Dead Poets Society-trailer

Western canon
A body of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been traditionally accepted by Western scholars as the most important and influential in shaping Western culture.

carpe diem
A Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day"

Dead Poets Society
A 1989 American drama film written by Tom Schulman, directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams. Set at the conservative and aristocratic Welton Academy in the northeast United States in 1959,[3] it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry.

Earthsea
A series by Ursula K. Le Guin, starting with her short story "The Word of Unbinding," published in 1964.

Ursula K. Le Guin
An American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction.


Parable
A succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles.

Fable
A literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.

Allegory
An allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. Allegory has been used widely throughout the histories of all forms of art, largely because it readily illustrates complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible to its viewers, readers, or listeners.

Fantasy
A genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common.



The Faerie Queene
An incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596.

Doubting Thomas
A skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Apostle Thomas, who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross.

Utopia
A community or society possessing highly desirable or near perfect qualities. The word was coined by Sir Thomas More in Greek for his 1516 book Utopia (in Latin), describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean.

Charon
The ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person.

Lady Godiva
An 11th-century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to a legend dating back at least to the 13th century, rode naked – only covered in her long hair – through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants.

Chalice
A goblet or footed cup intended to hold a drink. In general religious terms, it is intended for drinking during a ceremony.


ob,op- negative force
e.g.:
opponent
obstacle