.
PREVIEW:  Tuesday, 9 April 2002
--Tonight, in addition to looking at Swift's "Modest Proposal" and Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," we'll do a number of quick takes: examining several short passages and reviewing some key concepts in the process.
-- In recent years, much has been written about The Yellow Wallpaper."   If you haven't already been asked to read this story a dozen times, you may want to visit a few onlite site for study questions, notes, and a little background information:
Notes for Study Text of "The Yellow Wallpaper";
Text of "The Yellow Wallpaper" with "links to primary symbols and images";
The Atypical Style of C. P. Gilman.
-- A refresher: check out "A Starting List of Schemes and Tropes."
More importantly, consider the concepts behind our terms: apply them to a few of the texts at our Speeches page.

POSTSCRIPT:  Tuesday, 2 April 2002
--In tonight's class, you turned in your topics for the Final Paper so that you can get down to work on your rough drafts.  Now, so that I can provide you with some feedback before it gets too late, don't hesitate to either e-mail your drafts to me or schedule an appointment for us to review your drafts together. 
--We took a good look at Katy Pace Byrd's rhetorical analysis of the opening chapter of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Besides being insightful and soundly organized, the essay is an eloquent model of clarity and conciseness.
--We completed our study of the New York City passages, and we're now confident that we can recognize (and distinguish among) the characteristic prose styles of Djuna Barnes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, and E. B. White.  
--We began our study of Swift's "Modest Proposal," with attention to the ethical, pathetic, and (in particular) logical appeals in this famous specimen of satire.  
--We studied Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge"--a wonderful example of sprezzatura.
-- Comments on the review quiz will be posted by April 7th.

PREVIEW:  Tuesday, 2 April 2002
--After a few more words about the Final Paper (tonight I'll be collecting copies of the texts you'll be analyzing, and we'll have a look at the student's rhetorical analysis of Chapter One of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God), we'll catch up on the history of rhetoric in the 17th and 18th centuries and take a more careful look at logos (see handout on "Reasoning in Rhetoric").   You're of course welcome to have a look at the discussion of "the appeal to reason" in Classical Rhetoric (pages 32 to 71), but Corbett can be a bit heavy going at times.   Tonight we'll also have a few words to say about irony. 
-- On Tuesday, April 2, be prepared for a quick review quiz based on readings (in Corbett, in handouts, and online) assigned since the midterm.
-- Online materials (including full-point answers to all questions on Parts A & C and the bulletin board Q & A) related to the midterm exam will soon be taken off-line.  If you'd like to make use of any these materials in reviewing for the final exam, please print out hard copies over the next week.

POSTSCRIPT:  Tuesday, 26 March 2002
In tonight's class we discussed some of the Guidelines for the Final Paper (first posted to this web site on March 2nd), analyzed an appeal from the Association for the Advancement of Educational Research, considered some of the strategies employed by Jeff Smith in his analysis of the ghost scene from Hamlet, studied the rhetorical strategies and stylistic devices employed by Joan Didion in her essay "Goodbye to All That," and contrasted Didion's rhetoric with that employed by other writers who have used New York City as a subject.   

PREVIEW:  Tuesday, 26 March 2002
-- By now, of course, you've studied the Guidelines for the Final Paper and you've begun to squeeze texts as you narrow down potential topics.  
--  Joan Didion's prose style has been the subject of much discussion, not all of it adulatory.  After reading "Goodbye to All That," you may want to read "Joan Didion: Only Disconnect" (from Off Center: Essays by Barbara Grizzutti Harrison, 1980), the first third of which focuses on Didion's style.

POSTSCRIPT:  Tuesday, 19 March 2002
-- Those students who hadn't already picked up their graded midterm exams did so.  Those who visit this web site regularly had already reviewed the Quick Key to the Midterm (posted March 5) and the answers to Part A and Part C of the exam (posted March 16).  Those who had kept up with assignments and notes, knew all rhetorical terms and concepts, took advantage of the bulletin board, and had participated actively in class tended to do well on the exam (there were 13 grades of A or B--nice job).  Others were encouraged to take advantage of online resources in order to catch up as quickly as possible.  
-- We discussed the process for selecting topics for the Final Paper (guidelines posted March 2nd).  Topics must be submitted for approval no later than Tuesday, April 2.
-- "Pig" squeezes were returned, and we focused our rhetorical analysis on the final paragraphs of White's essay, in the process drawing some conclusions about E. B. White's common rhetorical strategies and stylistic habits.
-- We examined the opening paragraphs of Joan Didion's essay "Goodbye to All That," and prepared to read the essay carefully to determine what sort of common rhetorical strategies and stylistic habits she might rely on. 
-- We broke up a bit early to allow time for individual discusions about the midterm exam or topics for the final paper.

