Literature Prep, Genres, Etc

Key Concepts from Worldview in Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels has been a part of the English literature canon for centuries and the tales Lemuel Gulliver describes in his travel writing have fascinated people of all ages.  Literature has a unique ability to influence the reader’s worldview through the texts’ subtle inculcation of particular philosophies.  Identifying the philosophy set forth in a particular work allows the reader to be more aware of and thus on guard against a thoughtless assimilation of beliefs and values which abrogate their own.  What worldview is embedded in the storyline and characters in Gulliver’s Travels? How does Swift present the important worldview concepts of reason, nature, truth, beauty, change, language, science, and learning?  And finally, which of these descriptions are meant satirically, and thus intended to invoke their opposites, and which are genuinely meant?  Engaging the author’s presuppositions through questioning and examination encourages a strengthening of the individual’s understanding of the book and their own worldview.

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That was the proposal that was accepted.  The bolded section was my original list of points.  I changed that and worked on truth, nature of man, change and progress, perception and reality, beauty, and science.

There was a lot of work to do, but I love to read and write, so that wasn’t bad.  The hardest part was getting the work down to 5000 words.  I think I ended up with 5021, but at one time it was 7400.  I hate to cut, too.  That’s hard.

I do think that the paper was well-written.  I think it was appropriate for a high school/college audience and that it is a reasonable academic paper as well.  Keeping that in balance was difficult and in my last reading, I had to take out some references to the intended audience.

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If you think this would be something you would enjoy doing, see the <A HREF=”http://www.teachingcollegeenglish.com/2008/12/31/call-for-papers/”>last post on the CFP for articles</a> for Ignatius Critical Editions’ next works.

Ignatius Press is looking for authors for their critical editions.

Dear Literati,

We are looking for critical essays for the next batch of Ignatius Critical Editions. The first six titles have now been published… The third and fourth batches are being edited and we are now ready to accept essays for the fifth batch. The five titles for which we are making this call for papers are as follows:

Romeo and Juliet
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities
Mansfield Park
Moby Dick

Essays should be written in accordance with the Chicago Manual of STyle (15th edition) from a tradition-oriented critical perspective and should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words long. Contributors will be paid 10 cents per word for accepted essays if the work is previously unpublished and a payment of $100 will be made for previously published essays. Deadline for receipt of all essays will be July 1st, 2009.

The series editor is Joseph Pearce. His email address is:
his name with a period between it
at
avemaria dot edu

 I wrote a paper on Gulliver’s Travels and thoroughly enjoyed both the intellectual stimulation and the excuse to work on one of my favorite literary masterpieces.

Many students think so. And Bruce Fleming says it is because we have professionalized the teaching of literature.

Nowadays we teach literature as if we were giving a tour of a grocery store to Martians who’ve just touched down on Earth. We professional storekeepers explain the vegetable section, the dairy section, the meat section, note similarities and differences among our wares, variations of texture and color, the fact that there’s no milk where the applesauce is, and perhaps the fact (which we bemoan) that there are no papayas. We’re teaching the store, not what’s in it. We don’t presuppose visitors know anything about where the things on display came from; if they do, it’s because we told them — that can be our work too, speaking of the world before it ended up in the grocery store. But we’re the ones who decide whether or not to include that world outside, and how much. We just want to rack up sales. All this fixation by the storekeepers on the store misses the point: People grow food in order to eat it. Similarly, books are meant to be read. Reading is the point of a book, not integrating it into a discipline.

Interesting. That simile doesn’t do it for you? How about this one?

Literary study in the classroom nowadays offers views of the work of literature rather like the views of Mt. Fuji in Hokusai’s celebrated spring series on “100 Views of Mt. Fuji.” In each view, the mountain, while present, is frequently tiny and in a corner, viewed (in the most famous print) beyond the crest of a wave whose foam seems to make fingers at the edges, or (in another) through a hoop that a barrel-maker is shaping.

Those are not the front-and-center shots on a postcard. They foreground the angle of the mountain, its treatment, much the way a literature professor does with a funky viewpoint that got him or her tenure. Of course the postcard shot has its own point, but in a real sense it’s more neutral than the angled treatment. It doesn’t push our noses in its approach: It defers to the object it is depicting. We’re far more conscious of the treatment of Mt. Fuji in an artsy Hokusai print than we are in a postcard shot. And that means, we’re all but compelled to see the mountain the way it’s presented, rather than being able to work on our own presentation.

