last updated 5/8/16
FINAL EXAM:
To be posted in the "Literature Final Exam" Canvas discussion.
Final Exam penalties -10 for each day late up to 5-11; After that F in course or if does not meet basic requirements or is not college-level English.
First come first choice: you can not choose the same selections from the works [short] or sections of works [novels] of those who post before you, nor can you repeat their analyses. However, you can incorporate parts of your blog posts. Citations are required but can be minimal and informal as in ("my blog"); ("Siddhartha, ch. 2)" etc.
This assignment is designed to display your ability to critically analyze and interpret works of world literature* and their impact on human life and society. To that end you must
[1] demonstrate content knowledge of three or more works of world literature*;
[2]demonstrate awareness and appreciation of at least three different genres** and styles*** in world literature*;
[3] describe how various works of world literature* express individual or shared human [ethical] values within historical and social contexts.
*Only 1/3 can be American Literature unless the American work refers to other cultures as well
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SUPPLY WORD COUNT AT END OF ESSAY: MUST BE 1200 words NOT COUNTING QUOTES
DETAILED SOURCES FOR QUOTES NOT REQUIRED
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LISTS OF WHAT WE HAVE READ:
PDFS OF COURSE ANTHOLOGIES (takes time to load but can then be downloaded)
https://www.la.utexas.edu/users/bump/603B16/Bump%20603A15.pdf
https://www.la.utexas.edu/users/bump/603B16/603B16.pdf
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recommended example: see the first post, by Jaguar
recommended method:
[1]CHOOSE THREE LITERARY* WORKS you are most passionate about and/or those which best fit the theme or issue you are most passionate about
[see your P3 and P4 and/or survey your blog posts ]
LITERARY as used here does include the Dartmouth autobiographies, I am a Bacha Posh, Fun Home, and We Are All
Completely Beside Ourselves, but does NOT apply to all the informational prose that we read about emotive ethics,
empathy, compassion, leadership, power animals, carnism, sustainability, sadism, racism, sexism, etc. Nor does
it include How Can I Help? or Earthlings.
[2] for EACH OF THE THREE WORKS IDENTIFY THE
[a] GENRE,
[b] STYLE,
c]DATE and PLACE of publication,
[4] HISTORICAL/SOCIAL CONTEXT OF that tiime period
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example: theme: attitudes toward animals pp. 436-446 in 603A anthology. compare and contrast.
Cattle in the Odyssey : Greek; eighth century BC; epic poem, moral narrative about divine command vs. temptation, cattle sacred to the gods, divine command disobeyed, the sailors punished.
The Sacred Calf in the Bible: Hebrew Book of Exodus; 1446 BC; ; biblical story, moral narrative about divine command vs. temptation; historical/social context: monotheism vs. older totemic religions, command of the one god vs. pagan gods disobeyed, punishment of the sinners
Hemingway on bullfighting: Death in the Afternoon, 1932 American English, but focused on Spanish historical and social context, autobiogaphical first-person nonfictional prose, style= Hemingway's seemingly plain, honest, concise prose; non-religious? pagan? ritual of torture and defeat of an animal to demonstrate superiority of man; originating in the distant past but continuing to this day; vs. Judeo-Christian and Islamic bans on torturing animals for amusement
end with unifying conclusion about our attitudes toward animals then and now
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Examples of some possible genre (G) and style (S) identifications:
David Foster Wallace, "Commencement Address": G: formal oratory; S: passionate rhetorical prose
The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman: G nonfictional prose; S greatest example of lofty academic-philosophical prose in the English language
Gawain and the Green Knight G: epic poem; S: medieval alliterative style
Black Elk Speaks: G: autobiography; S: prose often breaking out into dream vision style
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse: G: novel; German, translated in a style evocative of the times of Buddha
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: G: novel; S: densely poetic style
Rumi's poetry: G: lyric poem; S: Persian, translated as blank verse
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Example of a Possible Unifying Theme:
Why do you suppose the authors of the Texas Constitution of 1876 included the provision about founding a university of the first class for, among other things, the promotion of literature? How did reading, studying, discussing, and/or writing about literature in 1876 help Texans become better citiizens? Some clues: The literary context of that time was based on what is known as the "moral aesthetic," especially literature as calisthenics of the sympathetic imagination...............
