Schedule of Assignments
In all cases, reading is to be completed by the date listed. You are expected to have read it thoughtfully and to be ready to discuss it openly and courteously.
All assigned written work is required. There are no optional assignments (whether you are planning to take the AP Exam or not), and there is no extra credit. A piece of written work is deemed to be late if it’s not there when I go to retrieve it from the forum for the assignment. I will not accept it afterward for any reason whatever. Late work will receive a zero. I am not going to check date-stamps fastidiously, so it’s possible that you can get in under the wire a bit late, but I offer no guarantees on that score. I absolutely will not chase down overdue assignments or revisit the forum in hopes of collecting stragglers. This is a college-level course, and I can only afford to teach it at this level of intensity on the assumption that you bring to it a corresponding level of maturity.
1. Tue, Sep 6, 2011: Introduction to method (most of which should be familiar to you by now), special policy and procedure relating to Senior English. I would like you to read the course outline thoroughly — it discusses the scope and intention of the course, and some peculiar rules that I have not enforced with any regularity in other English courses, but which need to be observed here. I want to make sure that none of them takes anyone by surprise.
By the first class, please have read at least the first half of C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism. This is a small but chewy book. I don’t require that you agree with him here (or anywhere else in particular) but his position deserves careful consideration, and if you don’t agree, you should be ready with an answering argument of your own. Determine how you are dealing with literature — are you “using” or “receiving”? It’s likely that you do some of each, and that it varies from occasion to occasion — but it’s also probably useful to determine where the boundaries are.
2. Thu, Sep 8, 2011: Please have finished C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism; we’ll discuss the remainder of the book. Bring with you your ideas on overall approaches to literature. Most (if not all) of you have been with me for a number of years now. What new ways do you have of thinking about literature? What is the nature of the literary experience? What are the purposes of literature?
1: What is an educated person?
This is a pretty open-ended question, but I’d like to see what you do with it. I offer it partly because it will direct our thinking for the rest of this course, and partly honoris causa, because Mr. George H. Ward assigned it as the first essay for my AP English class back in 1970. Actually, I think he asked it in the pre-PC version, “What is an educated man?”, but he apparently intended no particular gender restriction, and the question remains valid.
Friday, Sep 9.
Poetry
3. Tue, Sep 13, 2011: Please have read Perrine’s Sound and Sense, ch. 1-2. I’ll entertain any questions you have on the reading first, and then we’ll get into a free discussion about poetry, approaches and suppositions about poetry, and so on. You will of course recall that we’ve discussed such things on and off over the last several years; but the big questions don’t really go away. You’ll get to write about it next week.
4. Thu, Sep 15, 2011: Please read Perrine’s Sound and Sense, ch. 3-4. Bring any questions you may have, and then we’ll get down to a discussion of these chapters’ materials and examples.
2: What are the limits of literature in translation?
This is a question we have taken up in World Literature and Western Literature to Dante, but not much elsewhere. Some of you may have encountered it several times; others may not have confronted it at all. Still, it remains an important question, and will be important on and off for the rest of this year, since some of the things we’ll be reading are indeed works in translation. It’s worthwhile to consider these matters here.
Friday, Sep 16.
5. Tue, Sep 20, 2011: Please read Perrine’s Sound and Sense, ch. 5-6. Questions, free discussion on poetry in general.
6. Thu, Sep 22, 2011: Please read Perrine’s Sound and Sense, ch. 7-8. Again bring your questions, and we’ll follow more or less the same approach. Make sure you’re really grasping this material, since the writing assignment requires you to use it. No questions are dumb. Whatever time is left we’ll devote to discussion of particular poems.
3: What is poetry?
This is your chance to take on the large theoretical question. We aired these questions last week — now it’s time to make your own summation and deliver your own thoughts in a coherent package. Having a definition you believe in and can defend will make the task of measuring other poetry against it much more rational and practical, so this will arm you for the AP Exam as well, but it’s also the kind of thing you should be thinking about.
Friday, Sep 23.
7. Tue, Sep 27, 2011: Please read Perrine’s Sound and Sense, ch. 9-10. After dealing with your questions, we’ll turn once again to discussion of particular poems.
8. Thu, Sep 29, 2011: Please read Perrine’s Sound and Sense, ch. 11-12. We’ll follow the same general procedure as before: come ready to discuss any issues raised by the text, and to ask any questions that leave you unsatisfied. After dealing with the general material, we’ll turn once again to discussion of particular poems. We may also devote some time to a discussion of writing strategies.
4: Close reading of a particular poem.
