RELATED COURSE SITES
Advanced Composition
Rhetoric

ASSIGNMENTS
Readings
Writing Projects
Book Reviews/Reports

DESCRIPTION

EXAMS
Midterm
Final

LINKS
Authors
Composition Sites
Publishing Guides

NOTES

REPORTS

SYLLABUS

WRITERLY ADVICE

    U. S. Universities

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).

PREVIEWS & POSTSCRIPTS: August & September

Be sure to visit the TRAVEL ARTICLE pages for frequent updates to the guidelines for this assignment.  In particular, note links to new pages, including WRITING EFFECTIVE  LEADS, REVISION STRATEGIES, and   GRADE SHEET.

29 September PREVIEW
On Wednesday, we'll begin our discussion of Thoreau's Walden.  Please visit the READING WALDEN page on this site for detailed guidelines on the reading assignment as well as background information and notes on Thoreau and his text. 
"WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR  (Chapter 2)
Mark those passages that you think are particularly revealing of HDT's persona.  In addition, be prepared to identify in class the passage(s) from this chapter (as short as a sentence or as long as a paragraph) that you consider to be the most meaningful and/or memorable and/or relevant to our own times--and be prepared to explain why.

27 September PREVIEW
A few notes about E. B. White's persona--by E. B. White himself:
  Writing is a form of imposture.  I am not at all sure I am anything like the person I seem to a reader."  (Letters 582) 
  The man on paper is always a more admirable character than his creator, who is a miserable creature of nose colds, minor compromises, and sudden flights into nobility. . . .  I suppose readers who feel friendly toward someone whose work they like seldom realize that they are drawn more toward a set of aspirations than toward a human being."  (Letters 402)
  By White's own determination, he is "a mousy, faintly worried man" (Every Day 225), "a dreamy-eyed schoolboy" (Letters 261), "a nervous little homebody in a sack suit" (Wild Flag 53).  Such self-deprecating epithets contribute to the image of a timid, idealistic, and mildly neurotic character, "bashful" and socially "backward" (Essays 158). 
  Most writers find the world and themselves interchangeable (Wild Flag 134)--an observation that might serve as White's definition of the rhetorical strategy of identification.

A few notes on White's primary rhetorical and stylistic strategies:
  White's predominant rhetorical strategy . . . resides in the effort to establish a sense of rapport with both his subjects and his readers.  As defined by rhetorician Kenneth Burke, it is the strategy of identification--any of the wide variety of means by which an author may establish a shared sense of values, attitudes, and interests with his readers."  Of course, as Burke goes on to maintain, "identification is affirmed with earnestness . . . precisely because there is division."
Consider how White imposes and locates such identifications in his writings on Thoreau (especially in "Walden), on circus performers (in "The Ring of Time"), and on both his father and his son (in "Once More to the Lake").
  Through less direct methods, White maintains what he has described as the "invisible friendship" of author and reader (Letters 402).  Chief among these methods is one that might simply be called extension, whereby the narrator projects his values and experiences on others through generalizations that tacitly implicate his readers.  Frequently he climaxes a discussion of a personal ordeal with a remark about "most people" or "practically everyone" or "all men."  This strategy of implicating the reader through extension is simply a way of inviting identification without appearing to impose it.  Consider how White's careful use of pronouns contributes to this sense of "extension" in his essays.
  As White indicates in his essay on the newspaper humorist Don Marquis, these complementary strategies of identification and extension might be viewed as responses to "the struggle of the human soul  . . . to break through the barriers of silence and distance into companionship":  Friendship, lust, love, art, religion--we rush into them pleading, fighting, clamoring for the touch of spirit laid against our spirit.  Why else would you be reading this fragmentary page--you with the book in your lap?  You're not out to learn anything, certainly.  You just want the healing action of some chance corroboration, the soporific of spirit laid against spirit" (One Man's Meat 71-72).

