Monday, March 24, 2014

Triflin'!

Broadway’s lights are bright in New York City. Susan Glaspell’s Trifles probably would not fit in beside The Lion King and Phantom of the Opera. It is a different kind of play. “Central to Glaspell's plays is a concern with fulfilling life's potential, going beyond the confines of convention, safety, and ease to new and uncharted possibilities, both social and personal” (Dymkowski). Trifles is a short play in modern contemporary English, so the language is not a daunting task. The task at hand is to figure out what pushes the play along since suspense aspect of the murder is non-existent. The available videos use music to create mood, but that is not necessary while reading the play off the page. The action does not sustain the "thrill" of murder, but it does create a moral dilemma that can be "thrilling" in a different sense. Dymkowski, Christine. "On the Edge: The Plays of Susan Glaspell." Modern Drama 31.1 (Mar. 1988): 91-105. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Marie Lazzari. Vol. 55. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.
DO NOW: Please click on Comments to give your ideas on this one-act play. Does it follow the rules of drama? What is its theme and does the playwright accomplish her goal? Compare the text to the videos of this play.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Natasha Trethewey Is One Smart Lady

Natasha Trethewey’s reading at the H. Bruce McEver Poetry Reading offers more than poetry. She puts the poems in context by offering background about the topics in the poems as well as her experiences that helped the poems come about. Her first poem about forgotten soldiers uses rhyme and short lines to convey a haunting tale.

A common theme in her work is race. She uses her poetry as political commentary. She discusses her family and miscegenation, which turns her life into poetry into political activism. She is also the current U. S. Poet Laureate.  

DO NOW: Please click on Comments and give your ideas about this poem.

Yusef Komunyakaa: More Than Simply Fun To Say

Yusef Komunyakaa uses his own history to develop his poetry. His intonation and timing at the reading for the PoetryEverywhere project create an inviting scene and a haunting tale. His poetry uses detailed imagery of war to shock and to tell the truth. "Facing It" encompasses both literal and figurative meaning, intermixing them to the point of confusion. Reality is questionable, yet very certain.

Komunyakaa is another contemporary poet. He, too, fits into other "categories" of poets. Where does he fall and why?

DO NOW: Please click on Comments and give your ideas about this poem.

Monday, March 3, 2014

So Very Beat

Dismayed with a war and the overall tone of American life, the Beats emerged as writers who went against the grain and rallied for the unpopular and marginalized people and ideas. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs became the main voices of this generation. William T. Lawlor’s “General Introduction” is a helpful overview of the time period and the ensuing movement.

Here’s how to find it: Lawlor, William T. "General Introduction." Beat Culture: Icons, Lifestyles, and Impact. Ed. William T. Lawlor. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC Clio, 2005. xiii-xviii. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 222. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.





You might also better understand some of their writing if you understand some of their references: Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats and The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.  

DO NOW: Click on comments. Compare any of the poems by McKay, Hughes, Ginsberg, or Ferlinghetti from the text, the handouts, or the video clips. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Two Female Poets, One Eerie Scene



Mental illness haunts many people.  Sylvia Plath lived a troubled life, ending in suicide. Her poem, "Metaphors," is of the Confessional sub-genre of poetry. Pieces of her troubled life come through in all her confessional poems, including this one. While it is difficult to figure out for some, its message is one of strong social commentary.

Stevie Smith's poem, "Not Waving But Drowning," is as troubled as Plath's life. The image here is terrifying. Put yourself in the poem. Become that person who cannot swim. Call out for help. Watch everyone on shore wave back at you as your lungs fill up with water. This is heavy stuff.

