Week 1

Oct. 28

1  Introduction: Challenging the Imagination

Reading

• Sylvia Plath, The Bed Book (1959)

• E. E. Cummings, "l(a"

  • J. E. Terblanche, "Cummings' 'l(a': Solitude, Solidarity, Wholeness" (2002)

  • Billy Collins, "Is That a Poem?" (2005)

• Shel Silverstein, Runny Babbit (2002; excerpts)

• William Carlos Williams, "This Is Just to Say" (1962)

• Erica-Lynn Gambino, "This Is Just to Say" (1997)

• Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" (1883)

  • Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" (1883)

  • Ken Burns, American Stories: The Statue of Liberty

  • Colossus of Rhodes

Quiet Time: Writing

Think about what reading is when you read a poem in this unit.  In a paragraph or two, show how that poem has urged you to read in a certain way.

• Sample student response on Plath

• Sample student response on Williams

2  Playing with Form: How to Tell a Story?

Reading

• Jomo Kenyatta, "The Gentlemen of the Jungle" (Study Guide)

  • Jomo Kenyatta (biography)

  • Allegory (see also Virtual Salt)

  • "Kenya: Ethnicity, Tribe, and State" by John Lonsdale (2008)

• Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl" (study guide)

  • Stephanie Vaughn, "Introduction to Kincaid's 'Girl'" (1994)

• Ursula K. Le Guin, "What Makes a Story" (2007)

Quiet Time: Writing

Plot, unlike story which is events organized chronologically, is order of events arranged by the author.  Choose one work and consider the significance of the author's sequence in presenting events.  How does it affect of the story being told?  Is the effect comic? tragic? surprising? Does the result reinforce storytelling conventions or break them?

3  Playing with Form: What's a Good Story?

Reading

• Sherman Alexie, "A Good Story" (1993)

  • Sherman Alexie, "Introduction," The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (2005)

  • Howard Zinn, "Surprises" (1984; excerpt)

  • Plot

• Ursula K. Le Guin, "A Discussion of Story" (2001)

4  Playing with Form: Where Does It Happen? Why?

Reading

• Jane Martin, Beauty (2000)

• Harold Pinter, Apart from That (1:10 min.)

• Aristotle, Poetics excerpt

5  Translating the World

Reading

• Rattawut Lapcharoensap, "Priscilla the Cambodian" (study guide)

  • Guardian: Rattawut Lapcharoensap, in conversation (mp3; 13 min.)

  • Interview with Rattawut Lapcharoensap

  • Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (review by Elizabeth Wadell)

  • The Thais that bind

  • "Give Refugees a Hand" (0:31 min.; see also Angelina Jolie's video response 0:33 min.)

  • UNHCR 2006 Leaflet (pdf file)

  • CNN: World Refugee Day

Quiet Time: Writing

What are the challenges of translating the world into verbal form?  Focus on at least one text we're reading for this week and examine what (in the world) the author is translating and how he manages to do it.

6  Translating the World

Reading

• Alexander McCall Smith, "The Girl with Three Lives" (excerpt)

  • Q&A: Alexander McCall Smith (interview)

  • Alexander McCall Smith (official site)

  • About the Author

• Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (excerpt)

  • "Modern India Was Built On a Drug"

  • Amitav Ghosh (official site)

• Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner, "Need" (study guide [Chayapim, Jitpisuth])

  • Flying Words Project (official site)

  • ASL Poetry Support Page

Reading response 1 due

7  Translating Experience: Pain, Sorrow

Reading

• Langston Hughes, "Harlem" (study guide [Chanikarn, Chanokphat])

  • Langston Hughes (1902–1967)

    • Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926)

    • On "Harlem"

  • Langston Hughes Set Poetry to a Jazz Beat

• "Edward" (study guide)

  • Lionel Trilling, "Commentary"

• Philip Larkin, "The Trees" (listen to Larkin reading the poem) (study guide)

  • Philip Larkin

  • Philip Larkin

8  Translating Experience: Hope

Reading

• Claude McKay, "If We Must Die" (1919; see Study Guide)

  • McKay on "If We Must Die"

• Angel Island Poetry

  • Angel Island: Breaking the Silence

  • The Poetry of Angel Island (with audio clip of poems)

  • Angel Island Poetry

    • About Angel Island

    • "Angel Island: 'Guardian of the Western Gate'" by Valerie Natale

  • Newly-Restored Angel Island Immigration Station Re-Opening Today

  • How Poetry Saved a Building: The Re-Opening of Angel Island Immigration Station

  • A visit to Angel Island April 4, 2009 (links to photo report)

• Stevie Smith, "Not Waving but Drowning" (with audio of Smith reading)

Quiet Time: Writing

Read Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" carefully and then write an essay in which you discuss how the poet's choice of point of view conveys the irony of the action(s) of "I."