PREVIEW:  Tuesday, 19 March 2002
-- This evening we'll pick up where we left off in our survey of rhetoric (Classical Rhetoric, pp. 505-511), with special attention to the efforts of the Royal Society (see this short passage on "The Essay and the Beginnings of Modern English Prose"), the rhetoric of Francis Bacon (see his short essay "Of Discourse"), and the precepts of Thomas Blount.   (Purely Optional: Hugh Blair's Lecture on Taste, from Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 1783.)
-- Based on our reading of Lanham's "High, Middle, and Low Styles" (see handout from March 5th), we'll be considering examples of these extremely broad stylistic types--and in the process (I hope) clarifying a few terms.   In an effort to provide some historical perspective to our analyses, we'll be drawing some of our passages from this useful online reader prepared by John Tinkler, History and Development of Prose Style.
-- In the same spirit of analyzing prose, we'll pick up where we left off in our study of E. B. White's "Death of a Pig"--and move on to consider another contemporary stylist, Joan Didion.
-- If time, we'll view a video of the ghost scene from Hamlet (see handout from March 5th).  I'll be distributing a rhetorical analyses of this scene (written by a student a few years ago for the Final Paper), and the better you understand Shakespeare's scene the more, I hope, you'll get out of the sample analysis.  Over the next few weeks I'll be distributing additional analyses as models for your own work.  Remember that topics for the final paper are due no later than April 2.  

PREVIEW:  Tuesday, 12 March 2002
No class this evening because of Spring Break, but graded midterms can be collected from the box outside my office (University Hall 297D) any time after 6:00 this evening. 

POSTSCRIPT:  Tuesday, 5 March 2002
QUICK KEY TO MIDTERM (5 March 2002)
More detailed answers (based on your own exam answers) will be posted to the web site this weekend--along with a few lessons that might be learned.  In the meantime, here are some quick links to--and references for-- key terms, characters, and concepts on Parts A & C of the exam.
Part A
1.  tetracolon climax and epiphora in Julius Caesar
2.  anaphora and aposiopesis in T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock"
3.  parison and erotesis in St. Paul's Epistle (handout)
4.  dehortatio and crot in Martin Amis's Money
5.  extended metaphor and antithesis in E. B. White's "Pig"
6.  apostrophe and enthymemes in Donne's "Death, be not proud"
7.  tricolons and epiplexis in Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?"
8.  parataxis and polysyndeton in Hemingway's "Another Country"

Part C
1.  primary oral culture--see Bulletin Board and Jan. 8th Postscript at NOTES.

2.  dialectic--see Quizlet, Glossary, excerpts from Aristotle's Rhetoric, Quiz (#8), et al.

3.  writing and the legend of Theuth--see Bulletin Board, Phaedrus (handout), Postscript for Jan. 15th at NOTES, et al.

4. three kinds of discourse and time-- see Vickers article on Shakespeare, Classical Rhetoric (p. 23 et al.), Bulletin Board, Preview for Jan. 22nd at NOTES, et al.

5.  five canons or parts or stages-- see Bulletin Board (twice), Vickers article on Shakespeare, Classical Rhetoric (pp. 17-23 et al.), Preview for Jan. 22nd at NOTES, et al.

6.  Asiatics and Atticists-- Postscript for Feb. 12th at NOTES, Classical Rhetoric (p. 495 et al.) et al.

7.  author of Institutio Oratoria-- see Preview for Feb. 12th at NOTES , Bulletin Board , Classical Rhetoric (pp. 495-96) et al.

8.  Saint Augustine-- see Bulletin Board , Postscript to class on Feb. 19th at NOTES, Classical Rhetoric (pp. 495-96) et al.

9.  Erasmus-- see Bulletin Board , Glossary, Postscript to class on Feb 26th at NOTES, Classical Rhetoric (pp. 499-500) et al.

10.  euphemism and euphuism -- see Glossary, Postscript to class on Feb 26th at NOTES, Lanham handouts, et al.