Charles Alitieri’s “Modernist Realism and Lowell's Confessional Style” helps define this subgenre. Here’s how to find it: Altieri, Charles. "Modernist Realism and Lowell's Confessional Style." Modernism Revisited: Transgressing Boundaries and Strategies of Renewal in American Poetry. Ed. Viorica Patea and Paul Scott Derrick. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. 207-223. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.
                                                 
DO NOW: Please click on Comments to offer ideas about tone and social commentary. Compare either or both poems to a movie, television show, book, or song.  Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Bluesmen

Everyone at some points sings the blues. Langston Hughes sang the blues. His poetry is very close to music. Even the poem "Ballad of the Landlord" indicates music. His meter is musical rhythm. His rhyme is lyrical. Even in his narrative poems, he uses a lyrical quality, which is what a ballad is. The late night television show, Late Night At The Apollo, was an homage to The Harlem Renaissance (whether on purpose or not). Harlem was the place to be for writers, singers, artists, and dancers. Despite racism and segregation, Harlem rose in spirit and artistry. The Apollo was the epicenter. Through all art forms, the oppressed found a voice and let it be heard. And now for some tunes:
 
Sometimes instead of singing, or writing poetry that is like singing, poets wrote poems in form to express more than blues, but also bitterness. Claude McKay was also part of this movement in Harlem. He separated himself from some of the writers of the time through his socializing as well as his artistry.  
DO NOW: Please click on Comments and offer ideas about the art of the Harlem Renaissance--writing, singing, dancing, painting--making sure you include something about our two poets. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

All Kinds Of Love


A lot of poetry deals with race and gender, not necessarily in that order. The video of Lucille Clifton reading at Dodge should help develop a sense of voice for her poems. She looks and sounds like a poet. Not that a poet looks and sounds like anything or anyone in particular, but she exudes poetry. She commands her audience to listen with the strength of her lyric.


Present in most of her work are issues dealing with the human body compounded with the aforementioned topics.  Mark Bernard White believes, “Clifton often rhapsodizes about her body” (White).  Her body becomes symbolic of other bodies.

Relationships in any form present conflict.  The William Carlos Williams poem, “This Is Just To Say,” is a simple, short verse.  Simple, short poems usually carry much weight.  Here, a plum is not just a plum.  An ice box is not just an ice box.  Janice Michaelson avers, “the situation is more complex than first meets the eye” (Michaelson). While Clifton focuses on women’s issues, Williams takes that a step further to focus on women and men.

These are plums. Or ARE they?????


Michaelson, Janice. "Another meaning of plums in Williams's This Is Just to Say." The Explicator 66.2 (2008): 95+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.
White, Mark Bernard. "Sharing the Living Light: Rhetorical, Poetic, and Social Identity in Lucille Clifton." CLA Journal 40.3 (Mar. 1997): 288-304. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 162. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.
DO NOW:
Please click on Comments and give your ideas on these poems.  Compare and contrast their speakers, tones, structure, and conceits. What does each say about love? Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Friday, January 31, 2014

Towards Perfection



Magical realism is the grown-up version of fairy tales. Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" creates worlds that parallel the human universe, but in those worlds lurk oddities of the human experience that become magnified. The abnormal becomes the typical, and her characters accept that. In that acceptance lies the need for questioning: what is truth? what is reality? what is fiction? what is right? what is moral? what is humanity? The answers to these questions are not easy. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" posits difficult situations that completely skew largely accepted rules of society. The fictional society comments on true-life societies. Subtle changes in tone and dark secrets lurking in cellars,  Omelas is an entire world to explore. Utopia is not utopia; things are not as they seem; what is happiness worth? All these ideas appear in this tale, and they scream out about the human condition. 

To figure out if it is a true fairy tale, Lillian Smith’s “The Art of the Fairy Tale” could be helpful. Here’s how to find it: Smith, Lillian H. "The Art of the Fairy Tale." The Unreluctant Years: A Critical Approach to Children's Literature. Chicago, Ill.: American Library Association, 1953. 45-63. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 106. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.

DO NOW:
Please click on Comments to give your ideas on this story.  What is the price of happiness?  Should it cost another person’s life?  Think about the greatest balance of happiness (John Stuart Mill’s Theory of Utility).  Also, think about the tone of this story; it may not be as simple as it seems.  Compare this story to a movie, book, television show, or song.  Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Cisneros: A Cultural Experience



Genres in literature often blur and blend together. Sandra Cisneros's "The House On Mango Street" is a work of fiction; however, the story seems as if it could be autobiographical. The author uses her ethnic background to enhance the reality of her tale.  “Autoethnography” is a literary genre that could very well suit this work, which is part of a larger collection of stories.  Breaking down the term will reveal its meaning.  Breaking down the story will reveal how it fits into this particular genre.