Select a poem and write a close analysis of it — its meaning, its structure, and in general its interplay of sound and sense. You last did this, or something like it, in English Literature, I suspect. Now I’d like you to take another shot at it, and give it all you’ve got. Use the tools you’ve gained from Perrine’s discussion, and dig as deeply as you can. Choose a poem worthy of your attention, but not something so long that you can’ give it the close scrutiny the exercise requires. Twenty lines is probably sufficient.
Friday, Sept. 30.
9. Tue, Oct 4, 2011: Please read T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” This was one of the most difficult and problematic poems of the early twentieth century. Eliot has been by turns praised and blamed for this work, but it deserves a sober look. Using the tools you should now have acquired from your reading of Perrine, read it and think about it carefully. Expect it to take some time. We will also assign articles from the Norton edition of “The Waste Land” for your essays, and to discuss in class next week.
10. Thu, Oct 6, 2011: Please read Perrine’s Sound and Sense, ch. 13-16. Questions, free discussion, etc. — wrapping up poetry in isolation. Perrine’s last chapters deal with some very particular issues, and a few technical questions. It’s worth weighing his approach against that of C. S. Lewis, which we have already had a chance to view. Which of them seems to you to be correct? How about Eliot (whom Lewis disliked, but whom Lewis’ friend Charles Williams liked a lot)? First of the presentations on ”The Waste Land.”
5: Write and post to the conference center your assigned discussion on the article from the Norton edition of “The Waste Land”.
I would like each of you to read all the posted discussions, and begin the discussion we’ll continue in class next week. Don’t worry about producing a critique of the forms here: try to follow the ideas and see what you make of them.
In writing material to be posted in the class conference center, do be cognizant of the fact that it is also a weekly essay, and should follow the formal standards of appropriate diction, clear usage, and correct mechanics that I’d expect from any other paper you have submitted. Refrain from “<g>” and “/me” insertions, and write good clean academic prose.
Friday, Oct 7.
11. Tue, Oct 11, 2011: “The Waste Land”. Individual presentations.
Drama
12. Thu, Oct 13, 2011: General introduction to drama. The first drama was of course poetical, so the transition is not completely arbitrary. Please read Aeschylus, “Prometheus Bound”, and the first chapter of Bentley’s The Life of the Drama. This is one of the most sensible and thorough guides to drama I have ever encountered, by a real theater man with one foot in academe — he knows what he’s talking about, and he’s familiar with the literature of the theater from Aeschylus to Pirandello. He avoids doctrinaire snap judgments in favor of real penetration. There will be a lot of references here you don’t catch, but be willing to pursue them somewhat, and bring questions to class. If you could handle Auerbach, this should be easy.
Most of you have read Greek drama in Western Literature to Dante, and so this is not altogether new ground. The “Prometheus Bound” is one of the earliest pieces we have surviving. What’s there? What’s missing? What do you expect that you don’t find? Bring any questions you have on either the Aeschylus or the Bentley, and we’ll discuss what we can.
6: Evaluation of a poem. Select a poem from the ancillary materials in Perrine/Arp and write an evaluation of it.
There’s no single set of criteria here — but you should have picked up a lot from Lewis, Perrine, and Eliot by now. Bear in mind that here your job is to evaluate it — i.e., determine how good it is in various ways. Use your own methods and ideas, but be rigorous. You’re a poetry reviewer: assess the poem. How well does it use its materials? Is its imagery fresh? Its thematic material? Does it have interesting ideas? Does it use the language well or badly? Does the poem work for you, or not? If so, how? If not, why not?
Friday, Oct 14.
13. Tue, Oct 18, 2011: Please read Sophocles, “Philoctetes”, and the second chapter of Bentley’s The Life of the Drama. This time I’d like to talk about your presuppositions about ancient drama as opposed to modern drama, etc. What are the formal constraints of ancient drama? What does the presence of chorus, song and dance, and so on, do to the shape of the play? Does it have some consequences for the actual shape of the plotting? Does it limit or extend the options for characterization? Be ready also to discuss what Bentley has to say. This will serve you throughout our unit on drama.
14. Thu, Oct 20, 2011: Please read Euripides, “Medea”, and chapter 3 of Bentley. Along with the ”Bacchae,” which you probably met in Western Literature to Dante, this is one of the most horrific of Euripides’ plays. Does the lurid aspect of the play add to its drama? Detract from it? Does Euripides create a believable set of characters here? How do his characters compare with those of Aeschylus and Sophocles? In what ways does Euripides’ subjectivism affect his work?