And, finally, a couple of notes on White's persistent themes. 
  White's world is not always as "ordered" and "painless" and "nice" as some critics have argued.  White's persona is commonly a divided figure, his world a disordered, even frightning place.  In his essayistic short story "The Door," for instance, he dramatizes the alienated state of modern man by comparing him to the white rat of an experimental psychologist.  The only comfort available to the nameless narrator is the realization that he is "not the only one."   (Please read this remarkable short story, which appears in the collection Poems and Sketches--and is also available online.) 
  A similar moment of identification and extension marks the climax of White's short story "The Second Tree from the Corner."  Overwhelmed by "bizarre thoughts," the main character makes ineffective weekly visits to a psychiatrist, who offers him nothing except occasions for sympathetic identifications: Trexler found that he increasingly tended to identify himself with the doctor, transferring himself into the doctor's seat--probably (he thought) some slick form of escapism.  At any rate, it was nothing new for Trexler to identify himself with other people" (Second Tree 98).  But what begins as "escapism" serves in the end as a tentative cure: "Poor, scared, overworked bastard, thought Trexler. . . .   Trexler knew what he wanted, and what, in general, all men wanted; and he was glad, in a way, that it was both inexpressible and unattainable" (98).

Consider how the strategies of identification and extension, as employed in "The Ring of Time" and "Once More to the Lake," are intrinsically related to the themes of these essays.

20 September POSTSCRIPT &
22 September PREVIEW
A reminder to read and/or reread carefully for Wednesday (1) the guidelines for the travel assignment; (2) the readings assigned for today's class; and (3) the readings assigned for Wednesday.  The primary focus of the assignment, of course, should be on a specific place--not on yourself, your feelings, or your adventures.  Work you submit should follow the assigned format, with self-evaluation included (see travel assignment guidelines). 

  Brief e-mail responses have been sent to all who turned in first drafts over the weekend or on Monday.  We'll set aside some time on Wednesday to continue our peer reviews.

  Texts mentioned in class today:
Creative Nonfiction: Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life, by Philip Gerard (Story Press, 1996).
The Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality, by Lee Gutkind (John Wiley, 1997).
Brief excerpts from these texts (and others) will appear on our web site throughout the term.

20 September PREVIEW
A reminder that travel readings and first drafts (with two photocopies for peer reviews) are due today. 
A few things to consider as you read (and re-read) the handouts:  (1) study the lead (opening paragraphs) of each article to see how the author attempts to attract our interest, establish the focus and direction of the piece, and evoke a distinctive persona or voice.  (2) consider how (and to what extent) each author insinuates direct and indirect quotations into his or her article;   (3) examine the structure of each article and the strategies each writer employs to impart a sense of unity, coherence, and organization--without appearing to have imposed an artificial structure; (4) try to define the tone of each article--and identify those stylistic qualities that contribute to a distinctive tone.  (5) study the conclusion of each article, and begin making a list of the different techniques authors use to "get out" of a piece and provide the sense of an ending. 

13 September PREVIEW
    It's not too soon to begin thinking about the book you'll be reporting on at the end of term.  Check out the options listed on the page for Book Reviews & Reports--and remember to revisit the page often for updates. 
  Remember that we'll be re-examining some of the essays assigned for last week.  In addition to considering some of the distinctive stylistic traits of each author, we'll have a look at various organizational strategies.

8 September POSTSCRIPT
A reminder that guidelines for our first writing project, the Travel Article, are now online. 
   Study the lead paragraphs of the assigned essays by Montaigne, Addison & Steele, Samuel Johnson, Maria Edgeworth, Charles Lamb, and William Hazlitt.  Consider what strategies the various authors use to gain the reader's attention, establish a distinctive voice or persona, and suggest the direction that the rest of the essay will take. 
     In Bacon's essays, "the absence of a felt 'self' on the page is a deliberate rhetorical effect, . . . the effort to efface voice in the 'impersonal' essay is a way of evoking a distant but authoritative persona.  . . . (21)
     "Of all the varieties of the genre, the English periodical essay of the 18th century exhibits the most obvious and self-conscious kinds of masking.   . . .  The most interesting of conventions is the eidolon--the character type that functions as the voice of both the essayist and the periodical in which his work first appeared.  . . .  Thus, in contrast to Montaigne's desire to portray himself  'entire and wholly naked,' the periodical essayists quite deliberately 'chose to talk in a mask,' as Richard Steele explains in his 'Farewell to Isaac Bickerstaff.'  . . . Though hardly a rounded or even a particularly convincing character, Bickerstaff is not just a pseudonym: the eidolon provides a point of view and corporate identify for The Tattler [periodical] itself. . . . (21-22)
     "The transition from the periodical essay of the 18th century to the 'familiar' essay of the 19th might be viewed as a shift from conscious artifice to cultivated sincerity in the presentation of an authorial self.
. . .  Hazlitt's writings clearly violate decorum in their expression of personal experience and emotional immediacy.  The tone of his textual voice--open, sure, and direct, as well as frequently impassioned--contributes to the authorial pose suggested by the title of his essay collection The Plain Speaker.  . . .  As Hazlitt himself reports in his Table-Talk essay 'On Going a Journey,' the writer on the page is an 'imaginary character' and an 'ideal identity.'  . . .  [Likewise, Charles Lamb], the most intimate of the early 19th-century essayists, is also the most conscious of the rhetorical nature of his performance.  His reliance on stylistic artifice ('whim-whams,' as he refers to his antique diction and far-fetched comparisons) is complemented by an equally contrived persona" (21-27)
     --Nordquist, "Voices of the Modern Essay" (1991) 
  A few more terms were considered in today's class: ethos, pathos, and logos.  (If unsure of their meanings and application, review the online Glossary of Rhetorical Terms.)