Cisneros uses her poetic skills in her stories of Mango Street and plays with narration style to convey not only a cultural experience, but also a universal human experience.  Gender, class, and ethnicity arise as points of speculation and social commentary in this very short work.  Age is also a key factor.

DO NOW:
Please click on Comments to offer your ideas on this story.  Give your own definition of what “autoethnography” means; don’t look it up, but instead figure it out on your own and state how it applies here.  If you've read other parts of this tale before, feel free to incorporate those ideas or any other connections you can make. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

A Girl Thing?



No two mother-daughter relationships are the same.  The dynamic between the two women changes as the girl grows up and the mother grows older. Jamaica Kincaid's story, "Girl," is unique in its tone and narration as it introduces one of these relationships. The girl in the title may refer to a girl in the story, or it may also be a general label, commenting on the universal idea of being a girl. Two female voices appear in the short passage, but they may not come from two people. Confusing at times, this piece of literature comments on culture, society, and gender. 

The relationship emerges in this piece not from a traditional idea of “story” but from a framework of sentence structure, punctuation, and cadence.  Diane Simmons believes that “Girl” is “a kind of primer in the manipulative art of rhythm and repetition” (Simmons). These rhetorical devices push the narrative forward.  By the end, character traits are clear as is the dynamic of this particular relationship.


Simmons, Diane. "The Rhythm of Reality in the Works of Jamaica Kincaid." World Literature Today 68.3 (Summer 1994): 466-472. Rpt. in Literature of Developing Nations for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Literature of Developing Nations. Ed. Elizabeth Bellalouna, Michael L. LaBlanc, and Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.

DO NOW:
Please click on Comments and give your ideas on this story’s theme and possible social commentary. Discuss the narration style, and make connections to pop culture. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

The Appointment In Samarra: A Freaky Tale



 












Aesop's Fables are the more popular didactic stories in the American course of literature (didactic means "teacher-like"--this definition is a freebie, so have a dictionary on hand for future words). Those stories personify animals to teach lessons to humans. They are part of an older tradition of oral storytelling that many cultures used to teach their youth and remind their elders of how to live a good life. Somerset Maugham's tale is not a fable as it does not use animals, but it still tells a tale to teach a lesson. Maugham's version of "The Appointment In Samarra" is very eerie. The first point of eerie tone is the opening, "Death speaks" (45). Death as a speaking, breathing, moving entity is scary.

Though short, this story has enough insight into the facts of life that cause chills. When Death tells the merchant that she had planned to meet the servant later on in a place the servant is running to, Maugham offers his moral. Perhaps more than one moral exists.

Maugham, W. Somerset. "The Appointment In Samarra." Literature: An Introduction. 5th Ed. Ed. X. J. Kennedy. NY: Longman, 2008. 45. Print.
DO NOW:
Please click on Comments to categorize this story.  Is it a fable, an allegory, or a parable?  (One paragraph is good; more than one is better).  You may also refer to any outside sources you may have come across.  Remember, cite properly and sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Welcome Wagon

Hello, literature lovers / composers. Yes, if you are in ENG 102, you are (or eventually will be) a lover of literature as well as a composer of writings about literature. If you don't love literature and writing yet, you will by the end of the semester. Even if by the end of the semester you still do not love it, and maybe you won't even like it, simply pretend that you do. Humor me.

The writing here is a little less formal than the papers and paragraphs you have to type up and hand in. You should make sure you have read the assigned work actively (take notes or write on the story, poem, or play) before you come here.  Follow the DO NOW directions whenever you read a post. When you leave comments, be specific by referring to the literature with proper citation.  If a post includes an outside source, you should take a look at the source on your own before leaving a comment.  Remember, even though the blog is less formal, you still need to use proper Standard English.

Until the next assignment, happy reading!  

DO NOW: Please click on Comments. State what you expect to do and hope to accomplish in this class. Sign your comment with your first name and last initial (do NOT use your last name). If you have any problems posting comments, check the All About Blogs folder in Course Materials on Blackboard. There you will find a lot of tips about troubleshooting.