Program Assignments

Intellectual Journal. Guidelines

This is the record of your reading, reflecting on and studying of program materials. It is also the record of your creative process, and products through the winter quarter. It will constitute a record, at evaluation time, of the kind and amount of work you gave to program studies, as well as of your finished products.

Please, include at least the following:

1) Seminar texts and outside reading (assigned and on reserve): Notes directly from readings, quotes and problems from readings for seminar discussion. Reflections on these readings. Notes from seminar, and from work groups in seminar. Notes from your informal second seminar (or salon). Approximately 4-5 pages (or more) per week.

2) Informal reflections which link, in any factual, poetic historic-cultural ways you can imgine, the music, images, readings and the lectures (workshops) of a given week to each other and/or prior materials, and to your life experiences and ideas. Your liking or disliking of materials is relevant only as a part of your study of materials. Approximately 2 pages. Here you could substitute creative writing (poem-story-dream) or visual images, etc.

3) Lecture notes: detailed and complete. Your questions or your reflections on these would constitute part of #2.

4) Essays or other short pieces analysis formally assigned in a given week. These we will generally ask you to type -- so you can just insert into your journal to hand in at the end of the quarter.

5) Record of project. Notes on group discussions, ideas, drafts of your own project, and of course, a statement of your project.

a) Its title
b) Its goals
c) Its activities and time frame (schedule)
d) Other members of your work group.
e) At least 5 pages of formal project, covering process and results, to be handed in at quarter's end, on the day of your presentation to the group as a whole of your project.

WEEK 2

Informal written assignment

General structure of a textual analysis

A. Reading, rereading of text or passage to be analyzed. Read the text aloud in order to better sense its rhythm and the effect of dominant sounds.

B. Situation of the text. Author: date, genre (a poem, a scene from a play or a play, a novel or a passage from a novel, etc.). Are there particular circumstances which played a role in the creation of the piece? If you are analyzing a part of a whole (a passage in a novel, or one poem from a collection, for example) briefly situate your text in this whole (a pivotal point? a summation? a prefiguring of events to come? the introduction of an idea or person? etc.). This part should be no longer than a paragraph.

C. Detailed analysis

This consists of an analysis of the form and an analysis of the content or themes or the text. These two goals can be approached separately or can be combined in the final version. The work should proceed separately (at least until you get used to this kind of writing).

D. Conclusion

Here give your personal evaluation of the text, your strongest impressions, that which youparticularl like or dislike about it, and reasons for your reactions.

Note: In all aspects of your analysis, close adherence to the text. Use quotes and examples!

Workshop 1 and Writing Assignment 2 (Due January 19).

The goal of the workshop is to become familiar with poetic language, its meaning and effect. For that purpose, you will work in groups of no more than five people, making sure that at least one member is able to manipulate the text in the original language.

a) One member from the group will go to the library and check one of the references listed below in search of names and definitions of tropes (metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, oxymoron, mise en abîme, and many more) and poetic tools (alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoetic uses of language, etc.). The person selected to do the search could choose to check the source out or to bring copies of the relevant information to the group.

b) The group will work on some of the following poems: "The Jewels" (26,154), "Invitation to the Voyage" (67, 291), "To a Madonna" (73, 296), "Correspondences" (12, 241), "Heautontimoroumenos" (97, 317) by Baudelaire; "Dawn" (215), "City" (239), and "The Drunken Boat" (115) by Rimbaud. Read them carefully, and mark those passages that appear to contain tropes or make particular use of poetic tools.

c) Discuss the information gathered in the library and make a list of at least three tropes or tools that interest you the most. Write a clear definition for each one and make up personal examples or bring examples from common, daily language. Definitions and examples will be shared with the rest of the class.

d) In the same groups, analyze the use of the identified tropes and tools in the selected poems.

1) Discuss briefly the connotations of the figure per se and its relationship to the content and the form of the poem. How is the main idea reinforced and expanded through the particular trope? How does the trope relate to the whole language and tone of the poem?
2) Discuss the value of particular figures that are recurrent in several of the poems selected, and explain your conclusions.
3) Compare the original and the translation and explain how effectively the trope has been rendered in English. What is added or taken from the original? How can changes of one word or figure affect the interpretation of the poem?

Please take careful notes of all your conclusions. The notes should be included in your journal preceded by the description of the assignment.

Tuesday, January 19. Written Assignment.

Prepare a short analysis (up to two pages maximum) of one of the poems discussed in your workshop group. Base your interpretation on the formal analysis that took place during workshop. This assignment should also be included in your journal.

Library Sources

AUTHOR Shaw, Harry, 1905- TITLE Dictionary of literary terms. TESC Reference PN44.5.S46

TITLE Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics / Alex Preminger, editor ; Frank J. Warnke and O. B. Hardison, Jr., associate editors. EDITION Enl. ed. TESC Reference PN1021.E5 1974

AUTHOR Packard, William. TITLE The poet's dictionary : a handbook of prosody and poetic devices / William Packard. EDITION 1st ed. TESC Reference PN44.5.P3 1989

AUTHOR Beckson, Karl E., 1926- TITLE A reader's guide to literary terms, a dictionary [by] Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz. TESC Reference PN41.B33 1969

AUTHOR Cuddon, J. A. (John Anthony), 1928- TITLE A dictionary of literary terms / J. A. Cuddon. TESC Reference PN41.C83 1977b