The point of those two paragraphs, though, is the next sentence. “That’s why literary studies is intrinsically coercive.”

Whoa!

Teaching literature is coercive.

Here’s his discussion of that:

The power of the professor in the professionalized classroom — and the pressure on students to conform — is thus exponentially greater than it was before people started thinking that the point was the “View of Mt. Fuji” rather than Mt. Fuji viewed. If you want a good grade, you adopt that viewpoint. That’s what’s being taught, after all. Several generations of students have by now learned to give in to the power of the literary-studies professor — and hated every minute of it.

This is why I didn’t enjoy some of my graduate classes. You had to take the view of the teacher in order to write the paper and pass. That’s wrong. I like better the idea that the professor presents his view, through the red flag, perhaps, and I present mine, striated in a rainbow.

There is a point to college or university guidance of literature. Most people never read serious literature at all without a guide. Too, people get more sophisticated as they have things pointed out to them, or as they read more. And many people just don’t know what they may read to begin with. So there’s a reason for teaching. We professors just have to remember that the books are the point, not us. We need, in short, to get beyond literary studies. We’re not scientists, we’re coaches. We’re not transmitting information, at least not in the sense of teaching a discipline. But we do get to see our students react, question, develop, and grow. If you like life, that’s satisfaction enough.

This ending paragraph offers hope to me. Yes, we want a guide to the reading. But what could the students be getting out of the reading? That is up to the students. He does guide them, in thinking of literature as it relates to their lives.

And that is what I am trying to do with Brit Lit I in May. We’ll see how well I carry it out.

But consider, Everyman is about a man told he is going to die. Where does he seek comfort? Where does he find comfort? Those are issues my students-to-be can relate to. How could we use that information while we are still living and not dying? That’s another question.

I was talking to an associate dean today. I am not sure that she said what I think she did, but this is how I interpreted the conversation.

I told her that I was getting a critical analysis of Gulliver’s Travels published by Ignatius Press.

She said, “Don’t you want to teach composition?”

I said yes.

That was the end of the conversation because someone came along and interrupted us.

But I got the feeling that she meant, “Why are you writing something on literature if you want to teach composition?”

I have a couple of answers.

1. If I am going to teach composition, shouldn’t I be able to prove I can write?

2. Just because I want to teach composition does not mean I have no interests in English outside of rhetoric.

3. Because they accepted my proposal.

Maybe I was taking the question the wrong way. But if I wasn’t, those are my answers.

Reading literature:

As an avid reader, I have enjoyed taking literature courses. My second field of study in my doctoral program was Old English language and literature.  In addition, my master’s focused on literature primarily in early British and American literature for a total of thirty-six graduate hours in literature.  I have relished the opportunities I have had to teach literature classes, both sophomore British literature through the eighteenth century and freshman writing about literature.

            In teaching a literature course, I believe that the more the students enjoy the readings in class, the more likely they are to finish the assigned texts and continue reading similar works after they finish the course.  Examining the choices available, I select works I am enthusiastic about, since enthusiasm is contagious.  Beowulf is a favorite of mine and the students benefit from studying the work with someone who enjoys it.  I have had students, even those who have studied the work before, tell me that they did not realize Beowulf was so fascinating.  I do not think the text changed, but the way they looked at it clearly did.

Providing background information:

I also make sure the students have the background they need to understand a particular work, including historical, linguistic, and cultural information.  For example, when teaching “The Yellow Wallpaper,” I introduce the students to the history of psychiatric care and to the changing expectations of women, specifically delineating the idea of the “weaker sex” and how that plays out in illness, relationships, and social life. Additional readings include Nellie Bly’s biography and her exposé of asylums, Ten Days in a Mad-House, while those who wish to learn more about historical responses to insanity might read Torrey and Miller’s The Invisible Plague or for a quicker overview examine posts on the topic at www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/blogger.html.  I also try to give the students related literary readings, so that they can see the work as a part of a larger canon and not as a work in isolation. When teaching Gilman’s short story, the class also reads “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell.  This gives the students the opportunity to compare the role of illness, both mental and physical, and the role of women in different stories written during similar time periods.  This enrichment approach to literature encourages the students to develop their own deeper insights about the works and the themes and ideas presented in them.

