Weeks 10-12: Post-/modernism

Modernism

What does The Wasteland mean (Lol)?

OK, well, let's unpack that:

1. How has it been interpreted? Use citations.

2. What are some of its key features?

3. In what ways has it been influential??


PoMo

1. What common qualities do the "Beats" share? Why were they so-named?

2. On what grounds was Ginsberg's HOWL accused of being obscene, and on what grounds was it defended?

3. In what ways are Beat poetry and rap linked?

4. How was Bob Dylan's song Master of War involved in controversy during the Bush administration?

5. What kinda protest song/rap/other media have come out in the last decade? Is there a spirit of protest anymore?

Weeks 7-9: Romantic Revival

1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples from Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

2. How do Blake and Rousseau's ideas align and differ (themes to consider are slavery, religion and education)?

3. See what you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...

4. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).

5. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).

7. How does Frankenstein a) reference the Bible, b) foreshadow the Death of God and c) juggle genres as well as narrative points of view in its storytelling? 

Weeks 4-6: The Language of Seduction

1. Cite some variations in the Loathly Lady fabula across the three tales in your Reader. Focus on the conditions by which the lady is either beautiful or ugly, and the actions of the knight/king/"hero"...

2.  The Wife of Bath's Tale is considered by some critics to indicate that Chaucer may have been a feminist.  Why might they believe this?  Do you agree?  Remember to cite evidence from the text or some other source.

3.Hahn's essay (see critical reader)on The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelleidentifies the motif of the loathly lady, but arguesit has a different purpose than asserting the feminine.  What does he think the function of the story is?

4. In the context of Elizabethan and Jacobean sonnets, how can we define "conceits"?

5. Discuss what you think is the most striking or outrageous example.

6. What does Revard (1997) suggest about the relationship between language, sex, power and transgression in the English Renaissance?

Weeks 1-3: Dragon Slayers

1. What genres do the following texts belong to, and how do their intended period contexts, purposes, and intended audiences differ?

Voluspa, Volsunga Saga, Beowulf, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Remember to give some examples from these texts that support your identification (for example: "Voluspa is an example of the _____ genre, as the following references to gods from the poem illustrate: "Hear my words / you holy gods' (l.1) "By Odin's Will I'll speak the ancient lore" (l.3), etc).

2. What are some possible features of residual (or "secondary") orality preserved in Voluspa, according to the criteria Ong (1982) advances?

3. Identify a central incident that happens in at least four of the above texts, and discuss how it is both similar and different in each example (remember to cite from the original texts).

4. How did Tolkien draw on the Old Norse and Old English texts in his The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings fantasy novels? Provide some concrete examples.

5. Discuss how Tolkien's use of "tradition" (e.g. older literary sources) differs from the techniques and agendas of modernism (see Week 7 in your Reader).

6. Identify some recent films, TV shows and/or games which have brought back some of the old gods and heroes from obscurity. What place do the old myths have in the modern world?

7. How does the film Beowulf and Grendel "problematise" the hero-myth of Beowulf ? [Subject to viewing]

8. Discuss what you think any of these texts desire (in the sense of their intention, how they wish to be received, what pleasures they offer, etc).

Literature/Desire