1 September POSTSCRIPT
     Early essayists: Montaigne and Bacon.  The French philosopher Montaigne collected pithy sayings . . . along with anecdotes and quotations from his reading.  He developed the habit of recording also the results of self-analysis and became attracted by the idea that he was himself representative of human beings in general.  . . . By adding the personal element to the aphoristic lecon morale, Montaigne created the modern essay.  "Myself," he said, "am the groundwork of my book."
     When Francis Bacon published in 1597 his first collection of aphoristic essays, he borrowed his title, Essays, from Montaigne's book--and became the first English essayist.  . . . Bacon's essays [with the distinctive "aphoristic" quality of Bacon's style], like the Renaissance Courtesy Books, had for their chief purpose the giving of useful advice to those who wished to get on in practical life.   --definition of essay from Harmon and Holman's Handbook to Literature, 8th edition, 2000 (197).
     Interestingly, though Harmon and Holman include Bacon as well as Montaigne among the ranks of "informal" or "personal" essayists, Phillip Lopate (the editor of our anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay) places Bacon's writings in a more "formal" category (see pages xlv-xlvii of the Introduction) and on that basis excludes his work from the anthology.  Can you explain this apparent contradiction? 
     Compare Montaigne's essay "Of Books" (Art 46) with Bacon's  "Of Studies," and Montaigne's essay "Of a Monstrous Child" (Art 57) with Bacon's "Of Deformity."  What are the distinctive rhetorical and stylistic traits of   Montaigne's essays? of Bacon's?  In what ways are their writings similar?   In what ways do they differ?  How would you characterize the voice or persona employed by each writer?  Which essayist--Montaigne or Bacon--do you think would have more trouble conforming to the conventional format associated with the Georgia Regents' Test essay?  Why?  What organizational patterns or strategies do you recognize in Montaigne's essays?  in Bacon's?
   "Montaigne writes about his textual persona:
If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.  All contradictions may be found in me by some twist and in some fashion. . . .  I have nothing to say about myself absolutely, simply, and solidly, without confusion and without mixture, or in one word" ('Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions').  William A. Covino has characterized Montaigne's Essays as a 'dialectical patchwork of multiple voices.'  Thus the trial of the essay is both an 'experience' and an 'experiment,' words that derive from the same Latin root meaning 'to try,' just as 'person' and 'persona' are twin forms derived from the Latin word for 'mask.'   While faithful mimetic transmission of a self to the page is impossible, the essayist's construction of roles may mimic the dynamic construction of self in everyday life.  . . .
      " . . . Out of his fragmentation, the essayist forges a distinct impression of a narrating character, one with ruling patterns all his own.   A familiar voice and a recognizable persona emerge.  As Montaigne says toward the end of his book, 'By long usage this form of mine has turned into substance, and fortune into nature.'  . . .  The essayist, then, fashions a mutable textual figure that the reader is invited variously to adopt, complete, or counter."
      --Nordquist, "Voices of the Modern Essay" (1991)  
        
     The complete texts of Montaigne's Essays and of Bacon's Essays are linked at the Authors page on our class site.