7: Is there a single protagonist or hero in the “Philoctetes”? If so, who is it? If not, does the play allow us to identify or sympathize with any of the characters?
This question will require you to do some definition of terms before you go too far, I suspect. Give those terms some thought. Opinions will almost certainly differ in this matter — they have typically done so for as long as the play has been studied. I really don’t care what position you take as long as you support it with sound argumentation.
Friday, Oct 21.
15. Tue, Oct 25, 2011: Please read Euripides, “Hippolytus”, and chapter 4 of Bentley. Free discussion: Transformation of character in Euripides.
16. Thu, Oct 27, 2011: Please read Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 1”, and chapter 5 of Bentley. We’ll talk a bit about some introductory material on Shakespeare; free discussion on Shakespeare’s plot construction.
Here we take an enormous leap forward to the modern world — the early modern world, to be sure, but about 2000 years after Euripides. It’s worth consciously evaluating the drama to try to ascertain for yourself just how it has changed. Are its purposes the same? Is its function the same?
8: Aristotle argues that the function of (Greek) tragedy is to evoke pity and fear in the audience, and to achieve a “catharsis” or purgation of emotion. Defend or attack this position.
You’re welcome to affirm or deny Aristotle’s theory. Either way, however, you should thoughtfully address some of the limitations of the approach. Is this what Greek tragedy really accomplishes? Is this true of what we would call tragedy generally? What makes tragedy tragedy, after all?
You have now read four Greek dramas recently, and most of you will probably remember six others at least somewhat from Western Literature to Dante. That’s more than most college students have run into. You may draw on any of this as evidence, and, for that matter, on any other Greek tragedy you may have read.
Friday, Oct 28.
17. Tue, Nov 1, 2011: Please read Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2”, Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, ”The Weary Prince” Discussion: Casts of thousands: Shakespeare’s histories as history; their social and political function.
18. Thu, Nov 3, 2011: Please read Shakespeare, “Henry V” and ch. 6 of Bentley. Free discussion: transformation of character in Shakespeare; history, continuity, and agenda in Shakespeare.
9: How do Shakespeare’s history plays merge the tasks of dramatist and historian?
The three “Henry IV” and “Henry V” plays are part of a great sequence of history plays that stretches from the end of the reign of Richard II (ob. 1399) to the fall of Richard III (ob. 1485). Obviously some of these have propagandistic value in political terms, but that is unlikely to have been Shakespeare’s sole motivation in writing them. What is Shakepeare’s point here? Does it reflect more on the persons of the kings or the identity of the nation? What kind of understanding of history do they convey? Does this add to or detract from their dramatic force?
Friday, Nov 4.
19. Tue, Nov 8, 2011: Please read Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”. Free discussion of the play: possible topics — character, plot, and melodrama.
20. Thu, Nov 10, 2011: Please read Chapter 7 of Bentley. Continuing discussion of “Measure for Measure”; we’ll talk about deception and genuineness in comedy and tragedy. I strongly suggest also that you begin reading “Hamlet” over the weekend. We will assign “Hamlet” presentations from the Norton Critical Edition articles today.
10: Discuss and assess the peculiar mixture of comic and tragic in ”Measure for Measure”.
”Measure for Measure” is one of the darkest and most menacing of all Shakespeare’s comedies. We have already discussed something about what makes a tragedy tragedy in Greek terms: what prevents these comedies from being tragedies? Does skirting close to the boundaries of tragic territory enhance or weaken the comic experience?
Friday, Nov 11.
21. Tue, Nov 15, 2011: Please read Molière, “The Miser”. Introduction to French drama; questions and free discussion. You may optionally also like to read “The Would-Be Gentleman”, but we won’t be able to assign it this year as a regular item. Free discussion: Molière’s characters vs. Shakespeare’s.
22. Thu, Nov 17, 2011: Please read Shakespeare, “Hamlet”. Free discussion: deception and genuineness in ”Hamlet” vs. “Measure for Measure.”
”Hamlet” is rightly considered to be one of the most difficult and challenging of Shakespeare’s plays, and it has more than enough meat on it to keep us going for some time to come. I’m hoping that the critical readings in the Norton edition will give us material to start with, and that from there you will be able to develop your own discussion on the forum.
11: Write and post to the conference center your presentations on “Hamlet”.
I would like each of you to read all the posted discussions, though obviously the timing makes it difficult for us to progress very far in discussion prior to class.
Friday, Nov 18.
