Paper #1 assignment: It's Just a Theory

ENG 2513/3733

Paper #1: It’s Just a Theory

Since our class combines two classes and two areas of study, you can choose to do either option for your first paper assignment. Just make it clear in your assignment which one you’re doing, and don’t try to mix and match too much (though there is a little overlap in both assignments).

Option 1 (Lit Studies): Choose one of the poems in American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time and explain how it function as a stand-alone ‘theory’ for examining the world from a new perspective and/or critiquing common-sense values. Close-read the poem and explain where you see this and how you think it extends beyond the poem itself. Then, use this theory to ‘read’ another work of art or literature—a film, a book, a show, a painting, etc. In other words, use the ideas of this poem (its metaphors, perspectives, point of view, etc.) to help us read/interpret another work of art. Imagine that you’re putting them side by side, and by reading the poem first, something is illuminated or explicated in the second work of art. Be specific and show us what you reveal by looking at it through this theoretical perspective.

Option 2 (Teaching Lit): Choose 4-5 metaphors from some of the poems in American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time and use them to create a teaching activity for middle or high school students that does two things: (a) teaches how to read poetry more effectively, and (b) integrates some creative, hands-on activity that allows the students to do something new with the metaphors. Ideas might include writing their own poems around one or more of the metaphors; creating interpretive art based on the metaphors; writing fairy tales that develop the ‘moral’ or ‘theory’ of the metaphor; or some idea of your own creation. Be specific in how you plan to teach the metaphors (using Culler) and also in how you plan to implement your creative assignment so that someone could literally use it in their classroom (don’t just say, “I would ask them to write their own poem and see what happens,” etc). You should have goals, objectives, and expectations.  

REQUIREMENTS

• Both options must use poems and/or metaphors from American Journal. Please don’t use random poems or metaphors from other works.
• Both options should reference Culler and/or quote passages that help you teach and explicate your ideas.
• Page length is optional; I’m more interested in how you can develop and communicate your ideas.
• Due IN-CLASS on Thursday, September 7^th!

For Thursday: American Journal, Part 3: Words Tangled in Debris

Read the poems from the next section, and as always, feel free to pick and choose your favorites. Here are some questions to help you along...

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Most of these poems seem to involve the trials and tribulations of daily life, from war to working minimum wage (also a battlefield!). How does one of these poems give a 'theory,' or a new way of examining the daily dramas and disasters of life in the 21st century? Why could you relate to it, even if you've never examined in that wa before?

Q2: Many modern poems are arranged in an unusual fashion on the page, which doesn't necessarily correspond to a specific meter or syllable scheme. Discuss why a specific poem looks the way it does. How does the arrangement of lines on the page, the length of those lines, and the experience of reading them aloud, affect you as a reader? Related to this, are they transcribed for sound (to be read aloud) or is it more for the eye and the mind?

Q3: Discuss how one of the poems' titles is a metaphor that changes or augments the experience of reading (or having read) the poem itself. Arguably, the title doesn't make complete sense until after you've read it once or twice. Which poem changes the most with its title, and why?

Q4: Pronouns really matter in a poem, since they are always written by the poet, not by us. Using the pronoun "you" in a poem is risky, since it could either be read as a universal "you" (almost like "we"), or it could implicate a very specific person reading the poem. Discuss how one of these poems uses "you" to establish a specific relationship with the reader. What IS this relationship? Do you feel "outed"? Or are you not the "you" intended? 

For Tuesday: American Journal, Part 2: Something Shines Out From Every Darkness

 Remember to read the poems from Part 2 for Tuesday, all or any that grab your attention. Read at least a few poems more than once, and try to consider some of the ideas from Culler with regards to literature: language that calls attention to itself, is intertextual, that has purposiveness without purpose, etc. Also, examine the metaphors and see how they transform one idea/experience into another, and how that helps you experience the world in a different way.

ALSO: Be sure to read "The Split," since we'll do an in-class writing about that poem in class. If it is a poem? Can a list be a poem???

For Thursday's Class: American Journal, Part I: The Small Town of My Youth

For Thursday's class, read the poems in Part I of American Journal, pages 9-28. You can read these selectively, meaning that if one doesn't grab you, move onto the next one. But try to at least read 3 or 4 of them more than once, in some detail. Then answer any TWO of the questions below, using a different poem for each response: 

Q1: How does the language call attention to itself as language? What makes it literary language? In other words, why is it more than a sentence with one specific meaning or instruction? What makes it unusual, delightful, strange, ambiguous, or exciting? Be as specific as possible.

Q2: What make us relate to or believe in the reality of this work? In other words, why do we feel reading this poem is "worth it," even though it's just a string of words that might not immediately make sense to us? What makes us, individually, invest in this poem?

Q3: What makes this poem ambiguous and larger than one specific reading or meaning? How do we know this is "art for art's sake," and isn't meant to say, for example, "be sure to look both ways before crossing the street"? What makes this poem a rich, densely-layered experience that needs to be read and discussed?

Q4: How is this poem intertextual, meaning that is relates to other ideas and poems, and invokes them in the poem? How do these references/allusions enrich the poem and the experience of reading it? Is it always clear how and why it's invoking them? 

For Tuesday's class: Culler, Chapter 2: "What is Literature?"

If you can get your hands on the book, please read Chapter 2 of Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Once you have, answer TWO of the following questions for Tuesday's class. They are due anytime on Tuesday no later than 5pm, but we will discuss many of the answers in class, so if you're unsure how to respond, or would feel more comfortable hearing our discussion first, you can turn them in later. However, I encourage you to bring them to class so you can use them for our discussion. 

If you still can't get the book, you can make these up later. 

Answer TWO in a short response (but give a little detail--no one sentence responses, please; I want to see you thinking through them a little). 

Q1: Many theorists, according to Culler, believe that all aesthetic objects (such as literature) must have a "purposiveness without purpose" (33). How do you understand this term, and how might it distinguish literature from, say, an instruction manual or a political manifesto?  

Q2: Culler writes that "what it implicitly says about making sense relates to the way it itself goes about making sense" (34). How does this relate to intertextuality and the idea of all art being a copy of a copy of a copy? 

Q3: Culler suggests that "the more the universality of literature is stressed, the more it may have a national function" (37).  Based on this, how might literature have created a sense of Englishness or even Americanness? Has Jane Austen or Harry Potter created a literary sense of 'Englishness' which we expect to find when we go there? Or have American sitcoms done the same for us? 

Q4: Do you think literature has the power to ennoble us and make us better human beings? Is that an outdated (or naive) notion, or is it one of the chief qualities of literature? Is literature inherently 'moral'? Or is that a quality of theory (making us see morality in an otherwise valueless text)?