 ASSIGNMENTS
Readings
Writing Projects
Book Reviews/Reports
DESCRIPTION
EXAMS
Midterm
Final
LINKS
Authors
Composition Sites
Publishing Guides
NOTES
REPORTS
SYLLABUS
WRITERLY
ADVICE
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updated 20 December 1999
The previews on this page are intended to help guide
your reading and prepare you for
class discussions. The postscripts are meant to
emphasize and follow up on some of the points raised in class lectures and discussions.
All of these notes should be of some use when it comes time to study for the midterm and final exams.
NOTE: Links on this page to Amazon.com
are intended solely to inform rather than to promote. Most of the texts identified
here are also readily available at local bookstores (such as Books-a-Million, Shaver's,
and Media Play) as well as other online vendors (such as Barnes
& Noble).
NOTE: ENGLISH 5760
(Literary Nonfiction) was last taught in the fall semester of 1999. It is likely to
be offered again in the spring or fall semester of 2001.
20 December 1999
Graded final exams and book reports may be
picked up any time over the next month from the box outside my office.
29 November PREVIEW
Zora Neale Hurston is most famous for her novel Their
Eyes Were Watching God (first published in 1937, rediscovered by many when it was
reprinted in 1975)--the first chapter
of which is online. To hear excerpts from the novel and an online discussion of its
significance, visit this site at
Ohio University. (You'll need a RealAudio Player.)
You might also want to have a look at the first chapter of her autobiography Mules
and Men.
Please remember to check out the authors' links for today's assignments on the Readings page.
Annie Dillard, Cynthia Ozick, E. B. White, and Lewis
Thomas are all major American essayists of our time.
22 November POSTSCRIPT
Despite notable differences in style and subject matter, Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and E. B. White are often grouped together
as self-deprecating American humorists of the 1930s and '40s..
The lightweight of the group was Benchley, who discovered a
reliable comic formula early on and never tampered with the basic ingredients. Enjoy
"The Courtship of a Newt"
(the script of one of his comic film shorts). Trivia: Benchley was the
grandfather of Peter Benchley, author of Jaws.
In addition to writing humorous essays and short stories (most
famously, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "The Catbird Seat'), James
Thurber was a cartoonist
for the New Yorker and the author of parables (e.g., The Last
Flower), short mysteries, a biography of famed New Yorker editor Harold
Ross, and more serious pieces on language, American culture, and his own bouts with
depression. Trivia: Thurber's favorite tune was "Bye, Bye
Blackbird"
E. B. White, of course, is at least as well known for his three
children's books (including Charlotte's Web) as for his essays. White's
stepson, New Yorker writer Roger Angell, has written the foreward to a new
edition of White's most notable essay collection, One
Man's Meat .
To learn more about the author of "On Being an American" (506), please read the
report on H. L. Mencken's A
Mencken Chrestomathy--which also serves as a model for our assigned book
review. Selected passages from
Mencken's Chrestomathy are also online.
17 November POSTSCRIPT
For a collection of your responses to Natalia Ginzburg's essay "He and
I," please visit the natalia
page.
Be prepared to compare and contrast Borges's essay on "Blindness" with
Erin McGraw's "Bad Eyes." For a collection
of your responses to the essays by Borges and McGraw, visit the borges page.
15 November POSTSCRIPT
For a collection of your responses to Woolf and
Orwell, please visit the vw page.
Virginia Woolf. A major essayist as well as a major
novelist of the Modernist period of English literature, Virginia Woolf wrote for the
"common reader," whom she defined as one who "reads for his own pleasure
rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others." In
many of her essays, Woolf's "intuitions are undercut by suspicion of their validity,
and the imaginative recreation of a culture, a period, or an individual is often followed
by skeptical inquiry into how much has simply been invented" (Graham Good, The
Observing Self, 116). According to Good, "the basic feature of Woolf's
essays remains the juxtaposition of viewpoints. She seeks not only to express her
own (or, as she often puts it, 'our own') viewpoint, but also to re-imagine the world from
another perspective, historical, cultural, or individual. . . . The basic concept of
the essay as a form is that selfhood cannot be grasped independently; it can only be configured
with an object. Virginia's key 'moments of being' are thus all 'impressions' of
scenes and people" (123, 131). To what extent (if any) do you think Good's
observation about "the juxtaposition of viewpoints" applies to "Street
Haunting" and/or to "The Death of the Moth"? (Note: If
you're interested, several of Woolf's short
stories are available online.)
If you have never read Woolf's famous essay A Room of One's Own, please read
this excerpt now. Published in 1929, A Room of One's Own is based on
speeches written by Woolf for delivery at the British women's colleges of Girton and
Newnham. (Online excerpt from A Room
of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, copyright 1929 by Harcourt Brace and Company and
renewed 1957 by Leonard Woolf, reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
In his book on English essayists, The Observing Self
(1988), Graham Good writes in his chapter on George Orwell, "All the
cultures or subcultures Orwell examines have one thing in common: they propagate myths
which conceal or distort reality. They actively hamper perception, even at the basic
level of seeing what is in front of your nose. Impercipience and stupidity ate
Orwell's incessant themes . . ." (166). Consider the various ways we have been
invited to consider the metaphor of seeing in our readings this term--and then
consider how Good's observation may be applied to "Such, Such Were the Joys" (Art
of the Personal Essay, 269).
If you have never read Orwell's famous essay "Shooting an Elephant,"
please do so now (or at least before the final exam).
15 November PREVIEW
In addition to checking the web sites to the authors we'll be discussing today
(see Reading Assignments),
please consider the following.
