Introduction to Literary Study
September 15, 2016:
Citing: MLA style citation
(ENGL293 RECCOMENDED)
Assignment 1
Close reading assignment: write assignment on literature that has been read during that week, do not
have five paragraphs, no line space between paragraphs- only indent,
Any text frim that week” Aesop, Bettleheim, Grimm, Sexton, Baker. A passage that draws your interest
and you believe you have something important to say about it. You pay attention to the actual words
and their configuration- justify having quoted instead, say, or paraphrasing… think about the meaning of
those words in the immediate context of the quotation and in the larger context of the essay, story of
poem.
Discuss form (especially if poetry) and themes. If poetry, talk about whether it is pentameter, etc. Work
cited as the same page at the bottom. No title page.
Length of passage is up to us. It is recommended to not go any longer than a stanza.
Paragraph 1: explain which text you are writing about in a sentence or two, narrow it down by
gesturing/referencing the part that interests you the most, put something in the thesis position but
revise it after you have written the paper
Paragraph 2: include the quotation and spend several sentences explain what about it interests you
Paragraph 3: discuss the “so what?”, why was it important to talk about the particularity about the
words that you put on the paper, why did it need analyzing?
Close reading: reading as interpretation, reading as riddle solving (hidden meanings)
Intentional Fallacy: the judging of the meaning or success of a work of art by the author’s expressed or
ostensible intention in producing (we do not want to think that the goal of analyzing is to figure out
what the author meant) In fact, it is a matter of taking charge as a reader for your own experience
Mortimer Adler “How to Mark a Book”: Uses particular rhetoric, what is he saying and how is he saying
it? You mark a book and it becomes your own and becomes part of your bloodstream, just like a
beefsteak as it enters your mouth. The beefsteak is meant to be eaten and once it becomes eaten, it
becomes part of you, book= soul= beefsteak, you= reader= consumer= soul sucker? Reading is like
digesting, which makes the book apart of you, but if reading is like digesting, digesting is like communing
with not just the food, but your own internalized cultures
Emily Dickenson’s Riddle: the book is like a snake, the snake doesn’t do much in the poem it just does
its thing and the speaker/reader analyzes, feels and experiences it
, Keywords (from context of literary studies)
Use these when discussing or writing bout literature:
Lyric poetry: a short, emotionally, expressive poem by a single speaker)
Meter: common meter (iambic, alternating, 8,6,8,6) often used in ballads and hymns
Substitutions: places where meter breaks from general patterns
Enjambment: lines that break mid phrase (opposite of end stopped lines)
Caesura: pause mid-line
Speaker/addressee
Rhyme and slant rhyme
Other things to note: word choice and order, capitalization, dashes and other (lack of) punctuation
Anaphora: repetition of opening clauses
Scantion (scanning for syllables and emphasis): iamb (unaccented, accented), trochee (accented,
unaccented) and a foot is these two together.
In the poem: In us:
Riddle actually put there by Dickinson, the Out interests- may have to do with sexuality
answer to which is a snake and/or original sin, or may have to do with fear of
snakes or how to read a poem
Things with which snake is associated in poem Our contexts (personal, cultural, historical,
(fear, narrowness) including our sense of the author’s contexts)
Persona of speaker (seemingly male and afraid of Our interpretation of the key image and its
snakes, but likes other kinds of species) relationship to the form of the poem (its meter,
etc.) in the contexts that we bring to bear on the
poem
Meter, substitutions, word choice and order,
number of stanzas, length of line
The audience is NOT Emily Dickinson, and the audience is trained in the interpretation of poetry. The
audience may have certain expectations based on that training about what the poem means (snake=
Satan; snake= phallic symbol). The audience is always looking to be challenged anew, but if you are
going to do that, be persuasive and anticipate, concede to, and otherwise neutralize the audience’s
expectations.
Thursday September 22, 2016
Lecture:
MLA format: the whole paper needs to be cited, not just the one reference.
