11 .. 11 . . . . . 1 1 . , , ' 7 V ' 7' 1 . rr . . . 11 , rr . ' 0- . . . 11 . 1 Y 0 . ., c , . V y . . 4 V r V 1 s V I . , . .r . . 11 V 1 ' I 1 C , B. . U' , 7 , 1 . n . 11 . . 1 I - . . . rr . . 4 . 1 11 1 ' 1 . . V 1 1 , - 1 - - . . fr . 11 1 ' ' 1 1 ' ' Y - rr 11 r 1 1 - - 1 1 1 1 ' F, . , .. ll Y I YY I 1 1 1 1 ll YY ll ll 1 n . . , Y Y Y . u . 11 . . . . 1 . . 1 1 1 1 V 7 - r 1 1 , . . . . 1 - 1 ' V' . 7 . , . . y - 7

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Literature is one of the finest of the fine arts through literature me become acquainted with the thought experiences and interests of brilliant men and women in the different spheres of life Poets open their gen erous understanding souls to us and reveal Joy love sympathy humor and many other emotions which vse should never experience in the com monplace things of life without the aid of such great men as Burns Whitman Frost and many others Essayists criticize praise and comment upon people nature politics the universe Novelists drama t1sts and short story writers give us the story of living dead and lmag mary characters Reading of this type is not only enjoyable but it also enlarges the pupil s horizon by showing how fascmatmg or how cruel life can be Reading means vicarious living In high school students are given a chance to appreciate the beauty of classical literature lt would be necessary to write a book to discuss successfully all the values of literature taught in high school but a brief summary of the work clone in the ohnstown Senior Hlgh School will emphasize some of them It was not until the Nineteenth Century that the short story ap peared as a definite recognized type of literature Mr Heydrick th editor of Types of the Short Story has selected different types of choice short stories for the use of high school students He has included the psychological story the story of adventure the love story the story of the supernatural and the story based on a single event Among these are stories by many famous authors such as Washington Irving Edgwr nox el is studied in the College English Course much home reading is required The House of the Sex en Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an old fashioned novel based on the ln es of a quaint New England family Its theme is retribution The Sir Roger De Cox erley Papers IS an interesting collection of essays by Addison and Steele They are very satiric essays on both rural and urban England and some of them are characterized by deli cious humor Among Emerson s many essays his theory of compensa tion has a strong appeal to many mmds This essay awakens us to the startling realization that no matter how much one strives towards happi ness and perfection one w1ll nex er reach Utopia on earth for Emerson tells us that me must suffer a certain amount of sorrow and pain to com pensate for our happiness Carlyle s Essay On Burns is the flnest of the many essays wrltten about Burns in it Carlyle not only praises and criticizes Burns but also other writers All six of the speeches studied deal largely with the pa triotic spirit of the American people Among them are Washington s Farewell Address Webster s The Bunker Hill Cration Carl Schurz s True Americanism and Henry W Grady s The New South Iohn Hay s America s Loxe of Peace and Ehhu Roots The Pan American Sp1r1t William Shakespeare is the only dramatist who is studied in high school English classes although modern plays are assigned for home English an American Literature . . . . ' . V . . . V , . 7 I 7 I ' 4 U , Y Y ' A I ' I Y l Y r 1 ' I 'i l - ' 1 ' . I . . . . ' ' . F 9 Y . . . . I K Allan Poe, Sir Iames Barrie, and Rudyard Kipling. Although only one 1 l ' .. Y . . . . I