"The Death of the Moth," by Virginia Woolf. Woolf begins
her essay using a third-person point of view, but in the fourth paragraph she shifts to a
predominantly first-person point of view. In the fifth paragraph, she moves back and
forth between these two points of view. Any thoughts on why she employs these
shifting perspectives? How did the changing point of view affect your thoughts and
feelings about the moth? About Woolf? What is it about this particular moth
that catches the attention of Woolf? Once she takes note of the moth, why does she
become so absorbed in following its movements? Why does she see the
"spectacle" of the moth as being so "queer," so
"extraordinary," and so significant?
"Street Haunting," by Virginia Woolf. In what ways does Woolf's
essay differ from other essays we've read on the same subject (see Steele, Hazlitt,
Beerbohm, and Thoreau)? Consider the various organizing strategies employed by Woolf
in this essay, the character and function of her persona, and the role that the reader is
invited to play. What do you think is the primary theme of "Street
Haunting"?
"A Piece of Chalk," G. K. Chesterton. Chesterson
and Woolf were close contemporaries, and yet few critics would ever think to link the two
writers in any significant way: Woolf is one of the supreme modernists writer, Chesterton
the self-avowed anti-modernist. So--to hell with the critics, and tell me how your
re-reading of "A Piece of Chalk" has been affected by your reading of Woolf's
two essays.
"Such, Such Were the Joys," by George Orwell. Be prepared
to explain Orwell's choice of the title for this extended essay (or abbreviated
memoir?). Though clearly autobiographical, is the essay purely (or even primarily) a
species of memoir--or might Orwell have less personal intentions? (Please read
Orwell's short essay "Why I Write"--online--and
give this questions some thought.) Like Thoreau, Orwell is not generally considered
to be a humorist--and yet (again like Thoreau) Orwell regularly employs humor in most of
his writings. Be prepared to point out some examples. Comment on the
characteristics of the Orwell persona in this essay (paying attention to Lopate's
observations in his introduction to Orwell), and consider how the author is able to
describe painful experiences without sounding notes of self-pity. Toward the end of
the essay, Orwell writes, "Only by resurrecting our own memories can we realise how
incredibly distorted is the child's vision of the world." How is this
observation dramatized in "Such, Such Were the Joys"? Does the observation
hold up when you apply it to your own memories of childhood? If you're thinking of
writing a personal essay for the final writing assignment, you might pick up a few tips
from Orwell. Such as?
10 November PREVIEW
Profiles assignment due
today at the start of class (new extended deadline). Once again, please
submit essay in a file folder (final version on top, rough drafts below). Midterm
exams will be returned today. Make sure that you've completed the assigned readings.
8 November PREVIEW
Optional conferences in Victor 1-11 (conference room next to my office) for
anyone wishing help with final revisons to the Profile. Last day for advice before
new, extended deadline of November 10.
1 November PREVIEW
On Monday, November 1, the class will meet at 12:15 to visit
with guest speaker Philip Gerard. Gerard is the author of three
novels, most recently Desert Kill, and a memoir, Brilliant
Passage. He is also the author of Creative
Nonfiction (1999) published by Story Press,and Writing
a Book That Makes a Difference (2000). His fiction and creative nonfiction
have appeared in numerous magazines, and his radio essays are heard regularly
on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. He is the director of the creative
writing program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
The midterm exam will be on Wednesday, November 3.
27 October POSTSCRIPT
Visit the postscript
for October 27 to review class answers to questions on assigned readings. As you
prepare for the midterm exam, consider these various responses--and be prepared to support
these observations (some of which may be more perceptive than others) with specific
examples from appropriate works studied during the term.
18 October POSTSCRIPT
Turn to Responses to Walden for excerpts
from Monday's class responses to questions about the structure of Walden
and Thoreau's persona and use of language.
13 October PREVIEW
Before class, make sure that you've reviewed the comments of your colleagues at Responses to Walden. In
addition, make sure that you've kept up with the updates at the Profiles assignment
page and that you've read the sample online interviews and profiles.
The final chapters of Walden will be the subject of today's class
discussion (see Reading Walden
for updates and study questions).
UPDATE 12 October 1999
If received on time, your paragraphs on the assigned two chapters of Walden are
posted at Responses to Walden.
By this Wednesday's class (Oct. 13), please review the comments of your classmates.
If you haven't sent comments, be sure that you visit .
11 October PREVIEW
Although work for this class meeting will be conducted online, graded Travel
Articles can be picked up from the box outside Victor 1-10, and I will be available in my
office from 1:30 to 2:45 for (optional) individual conferences--particularly for those
wishing to discuss their topics for the Profiles
assignment.
UPDATE 10 October 1999
If received on time, your paragraphs on the assigned three chapters of Walden are
posted at Responses to Walden.
By this Wednesday's class (Oct. 13), please review the comments of your classmates.
Please turn to the Reading Walden
page for questions on "Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors" and "Winter
Animals." In concise and coherent paragraphs, please respond to the
questions via e-mail no later than 6:00
p.m. this Tuesday (October 12). Responses will be posted to the Responses to Walden page on
Tuesday evening.
6 October
Please turn to the Reading Walden
page for questions on "The Bean-Field," "The Village," and "The
Ponds." In concise and coherent paragraphs, please respond to these questions
via e-mail no later than 5:00 p.m. this
Sunday (October 10). Responses will be posted to the Reading Walden page on Sunday
evening.
Previews and Postscripts for August's and September's classes are in the Archives.
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