Name, ta, subject and course code/number, date (top left corner)
Last name, page name (mahoney, 1)
Times new roman 12pt, centred title, parenthetical citation and works cited, slash indicates the line
break
September 15, 2016:
Citing: MLA style citation
(ENGL293 RECCOMENDED)
Assignment 1
Close reading assignment: write assignment on literature that has been read during that week, do not
have five paragraphs, no line space between paragraphs- only indent,
Any text frim that week” Aesop, Bettleheim, Grimm, Sexton, Baker. A passage that draws your interest
and you believe you have something important to say about it. You pay attention to the actual words
and their configuration- justify having quoted instead, say, or paraphrasing… think about the meaning of
those words in the immediate context of the quotation and in the larger context of the essay, story of
poem.
Discuss form (especially if poetry) and themes. If poetry, talk about whether it is pentameter, etc. Work
cited as the same page at the bottom. No title page.
Length of passage is up to us. It is recommended to not go any longer than a stanza.
Paragraph 1: explain which text you are writing about in a sentence or two, narrow it down by
gesturing/referencing the part that interests you the most, put something in the thesis position but
revise it after you have written the paper
Paragraph 2: include the quotation and spend several sentences explain what about it interests you
Paragraph 3: discuss the “so what?”, why was it important to talk about the particularity about the
words that you put on the paper, why did it need analyzing?
Close reading: reading as interpretation, reading as riddle solving (hidden meanings)
Intentional Fallacy: the judging of the meaning or success of a work of art by the author’s expressed or
ostensible intention in producing (we do not want to think that the goal of analyzing is to figure out
what the author meant) In fact, it is a matter of taking charge as a reader for your own experience
Mortimer Adler “How to Mark a Book”: Uses particular rhetoric, what is he saying and how is he saying
it? You mark a book and it becomes your own and becomes part of your bloodstream, just like a
beefsteak as it enters your mouth. The beefsteak is meant to be eaten and once it becomes eaten, it
becomes part of you, book= soul= beefsteak, you= reader= consumer= soul sucker? Reading is like
digesting, which makes the book apart of you, but if reading is like digesting, digesting is like communing
with not just the food, but your own internalized cultures
Emily Dickenson’s Riddle: the book is like a snake, the snake doesn’t do much in the poem it just does
its thing and the speaker/reader analyzes, feels and experiences it
, Keywords (from context of literary studies)
Use these when discussing or writing bout literature:
Lyric poetry: a short, emotionally, expressive poem by a single speaker)
Meter: common meter (iambic, alternating, 8,6,8,6) often used in ballads and hymns
Substitutions: places where meter breaks from general patterns
Enjambment: lines that break mid phrase (opposite of end stopped lines)
Caesura: pause mid-line
Speaker/addressee
Rhyme and slant rhyme
Other things to note: word choice and order, capitalization, dashes and other (lack of) punctuation
Anaphora: repetition of opening clauses
Scantion (scanning for syllables and emphasis): iamb (unaccented, accented), trochee (accented,
unaccented) and a foot is these two together.
In the poem: In us:
Riddle actually put there by Dickinson, the Out interests- may have to do with sexuality
answer to which is a snake and/or original sin, or may have to do with fear of
snakes or how to read a poem
Things with which snake is associated in poem Our contexts (personal, cultural, historical,
(fear, narrowness) including our sense of the author’s contexts)
Persona of speaker (seemingly male and afraid of Our interpretation of the key image and its
snakes, but likes other kinds of species) relationship to the form of the poem (its meter,
etc.) in the contexts that we bring to bear on the
poem
Meter, substitutions, word choice and order,
number of stanzas, length of line
The audience is NOT Emily Dickinson, and the audience is trained in the interpretation of poetry. The
audience may have certain expectations based on that training about what the poem means (snake=
Satan; snake= phallic symbol). The audience is always looking to be challenged anew, but if you are
going to do that, be persuasive and anticipate, concede to, and otherwise neutralize the audience’s
expectations.
Thursday September 22, 2016
Lecture:
MLA format: the whole paper needs to be cited, not just the one reference.
Name, ta, subject and course code/number, date (top left corner)
Last name, page name (mahoney, 1)
Times new roman 12pt, centred title, parenthetical citation and works cited, slash indicates the line
break