Modeling how to read literature:

Modeling how to read literature is a practice essential to my courses.  I usually begin to read the assignment with the students, since this introduces them to the work in a non-threatening way.  When a concept is new to the course, I often have the class brainstorm together; when teaching Shakespeare, the class collaborates on possible definitions for tragedy and comedy.   When I am teaching poetry and want them to practice intense reading, I allow them to choose a poem not on my assigned list and, as a class, we read through it on consecutive days, making notes and identifying our changing understanding of the work.  They expect me as the expert to know everything about a poem with the first reading and this experiment lets me show them how even someone well versed in reading poetry can learn from subsequent readings.

            If the literary work is challenging, I provide help with vocabulary lists and questions to focus on particular issues as needed.  Several of my students have said that these act as a guide for them when they are reading so they know that they understand the text when they are able to begin to answer the questions. A sample question for Gulliver’s Travels is:

Gulliver says,  “Although there were few greater lovers of mankind, at that time, than myself, yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more I came near them the more hateful they grew, while I stayed in that country” (Bk. 4, Ch. 2).  Gulliver’s revulsion forms the basis for his intense hatred of mankind (misanthropy).  Why and to what extent is it normal for Gulliver to react to the Yahoos this way and how is his reaction problematic?

Questions like these allow the students to explore the text and its implications rather than just rush through a reading to say it is finished and perhaps miss the reading’s most important lessons.  If a student can read well, most things become accessible.

Goals for literature:

In my classes I also discuss the applications of literary analysis to other areas of their lives.  A character analysis can be very similar to a personnel review, for example.  It can also be useful when trying to sort out personality conflicts among friends.  In addition I try to show that other people, besides English teachers, have read the works and expect that they will have too.  To do this, I bring in comic strips or cartoons that refer to the works we are reading.  I also reference editorial letters in newspapers or magazine articles on other topics that refer to literature. It is a light-hearted way to make a serious point.  I hope that they are encouraged to keep reading long after the assignments are completed.

Story critique (essay)
This is a five-paragraph essay.
1st paragraph:
Introduction
Capture your audience’s attention, maybe with a question or an interesting idea.
Give the background for the story. Include who wrote it and when and its name.
2nd paragraph:
Character and setting
Who is in the story? Where are they in the story? When does the story take place?
3rd paragraph:
Conflict and plot
What is the storyline? What happens in the story? What do the characters do and say?
4th paragraph:
Climax and theme/moral
When does the story resolve itself? What is the story about? What does it try to teach?
5th paragraph
Conclusion
Give your opinion on the story without using personal pronouns.
The last sentence should be reflected/repeated in the essay title. (This brings your whole paper full circle and makes it more coherent.)

Obviously this is for students. But it’s a good thing to offer them, especially if you have students who have not been exposed to the internet before.

Hints for doing an on-line search:
1. Make sure you spell any names or words correctly.
2. Include clue words that are in the directions.
An example from Hawthorne is “themes, influences, subject matter, and critical reception.”
3. Use different forms of clue words.
Example: critic, critique, criticism, critical.
4. Examine sites that seem to have what you want. Sometimes the section you want is embedded in the site and is not easy to find. You have two choices; your first is to quit and the second is to keep looking.
5. If you find a good site, bookmark it.

Examples of good sites:
Perspectives in American Literature
A list of links in literature by category.
The Victorian Web for all things Victorian.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature with just about everything in it.

One way to define stories is by their main focus.

Orson Scott Card in his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy gave the MICE mnemonic.

Milieu- the place is the thing
Idea- it’s all about the idea, like an art movie
Character- a person is the main point
Event- some specific event propels the plot forward

Yes, stories may have elements of all of them, but one will be the most important. Introduce them to students by movies. After you’ve explained what they are, ask the students to identify movies where each of those is the focus. That way
1. You won’t be embarrassed when they don’t know any of the movies you referenced.
2. They will correct each other.
3. They can come to a consensus on which best fit.

One way to define prose genres is by length.

Short short story = less than 2000 words
Short story= less than 7,500 to 20,000 words (depends on whose definition)
Novella= more than 7,500 words less than 40,000 words
Novel = 40,000 words plus

Please note that the short short story is most often the students’ favorite. Think of it as the commercial break and you won’t go far wrong.