23. Tue, Nov 22, 2011: Please read Chapter 8 of Bentley. “Hamlet”, individual presentations: problems in “Hamlet”; Hamlet as a character: complexities, ambiguities.
NONE.
Happy Thanksgiving. You’ve earned it.
24. Tue, Nov 29, 2011: Corneille, “Le Cid”, Chapter 9 of Bentley. Free discussion: Type and formula in classical French tragedy.
25. Thu, Dec 1, 2011: Racine, “Phèdre” Free discussion: Referential drama in classical French Tragedy. Racine’s characters vs. Euripides’.
12: Select one of Molière’s characters and compare him or her with a similar character from one of Shakespeare’s comedies.
There are a lot of directions to go with this question. Which is better rounded? Which serves the comic impulse more successfully? What are the respective strengths and weaknesses of each of the characterizations? (I am not, of course, asking about the personal strengths and weaknesses of the characters!)
Friday, Dec 2.
26. Tue, Dec 6, 2011: Please read Ibsen, “The Wild Duck”, and Chapter 10 of Bentley. Assign presentations for Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.
27. Thu, Dec 8, 2011: Chekhov, ”Uncle Vanya”: Chekhov’s vs. Ibsen’s realism. (You may want to consider renting and viewing “Vanya on 42nd St.,” a reasonably successful recent film adaptation of the play.)
13: Pick one of the plays we’ve read here, and discuss the extent to which it admits or excludes the (apparent) exercise of free choice, as opposed to being a the passive exploration of feeling for its own sake.
Closely motivating characters, by its nature, creates a kind of determinism. It fosters a sense of dramatic inevitability, which can in turn give a play power and conviction. The more strictly a character is constrained by defined motives, however, the less room remains for what we see as free will. This in turn will lead to a dramatic economy that primarily seeks to mine situations more or less passively for their emotional force. As we come to the end of our drama unit, it seems worth reflecting on the balances different playwrights have achieved here. Does such a static model of drama intersect with Bentley’s arguments that violence at some level is essential to drama?
Friday, Dec 9.
28. Tue, Dec 13, 2011: Please read Tom Stoppard, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”. Free discussion: referential literature and drama: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in relation to Hamlet.
29. Thu, Dec 15, 2011: Please read and come prepared to discuss Michael Frayn, “Copenhagen”. This play is only a few years old. How is it of a piece with the larger dramatic tradition we’ve been examining? What questions does it raise?
We have one major housekeeping task to accomplish today, as well: we will assign romanticism themes to report on from The Sorrows of Young Werther. Consider the following list of general attributes of romantic thought. I’d like to get all of these covered, but if we have more takers, we can double up (or come up with some more obscure ones).
14: Both “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” and “Copenhagen” involve serious distortions of reality — the one play questioning the ontology and offstage existence of minor characters, and their grasp on life and death between and behind the scenes, while the other forces dead characters to review and revisit their lives and consider what they meant. How are those distortions organic to the plays, and are they successful in disclosing a deeper reality?
Friday, Dec 16.
Best Wishes to you and to your families and loved ones for a blessed celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord.
The Novel
15: Write and post to the conference center your presentation on romantic themes in The Sorrows of Young Werther. Please note the due date.
Monday, Jan 2, 2011.
30. Tue, Jan 3, 2012: Please have finished Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Ch. 1 of Booth. Introduction to German romanticism in reference to English and American romanticism and transcendentalism.
This is not a very long book, and it’s really fairly easy to read. When it hit Europe, it was considered earth-shaking stuff, and it still packs a wallop. It’s not, on many accounts (including my own) a very pleasant book, and it deals with some rather distasteful material (I’ll let you find out in due course — I don’t want to give anything away), and some fabulously self-absorbed and self-pitying thinking. At the same time, though, it is remarkable in the way in which it, in 1775, prefigures almost every major impulse of the Romantic movement, which did not really get its published manifesto in England until Wordsworth and Coleridge published the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800.
It’s easy to go through a list of romantic “hallmarks” of the sort I’ve listed above — and I’m far from denying that they are useful, either. At the same time, what I’d like you to try to perceive and identify is the underlying thing that makes romanticism what it is — what is the impulse? What is it saying? We’ve studied this in English literature and in American literature, and you certainly should be drawing comparisons as you can here. But is there some irreducible romantic quiddity, so to speak?
31. Thu, Jan 5, 2012: Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, individual presentations: analyzing the topics of the romantic in Werther; synthesis and evaluation.
You should also be starting Emma now. It will have two advantages: it will give you the time you require to read it, and it will also clear some of the strange thoughts out of your head from Werther. Today we will assign the presentations on Emma.
