Norton TOCs
Here are the tables of contents for the Norton anthologies of British and American Literature. Be sure to print them out and bring them to our first class meeting of the new semester. (It wouldn't hurt to read through them first either.)
Here are the tables of contents for the Norton anthologies of British and American Literature. Be sure to print them out and bring them to our first class meeting of the new semester. (It wouldn't hurt to read through them first either.)
During the first week of class, you will sign up to create study guides for two of the following topics. You must sign up for two topics. You'll post the guides on the blogs on the dates indicated on the spring syllabus.
Instructions
The guides should contain the following:
• A 1 – 2 page summary of the major themes, issues, and questions associated with
the period, author, or genre
• A list of significant works that are likely to show up on the exam
• A bibliography of materials (print and online) you consulted in order to prepare
your guide (in MLA style)
The challenge in creating these guides will be boiling down a vast amount of material and ideas into a one-page guide that will be helpful to others as they study for the exam. I will be evaluating the guides on the following criteria:
• Accuracy: Is the information in the guide relevant and gleaned from trustworthy
sources?
• Efficiency: Does the guide strike a productive balance between thoroughness and
concision?
• Readability: Is the writing clear and digestible?
• Insight: How well does the guide sum up the themes, forms, questions, and ideas
that characterize a given period, genre, or author?
You may want to choose topics because you’re already familiar with them, or because you want or need to learn more. (One of each isn’t a bad idea.)
See below for a list of the literary periods, genres, and authors you'll be choosing from when you sign up to create your two guides. See the next entry for tables of contents for the Norton anthologies of British and American literature.
James Richardson published this poem in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago. It's relevant for us in so many ways: it's by Richardson, author of "The Dream of Reading"; it begins with an allusion to A Midsummer Night's Dream (and continues with allusions to several other Shakespeare plays); it's an ideal poem for launching a discussion of contemporary poetry in relation to the poetic tradition (a very good idea in preparation for the exam); and finally, it's about life in New York.
In Shakespeare
In Shakespeare a lover turns into an ass
as you would expect. People confuse
their consciences with ghosts and witches.
Old men throw everything away
because they panic and can't feel their lives.
They pinch themselves, pierce themselves with twigs,
cliffs, lightning, and die--yes, finally--in glad pain.
You marry a woman you've never talked to,
a woman you thought was a boy.
Sixteen years go by as a curtain billows
once, twice. Your children are lost,
they come back, you don't remember how.
A love turns to a statue in a dress, the statue
comes back to life. Oh God, it's all so realistic
I can't stand it. Whereat I weep and sing.
Such a relief, to burst from the theatre
into our cool, imaginary streets
where we know who's who and what's what,
and command with Metrocards our destinations.
Where no one with a story struggling in him
convulses as it eats its way out,
and no one in an antiseptic corridor,
or in deserts or in downtown darkling plains,
staggers through an Act that just will not end,
eyes burning with the burning of the dead.
The poem is in the February 12, 2007 issue of The New Yorker, p. 65. On a first read, the poem seems to be a complaint about Shakespeare: it's too long, too painful, too tedious, too fantastic, too much of too many things. But I think it's a tribute (one with mixed feelings). Notice how so many of the scenarios Richardson describes seem to work according to the logics (or formal attributes) of dreams: a lover turning into an ass is condensation; ghosts and witches representing a conscience is displacement; marrying a woman you've never talked to is a typically piece of nonsense loaded with meaning; memory is elusive; people turn into statues, and back again.
From what we know about Richardson, I think it's fair to suggest he's ironic in his "critique" of Shakepeare, implying that all these fantastical, dreamlike details are all too characteristic of what it feels like to be alive, even if they're at odds with reason. Maybe he's suggesting that we're all staggering "through an Act that just will not end." I could go on, but I'll leave that to some of you.
Read on for a series of questions about the poem that may be helpful in thinking through both the ID section and poetry section of the exam. It would be great if you could pursue some of them in the comments section. We'll use some of your comments as a basis to discuss strategies for the poetry section of the exam when we meet in class next time.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Lydgate in the Honors Exam category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
Honors Essays is the previous category.
Web Project is the next category.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.