11.  Shakespeare's stylistic development--see Vickers article on Shakespeare, Postscript to class on Feb 12th at NOTES, et al.

12.  kairos -- see Glossary and Preview to class on Feb 12th at NOTES and Bulletin Board. 

13.  tenor and vehicle -- see Bulletin Board , Glossary, handout on Metaphors, Metaphors Be with You, analysis of Hennessy ad, et al.

14. invented and situated ethos-- see Glossary, Bulletin Board, Preview of class on Jan. 22nd at NOTES, et al. 

15. tacit persuasion patterns -- see Lanham handouts,  Preview to class on Feb. 26th at NOTES, Bulletin Board, et al.

16.   Visual and textual metaphors -- see Metaphors handout, Metaphors Be with You, Ad Analyses, Glossary, et al.

17.  paranomasia, oxymoron, assonance, simile, epizeuxis, and polyptoton in "Do not go gentle into that good night" -- Glossary et al.

18. identification in E. B. White essays -- see Glossary, Postscript to class on Feb. 26th at NOTES, Passages, sample analysis, et al. 

19.  periodic style and running style and Gettysburg Address -- see Lanham handouts, Glossary,  Bulletin Board, et al.

20.  tropes -- see Glossary, Vickers article, Lanham handouts, Analysing Prose, Bulletin Board, et al.

21.  sprezzatura, ploce, phatic communion, bdelygmia
--------------------

PREVIEW:  Tuesday, 5 March 2002
--Midterm exam (6:00-8:15)

POSTSCRIPT:   Tuesday, 26 Feb. 2002
--Class began with a few reminders:  (1) that information about next week's midterm exam is online; (2) that group study sessions before next Tuesday might prove worthwhile; (3) that sample questions & answers should be posted to the Bulletin Board no later than this Friday; (4) that early postings to the Board stand a significantly better chance of actually appearing on the exam (in one form or another) than later postings; and (5) that it's already later.  (Last Friday, about 80% of the exam had yet to be written; now, more than 75% of the exam has been completed--guided by Bulletin Board postings from just four students.)
--We highlighted some of the key figures and concepts introduced by Corbett in his "Survey of Rhetoric" (pp. 499-505), including Erasmus, Thomas Wilson, Peter Ramus, and the three main groups of vernacular (i.e., English) rhetorics. 
--Staying within this historical period, we looked at some of the varieties of English prose during the late-16th and early-17th centuries, including specimens from John Lyly (illustrated in the Lanham handout), John Donne, and Francis Bacon--noting how each writer favored particular schemes and/or tropes.
--We then considered how three twentieth-century writers (Tom Wolfe, E. B. White, and George Orwell) also favor(ed) distinctive styles.
--Following up on some of Lanham's observations, we looked at some of the various effects of the inherently paratactic list structure, in texts as diverse as Walt Whitman's poem "There Was a Child Went Forth," a paragraph from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night, and Natalia Ginzburg's essay "He and I" (excerpts from which I'll post here this weekend). 
--Taking a break from purely textual analyses, we studied a video of Gary Hart's 1987 speech in which he announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race after a bit of Monkey Business.   In addition to considering the variety of ethical, pathetic, and logical appeals employed by Hart, we also looked briefly at some of the increasingly relevant media issues raised by the scandal and by his defense. 
--Finally, we examined how prevalent the strategy of identification is in the writings of E. B. White--writings that include the children's book Charlotte's Web and the essays "The Ring of Time," "Death of a Pig," and "Once More to the Lake" (please make sure that you're familiar with at least the final two paragraphs--one comic, one tragic--of this well-known essay).   I collected your analyses of different sections of "Death of a Pig" and in return gave you (as a means of reviewing our terms as well as studying White's prose) sample "squeezes" of the "Pig" from past students of Rhetoric.
--I encouraged you to keep an eye on the web site this weekend for further notes and a few updates on the midterm exam. 
______________
Every few weeks the notes on this page are moved to the archives:
Archive 1 (Jan. 8-22)
Archive 2 (Jan. 29-Feb. 12)               
Archive 3 (Feb. 12-Feb. 26)
Archive 4 (Feb. 26-April 9)  
NOTES (current)           

English 5730 is taught by Dr. Richard Nordquist.
Armstrong Atlantic State University
Savannah, Georgia 31419
912/921 5991
         
e-mail: metaphor@email.com