9  Translating Experience: Memory

Reading

• Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" (with audio of Frost reading)

  • On "The Road Not Taken" (critical excerpts on the poem)

• William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

  • Dorothy Wordsworth, "April 15, 1802," Journals

  • "Wordsworth's Daffodils Under a Cloud" by Nigel Bunyan

• Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"

  • Ezra Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir (excerpt)

• Aimee Bender, "The Rememberer"

  • Aimee Bender (listen to Bender read "The Rememberer"; 7:52 min.)

  • Aimee Bender's Website (reading, interviews, biography, and more)

Quiet Time: Writing

After carefully reading Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," write a well-organized essay in which you show how memory is treated differently in this and in another work we have read.

10  Translating Experience: Love

Reading

• William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II scene ii (balcony scene; c. 1591) (study guide)

  • Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, "The Texts of Shakespeare," The Complete Works (p. l)

  • Study Guide for Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (1591?)

  • Romeo (Merriam-Webster)

  • Act I scene v (first exchange between Romeo and Juliet)

  • Study Guide for Ovid: The Art of Love

  • Romeo and Juliet (1968; 137 min.; video at Arts library: Arts AV VC 1060 Eng)

  • Romeo and Juliet (1996; 120 min.; DVD at Arts library: Arts AV DVD 097 Eng)

• Carol Ann Duffy, "Valentine" (study guide [Kantawat, Korapim]) 

  • Carol Ann Duffy

  • Carol Ann Duffy (with audio clip of Duffy reading several poems)

  • Valentine (background, summary, themes, tones, imagery, sound effects)

• Gertrude Stein, "Sacred Emily" (excerpt) 

• Sharon Olds, "The Promise" (study guide [Kemika, Kamolsan])

• William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily" (1930; optional)

  • William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

Quiet Time: Writing

What is love and how do we show/know it? Notice how each of these texts express dissatisfaction with the rose as a symbol of love. Choose a phrase or line from one of the texts and discuss what the poet enables or disables in the "rose." What does this enabling or disabling allow the poet to say about love?

11  Translating Place: Physical Locales

Reading

• Chris Offut, "Sawdust" (study guide)

• William Blake, "London" (1792) (study guide)

  • William Blake, "London" (introduction by Alicia Ostriker; audio clips of three readings of the poem)

  • Simon Korner, "William Blake's London" (2008)

  • Booth Poverty Map 1898–1899

  • William Blake Online

• Native American Songs (study guide)

  • Native American Oral Tales and Song

    • Introduction to Native American Oral Poetry by K. L. Nichols

  • Cherokee Morning Song (lyrics, audio)

  • Native American Songs and Chants

• Maxine Hong Kingston, "A Sea Worry,"  Hawai'i (study guide)

12  Translating Place: Perceptual Environments

Reading

• W. B. Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (with audio of Yeats reading) (study guide)

• Valerie Bloom, "Two Seasons" (with audio of Bloom reading)

13  Numbers

Reading

• A. E. Housman, "Eight O'Clock" (1922)

• Caryl Churchill, A Number excerpt

• Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour" (1894)

14  Hair

Reading

• Sandra Cisneros, "Hairs" (1984)

• Alexander Pope, Rape of the Lock, Canto III excerpt

15  Words

Reading

• Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" (1818)

• John Betjeman, "In Westminster Abbey" (pdf file with poem notes)

• William Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day") (1609)

16  Legacy

Reading

• Carol Ann Duffy, "Anne Hathaway" (study guide)

  • Shakespeare's Will

  • Shakespeare's Last Will & Testament (transcription)

  • Sonnet

  • Rhyme

• U. A. Fanthorpe, "Not My Best Side"

  • Paolo Uccello, "St. George and the Dragon"

  • An Interview with U. A. Fanthorpe

  • U. A. Fanthorpe, "Foreword," Collected Poems 1978–2003 (scroll down toward the bottom of the page)

(Midterm week: December 21–25, 2009)

Midterm (10:30–12:30 in class BRK 309)

• Reading Strategies

  • Reading Strategies and LIE

  • S.O.A.P.S. Document Analysis

  • PDIDLS

  • Tone and Detailed Explanation of DIDLS

• Essay Exam Tips

  • Writing Exam Essays

  • Pointers for Taking Essay Tests

  • Writing Essay Exams (pdf file)

  • Essay Exam Preparation (pdf file)

• Review literary terms

• Sample Midterm Questions and Responses

  • Sample Midterm & Answers (the gothic experience)