AUTHOR Cuddon, J. A. (John Anthony), 1928- TITLE A dictionary of literary terms and literary theory / J.A. Cuddon. TESC Reference PN41.C83 1991

AUTHOR Harris, Wendell V. TITLE Dictionary of concepts in literary criticism and theory / Wendell V. Harris. TESC Reference PN41.H36 1992

AUTHOR Holman, C. Hugh (Clarence Hugh), 1914- TITLE A handbook to literature, by C. Hugh Holman. Based on the original by William Flint Thrall and Addison Hibbard. EDITION 3d ed. TESC Reference PN41.H6 1972

TITLE The New Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics / Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, co-editors ; Frank J. Warnke, O.B. Hardison, Jr., and Earl Miner, associate editors. OTHER TI Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics. TESC Reference PN1021.N39 1993

Sources in the Main Stacks AUTHOR Holman, C. Hugh (Clarence Hugh), 1914- TITLE A handbook to literature. EDITION 6th ed. / C. Hugh Holman, William Harmon. TESC Main Stacks PN41.H6 1992

TITLE A Dictionary of modern critical terms / edited by Roger Fowler. TESC Main Stacks PN41.D4794 1987

AUTHOR Woodson, Linda, 1943- TITLE A handbook of rhetorical terms modern / Linda Woodson. TESC Main Stacks PN172.W6

AUTHOR Abrams, M. H. (Meyer Howard), 1912- TITLE A glossary of literary terms / M.H. Abrams ; based on an earlier book by Dan S. Norton and Peters Rushton. TESC Main Stacks PN41.A184 1957b

TITLE Dictionary of poetry terms [prepared by] Dennis Hartman TESC Main Stacks PN1021.N3

TITLE Encyclopedia of poetry and poetics. Alex Preminger, editor. FrankJ. Warnke and O. B. Hardison, Jr., associate editors. TESC Main Stacks PN1021.E5

1st Formal Essay (Due on Friday, Jan 29)

The goal of the essay is to bridge the characteristics of the poetry from French and Latin American authors in the last decades of the XIX century. Based on the work and ideas that you have been developing during seminar and workshops for your written assignments, consider one of the two following approaches for your 3-5 page formal essay:

Analytical: You can expand the textual analysis of particular poems. The goal will be to enrich your interpretation of the poemÕs content and form by associating specific examples with other poems of the studied authors. You could also relate your analysis of text with other artistic expressions (music, plastic arts, etc.) as they throw light on the meaning of the poem.

Thematic: You can choose a particular idea/image/symbol from one of the authors and explain its place and relevancy in the authorÕs work and in relation to artistic and social contexts. You should try to establish thematic correspondences among all the authors read up to the fourth week. You can also illustrate your argument with examples from other arts.

You can choose to combine both approaches or to emphasize aspects closer to your interests. In any case, you should make sure that the goal stated at the beginning is accomplished in your work.

Give your essay a title clearly related to its contents. You should record your sources properly. The bibliography should be in alphabetical order, and the citations should comply with the MLA format.

Spring Project Guidelines

The description of your project in due on Monday of week 3 in your seminar facultyıs mailbox. If you are preparing your presentation in a group, one description per group, with all the names of the participants, will be sufficient. The more background and general information you acquire, the easier it will be to specifically establish the core of your work and determine the extent of your interest. Note: The project is equal to 6 credits, i.e. 20 hours weekly!

Description

The description of your project should be no longer than 250 words clearly stating the major theme and/or activity, with related and relevant issues.-- Here are some useful hints for planning your presentation and writing your description:

¥ Determine the purpose of your project. What do you want to achieve through your performance, research, creative writing samples, etc.?

¥ Gather your ideas and information in a preliminary list, eliminating anything that seems out of the scope of the specific focus of your project.

¥ Collect and arrange materials in an order appropriate to the aims of your project and decide on the methods or approaches you will use to develop it.

¥ In case of creative work, how do you envision to display it? What kind of space, atmosphere and props do you need to produce the effect that you are intending? Be realistic!

¥ Establish a clear time-frame for your presentation and plan it with that time limit in mind.

¥ Be realistic: schedule carefully the steps of your work, keeping some flexibility in time for particular problems that may arise.

The description should include:

* Title (straightforward and illustrative)
* Significance and aims of the project
* Conception and definition of the project (basic ideas or questions to be explored)
* Plan of work (detailed) and methodology

Bibliography

If there are numerous sources on your subject, you may consider narrowing it by choosing a relevant aspect or characteristic topic, or, in the case of scarce material, you may conduct your bibliographical research on more than one subject.

The bibliography should be in alphabetical order, and you can divide it into sections such as general reference works, books and articles, or according to themes covered. The citations should comply with the MLA format.

Try to include in your bibliography only those titles that apply directly to your topic, for which you should have physical contact with the book or article, or possibly know of its contents by reading indexes or abstracts. You may proceed in your library work by first consulting general reference books that will lead you to more specialized material on the subject; in any case you should have first-hand knowledge of your sources.

You should have a minimum of 10 entries.

Theoretical and methodological written discussion of your project

This discussion will constitute an 8-page paper in which you will address the theoretical principles and methodological approaches that inspired and guided your project. You should substantiate your discussion with material drawn from your bibliography and from the programıs contents. The paper should be individually crafted, even if the project consists of a final group presentation. This paper is due on Friday of week 8.

Back to syllabus