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**genre A French term for a kind, type or class of literature. Generic classifications are organized in all manner of ways, and may coalesce around an aspect or aspects of a literary work's form, mode (qq.v.) or content
Yet,confusingly, form, mode and content are usually understood to be distinct from genre. Systems for categorizing genre have developed over time and generic categories have proliferated. Plato held that there were only three genres: lyric, epic and drama (qq.v.), which broadly correspond to the modern categories poetry, fiction and drama. Aristotle extended this classification to distinguish epic, tragedy and comedy (qq.v.). Some consider satire and pastoral (qq.v.), which both developed as traditions in the Classical period, to be genres in their own right. From the Renaissance until well on into the 18th c. genres were carefully distinguished, and writers were expected to follow the rules prescribed for them. Subsequently, the genres of novel and short story emerged, as well as a number of non-fiction genres, notably autobiography, biography and the essay. See also convention; genre theory. genre theory A field of study whose origins may be traced back to early Greek attempts to categorize literature as exemplified by Aristotle in his Poetics. Subsequent theorists and commentators have variously questioned and complicated the traditional sense of genres as distinct and self-defined literary types. One complication is that broad genres easily collapse under the weight of scrutiny into myriad subgenres, as Polonius unwittingly notes in relation to the drama: 'tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral' (Hamlet II, ii, 334–5). As this litany suggests, any attempt to organize artistic expression in this way tends to draw attention to the porous nature of generic boundaries. A renewed attempt to fix these boundaries was made by the critic Northrop Frye in his influential The Anatomy of Criticism (1957) which set out to recategorize imaginative writings via the identification of recurrent myths and archetypes. The question of genre is also pivotal to deconstructionist (q.v.) thinking as articulated by Derrida's contention in 'The Law of Genre' (1980) that literary texts may not be said to 'belong' to any particular genre but rather to 'participate' in several genres. One result of this train of thinking has been an increased sensitivity to the role of social and ideological context in the construction of genre, since generic identities may be seen to rely upon numerous collections of conventions and formal considerations which, although unstable, depend on mutually agreed expectations. In this sense, questions of genre theory relate to wider debates concerning the role and position of the reader (or communities of readers) in making meaning. No longer confined to literary scholarship, fundamental questions of genre theory have come to inform film, television and media studies (q.v.) generally. See also convention; genre; interpretive communities.
Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Cuddon, J. A.; Birchwood, Matthew; Habib, M. A. R.; Dines, Martin 5th ed. Chichester: Wiley, 2013.
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***
Style: The characteristic manner of expression in prose or verse; how a particular writer says things. The analysis and assessment of style involves examination of a writer's choice of words, his figures of speech, the devices (rhetorical and otherwise), the shape of his sentences (whether they be loose or periodic), the shape of his paragraphs – indeed, of every conceivable aspect of his language and the way in which he uses it.
Style defies complete analysis or definition ... because it is the tone and 'voice' of the writer himself; as peculiar to him as his laugh, his walk, his handwriting and the expressions on his face. The style, as Buffon put it, is the man. However, styles have been roughly classified and these crude categories are sometimes helpful:
(a) according to period: Metaphysical, Augustan, Georgian, etc.;
(b) according to individual authors: Chaucerian, Miltonic, Gibbonian, Jamesian, etc.;
(c) according to level: grand, middle, low and plain; and
(d) according to language: scientific, expository, poetic, emotive, referential, journalistic, etc.
See also decorum; propriety. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Cuddon, J. A.; Birchwood, Matthew; Habib, M. A. R.; Dines, Martin 5th ed. Chichester: Wiley, 2013.
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O.E.D.: "style":
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a.The manner of expression characteristic of a particular writer (hence of an orator), or of a literary group or period; a writer's mode of expression considered in regard to clearness, effectiveness, beauty, and the like.c1330 R. Mannyng Chron. Wace (Petyt MS.) (Rolls) 16705 Pers of Langtoft..On frankis stile þis storie wrote.
1509 H. Watson in tr. S. Brant Shyppe of Fooles (de Worde) Argt. sig. A*.i, In facyle sentence and famylyer style.
1719–20 Swift Let. to Young Gentleman (1721) 6 Proper Words in proper Places, makes the true Definition of a Style.
a1817 T. Dwight Trav. New-Eng. (1821) I. 510 The Boston Style is a phrase, proverbially used..to denote a florid, pompous manner of writing.
1870 J. Ruskin Lect. Art iii. 68 No man is worth reading to form your style, who does not mean what he says.
1889 A. C. Swinburne Study of Jonson 174 The incomparable style of Mr. Ruskin. Oxford English Dictionary
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