In class Wednesday we modeled how you should be reading outside of class. I asked that you track observations about themes and form while doing your reading outside of class.
Themes, unlike summaries, are the main ideas in a literary text. Because literature is art, these ideas are usually more ethereal (feelings, experiences, living in general) than real (objects like fishing, Native Americans, the 1950's). Usually themes can be expressed in one or two words (jealousy, memory etc.)
Thought they are different from themes, it's also useful to track recurring symbols or images that seem to carry a lot of weight in the story. Again, it's not that important to know what they mean. We can figure that out in class.
Form is a little bit trickier. We started the class with a sustained look at various kinds of form in poetry. The Vendler textbook gave us all kinds of formal elements to look for as well as what they mean. For Hamlet, we stressed the feature of metatheatricality or the parts of the play where play reveals itself as a play. In most literature, there are similar instances where the text gives clues about how it is written or is meant to be read or instances where you are aware that the literary text is a work of art and not real life. These are good places to note while you are reading--even if you are not sure what they mean at the time.
We also talked about the features of a prototypical narrative and how these tend to move forward through time in a straight line, each action happens in a separate place, in the middle there is some kind of climax. Another good reading practice is to think about the ways the literary work you are reading differs from a prototypical narrative. We talked about the idea of weaving a story in Silko's "Lullaby".
Finally, we have talked about the prototypical features of different genres. We went over typical features of a short story, and we will do the same thing when we get to novels and creative non-fiction. Your Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms& Literary Theory is a good place to find out prototypical features of different genres. It's good to note how the text you're reading follows these features and also how it deviates from the norm.
My hope is that if you do this kind of work out of class, in class we can concentrate on delving deeper into how formal qualities work with the themes to make very sophisticated meanings. It's good while reading to highlight passages where you see a lot going on with various themes and/or formal qualities. Often times these are passages that seem to use a lot of different symbols.
Maybe tracking all of this seems like a lot of work right now, but with practice it becomes second nature. It's also extremely important to be able to do this well as an English major.
So, now for the blog for March 12. I'd like you to go back to The Big Two-Hearted River and track some themes and symbols. Then make at least one observation about where the concept of the iceberg theory is illustrated in the form of the story. Make sure you have a specific example from the story to illustrate your observation. End with a couple of sentences in which you think about the form and themes to come up with a more complex interpretation of the story. This doesn't have to be a fully thought out observation, it could even be some specific questions that could lead to a discussion.
OK, have a great Spring Break!
No comments:
Post a Comment