  • Example of Strong Responses (Romantic literature)

  • Sample Midterm Questions (pdf file)

  • Sample Midterm Essay Response

No class (midterm week: December 21–25, 2009)

Case Study (Poetry): "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"

Reading

• W. B. Yeats, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (1819)

• Helen Vendler, "Lyric Form in Yeats's Poetry" (pdf file; pp. 1–10)

Final paper topic presentations

No class (New Year's Day)

Case Study (Poetry): "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"

Reading

• W. B. Yeats, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (1819)

• W. B. Yeats, "Introduction" for the Scribner edition (pp. 404–11)

Final paper topic presentations

Case Study (Poetry): "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"

Reading

• W. B. Yeats, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (1819)

• W. B. Yeats, "Introduction" for the Scribner edition (pp. 412–15)

Case Study (Drama): M. Butterfly

Reading

• David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (1986) beginning to page 47 (beginning–act 2 scene 3)

Case Study (Drama): M. Butterfly

Reading

• David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (1986) pp. 47–63 (act 2 scene 4–act 2 scene 7)

  • Doing the Butterfly the Asian American Way (review of 2004 production directed by Chey Yew)

Case Study (Drama): M. Butterfly

Reading

• David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (1986) pp. 64–93 (act 2 scene 8–end)

• David Henry Hwang, "Afterword" pp. 94–100

No class (Intervarsity Games: January 22–30, 2010)

No class (Intervarsity Games: January 22–30, 2010)

No class (Intervarsity Games: January 22–30, 2010)

Case Study (Novel): Of Mice and Men

Reading

• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) pp. 1–37 (study guide)

  • Of Mice and Men: The Student Survival Guide (vocabulary, allusions, idioms)

  • American Cultural History 1930–1939

  • The Great Depression

    • The Great Depression

    • The Depression in the United States--An Overview

  • Robert Burns, "To a Mouse" (1785)

    • "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns (with video of Richard Wilson reading the poem)

    • George Wilkie, "To a Mouse," Understanding Robert Burns

    • Geo. W. T. McGown, "To a Mouse," A Primer of Burns (1907)

Case Study (Novel): Of Mice and Men

Reading

• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) pp. 38–48 (study guide)

  • Susan Shillinglaw, "Introduction" (pp. vii–xxv)

Case Study (Novel): Of Mice and Men

Reading

• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) pp. 49–83 (study guide)

  • Anne Loftis, "A Historical Introduction to Of Mice and Men" (pp. 39–47)

Case Study (Novel): Of Mice and Men

Reading

• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) pp. 84–98 (study guide)

  • America in the 1930s (in print, timeline)

Final paper due

• 4–6 pages

• MLA format

• Some writing guidelines:

  • "Some Matters of Form" by Yale University (writing guidelines; pdf file)

  • Writing Prose (handbook on college writing, Yale University; pdf file)

  • Sources and Citation at Dartmouth College (pdf file)

  • Writing about Literature

  • Writing Papers for English and Literature: A Word of Advice (also A Few Things to Remember)

  • The Craft of a Literature Paper

  • Writing a Literature Paper: Guidelines, Suggestions, Strategies

  • What Makes a Good Literature Paper?

  • Guide to Essay Writing (helpful reference, where to start, evidence, argument, what is a good essay)

  • Writing about Literature (elements of the essay, the writing process, the research essay, documentation)

  • Developing an Outline (pdf file)

  • How to Write an Outline

• Some sample papers:

  • "To Know Well" by Jane Smith (on Shakespeare's sonnet 129: "Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame"; Word file)

  • "The Value of Restraint" by Amy Skerry (on Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedral"; Word file)

Case Study (Novel): Of Mice and Men

Reading

• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) pp. 99–107 (study guide)

• America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935–1945

Review

Final Exam (8:30–11:30 a.m.) Dictionaries (electronic or paper) are not allowed in the exam room.

BRK ?

• Preparation

  • Writing Exam Essays

  • Pointers for Taking Essay Tests

  • Writing Essay Exams (pdf file)

  • Essay Exam Preparation (pdf file)

• Sample Responses

  • Sample Poetry Question on Kvlividze's poem "In the Metro" (with sample responses)

  • Example of an 'A' Response to an Exam on Wordsworth's "The world is too much with us"

  • Sample Exam Answer

• Reading Strategies

  • TP-CASTT (brief), Poetry Analysis: TP-CASTT (more detailed)

  • Tone and Detailed Explanation of DIDLS

  • S.O.A.P.S. Document Analysis

  • Reading Strategies and LIE

  • PDIDLS

• Review literary terms