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Germany has a hterature xx hlch 19 as old as its hxstory If one seeks IH the museums of Germiny one fmds fragments of xery old books xx hlch date back almost to the time of Charles the Great A l1ter1turc xx hnch lg old must haxe manx treasures and the German llterature IS one of the r1chest IH the world Thelr greatest poet xx 'ls ohwnn Wolf qinq xon Goethe He ranks amonq the four greatest poets of all tlme Homer Dante Shakespeare and Goethe Germany s greatest lyrlc poet 1nd dramatlst and a popular nox ellst oddly enouqh he xx 'ls also 1 sci entlst a xx ell knovxn art cr1t1c and a philosopher Th1S mterestmq poet belonged not to one perlod but to sex eral for he hyed from the mlddle of the Eighteenth Century until somewhere 1nto the Nlneteenth Century Thus he experlenced many ex ents ln xxorld hlstory the French Rex olutlon the Amerlcan Reyolutlon and the rise and fall of Napoleon He also saw many changes IH llterature he hmm self g1xe the example for new 1deas and new forms Wlth Goethe the German hterature reached 1ts zenlth and thxs great per1od IS called the Classlcal Perlod Goethe lox ed the old folk sonqs of the earher llterature He h1m self wrote many such sonqs xxhlch are so mus1cal and natural that they are easlly sung Some of hls most well known poems are Der Erlkonlg Das Heldenroslem Der Flscher and Gefunden and Uberallen Grpfeln Ist Ruh Goethe s dramatic masterplece IS Faust Faust IS a long drama rn two parts upon whlch the poet worked for sxxty years When Goethe was a child he saw a puppet show of the old story of Doctor Faust Thxs puppet show made a great lmpressxon upon h1m and he used many parts of the old story ln hrs masterpnece but he changed the fundamental ldea Goethe s Doctor Faust made an agreement wlth the deyll Me phlstopheles The devnl was to let h1m experlence the most subhme happmess of the xxorld In return Faust prom1sed h1s soul The agree ment was sealed w1th blood In the agreement Faust prom1sed that if once a slngle moment of Joy would be so sweet to h1m that he would say Do stay you are so beauuful then the dev11 could have h1s soul Me phxstopheles changed the old Faust mto a handsome young man He let h1m enjoy the most supreme pleasures but the dev1l could never satlsfy h1m he xxas alxyays strlxlng further Whoever belongs to the educated people of the xxorld must be acqualnted xxlth Goethe s Faust Almost everyone has seen the opera Faust or at least has heard the mus1c of It Here 1n Amerlca xxe are well acquamted xxlth the famous opera Faust by the French composer Guonod Schlller 15 the greatest German poet after Goethe In front of 1 theater 1n Welmir IS a fimous monument of Germinys txxo qre1test poets Goethe and Sch1ller It exalts the beautlful frlendshlp of the txxo In Goethe s hand rests Schxller s hand and encxrclmg the hands of both IS a laurel wreath The monument stands ln Wexmar xxhere Goethe and Schiller l1x ed for years and xxhere they xx rote thelr best works They wlso dled 1n We1mar The world knoxxs Goethe much better than Schiller but Schlller his lonq been the fixorlte of the people If Schlller had not dled so eirly he xxould hwxe been renoxx ned ln vxorld l1ter'1ture Ten years German Literatu re . . . . . . I - 1 - . , c , - .1 . I n s C 7 . . 1 7 . .1 . 1 . , c . K V 1 G . . ff 1 K 1 1 C 1 . 1 , . . t c . 1 . 7 1 .- 1 , , , c . c . . . V 7 . . . 1 K 7 V t . 1 Y . 1 . 7 . 1 '-' 1 1 - 1 . . . 1 L , - . c , . , . . . . . . A , . 1 . , 1 . . rl . 11 Q - U rl . . 11 .1 , 11 11 11 .1 1 1 1 . . 11 1 . .1 . . rl 11 11 11 . 1 I - . .1 11 , 1 1 1 . 1 . . ,-1 V ... . V 1 1 - . , . ' I 1 an . 11 . . I I ' ' 1 . 1 7 . 1 , . . , 1 1. 11 Y V 11 11 1 1 . . . . V 1 V. 1 .1 11 1 1 1 - . . 1 . . c . f . c , .' c . 1 . ' c ,' . 1 . 1 . . 1 1 1 1 . . . 7 - 1 . . 1 1 V 7 . 1 ' ' . 1 . 'Q c 1 rf c ' . c - e L Y 1 K - 1 1 C 1 -