30 August POSTSCRIPT
     Be sure you're familiar with what most critics agree to be the literary origins of biography, autobiography, the essay, and the English novel.  The full text of Plutarch's historical sketch of Alexander the Great can be found online (along with the rest of Plutarch's Parallel Lives).   You'll also find an online version of St. Augustine's Confessions.   (Though you might have to wait until you're serving hard time to read the full text, be sure to have a look at the brief chapter outlines and short Introduction.)   For additional information on Montaigne (as well as the complete text of The Essays) on Montaigne, check out the Links to Authors elsewhere on this site.  Here you'll also find a direct link to Montaigne's short essay "On Thumbs."   The Authors page also contains several links to works by Francis Bacon.
     If you're curious about the origins of the English novel, visit Dr. John Harwood's course pages for his Fall 1997 seminar on the 18th century novel at Pennsylvania State University.  In addition, you might want to glance at the online version of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.  Be sure to have a look at this biographical sketch of Daniel Defoe.  A journalist, social historian, and early novelist, Defoe  insisted that works such as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders (the film version, with Morgan Freeman, isn't half bad) were as historically and journalistically accurate as the same author's Journal of the Plague Year.  Defoe was, of course, prone to fudging. 

25 August  POSTSCRIPT
     Annie Dillard's essay "Seeing" is actually a chapter taken from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974).  (Both Pilgrim and An American Childhood (1987), Dillard's memoir, appear as choices on the course book list.)  On the Web, you'll find a study by Sandra Stahlman Elliott of Dillard's "Mysticism" and, more significantly, David Lavery's article on "The Visionary Art of Annie Dillard."  Naturally, the "art of noticing" is one we'll be attempting to employ throughout the term--in both our reading and our writing. 
     "In nonfiction," Dillard once remarked, "you can do anything you can do in poetry--and things that you can't do in fiction as well."   She has also said that "the first person, as I use it, is merely a narrative device--a kind of floating eyeball, a unifying voice." 
     In light of these remarks, what do you think are some of the defining characteristics of Dillard's style, persona, and voice?  In "Seeing," what might Dillard's purpose be in employing personification and metaphor,  and in employing frequent shifts in tone, diction, and perspective?   Can you illustrate these strategies by pointing out specific examples?   (Consider, for instance, the specific stylistic and rhetorical devices used by Dillard in the paragraphs at the bottom of page 698 and the top of 699: in particular, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and parallelism.)   What do you think are the implications (if any) of Dillard's original intention to publish Pilgrim at Tinker Creek under a man's pseudonym? 
     What might be the purpose of the parable that opens "Seeing"?  Likewise, consider the various organizing devices Dillard relies on in "Seeing": e.g., in the final two paragraphs of the essay ("The secret of seeing is . . ."), what images and allusions from earlier in the text reappear here?  Note Dillard's reliance on what be described as a recursive structure: i.e., images and anecdotes are introduced, abandoned, and then recalled--often several times--until details that originally appeared to be incidental or consequential gradually assume metaphorical significance.   Interestingly, this recursive organizational pattern bears a marked resemblance to the kind of "very complicated joke" (or shaggy-dog story) favored by Dillard's mother, as described on pages 53-54 of An American Childhood--a passage we'll be looking at later in the term. 
     [By the way, most of the rhetorical and stylistic terms mentioned in class and in these notes are defined and illustrated in the online Glossary of Rhetorical Terms.    Even the term sprezzatura.]
     Writerly Advice:   Dillard, like almost all professional writers, puts enormous effort into revising.   Consider how she describes the process of "erasing your tracks" through a major "demolition" of a draft: You must demolish the work and start over.   You can save some of the sentences, like bricks.  It will be a miracle if you can save some of the paragraphs, no matter how excellent in themselves or hard won.   You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now.  (Are you a woman, or a mouse?)--Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (1989), 4.  In what way do you think a degree of courage might be called for during the process of revising a text?
     Later in The Writing Life, Dillard characterizes the purpose of writing and of reading (indeed, of living itself) as one of waking up: Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mysterp probed?  . . . Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?   . . .  Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love?  We still and always want waking.  We should amass half dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other, to wake up; instead, we watch television and miss the show"--Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (1989), 72-73.  Later in the term, we'll compare Dillard's observations here to Thoreau's in Walden.