16: Select a section of a few paragraphs of Emma, and analyze it closely for style and the use of language specifically in dialogue.
This is a fairly straightforward question, calling for disciplined thought. I’m looking more for depth than for breadth. How does Austen control the characterization and the imaginative space in the novel through her language, and how does she use these to create humor? Pick a reasonably short passage and dig into it.
Friday, Jan 6.
32. Tue, Jan 10, 2012: Have read at least the first half of Austen, Emma, and Ch. 2 of Booth. Discussion: background; Austen as an anti-Romantic author. Assign special topics from the Norton Emma edition for discussion and analysis.
Emma is regarded by some as Jane Austen’s best novel. It may be — though there are a couple of other claimants as well, chiefly Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Be that as it may, this one is challenging and intriguing for its placement of characters, and its rigorous point-of-view writing.
33. Thu, Jan 12, 2012: Please finish reading Austen, Emma. Plot structure and organization in Emma. Austen’s technique of characterization: Emma Woodhouse as a kind of multiple character; character and dialogue technique in Emma. Free discussion if time remains.
17: Write and post to the conference center your presentation on the assigned article from the Norton Critical Emma.
I would like each of you to read all the posted presentations; you can also begin the discussion we'll continue in class next week. As before, don't worry about producing a critique of forms here: follow the ideas and see what you make of them. Please note the due date.
Friday, Jan 13.
34. Tue, Jan 17, 2012: Please begin Brontë, Wuthering Heights, and Ch. 3 of Booth. Individual presentations. Style and narrative voice in Emma.
35. Thu, Jan 19, 2012: Please have read at least the first half of Brontë, Wuthering Heights, and Ch. 4 of Booth. Discussion: The gothic novel as romantic or post-romantic form.
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is a moderately difficult book to read, requiring physical and emotional stamina — there are long stretches that seem unrelievedly gloomy, populated with characters whose chief aim seems to be mutual torment. All in all, it is a curious and hard-to-interpret product — one that can be analyzed as romantic, as gothic (something of a romantic extreme) or as anti-romantic. However you take it, though, it is a strangely disciplined piece of writing, and constructed with a meticulous care that bears close examination. It also raises issues of character development and tonality that will resonate throughout the subsequent history of the novel.
18: Write your presentation on the article from Wuthering Heights. Have it in the conference center in time for everyone to read it before class Tuesday.
Friday, Jan 20.
36. Tue, Jan 24, 2012: Please have finished Brontë, Wuthering Heights. Free discussion: Hero and anti-hero. Comparison of Brontë’s characters with Austen’s and those of other characters we’ve met. Begin presentations.
37. Thu, Jan 26, 2012: Please begin reading Turgenev, Fathers and Sons. Today in class, we’ll go through the individual presentations on Wuthering Heights and Ch. 5 of Booth.
19: Post to the conference center your discussion of your assigned articles on Fathers and Sons. Note due date.
Friday, Jan. 27.
38. Tue, Jan 31, 2012: Finish Turgenev, Fathers and Sons. Begin discussion of Fathers and Sons.
39. Thu, Feb 2, 2012: Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, individual presentations.
A: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it.
Friday, Feb 3.
40. Tue, Feb 7, 2012: Please have read Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables, and Ch. 6 of Booth. General discussion; perhaps begin individual presentations.
41. Thu, Feb 9, 2012: Have completed Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables. Review and free discussion of the so-called American Renaissance, Romanticism, Symbolism. If you haven’t recently reviewed Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, too, you should revisit it. It will provide exceptionally good leverage against almost every other form of fiction, and can also (for what it’s worth) be used to answer at least half the AP Free-response questions ever written.
20: Post your assigned discussion of the Hawthorne novel to the conference center.
Friday, Feb 10.
42. Tue, Feb 14, 2012: Please have read Ch. 7 of Booth. Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables, individual presentations.
43. Thu, Feb 16, 2012: Please have read Melville, Billy Budd. General discussion.
B: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it..
Friday, Feb 17.
44. Tue, Feb 21, 2012: Begin Tolstoy, War and Peace; and Ch. 8 of Booth. We may continue anything that needs to be wrapped up with Billy Budd, depending on how things work out.
45. Thu, Feb 23, 2012: Tolstoy, War and Peace.
C: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it.
Friday, Feb 24.
46. Tue, Feb 28, 2012: Tolstoy, War and Peace, and Ch. 9 of Booth.
47. Thu, Mar 1, 2012: Tolstoy, War and Peace.
D: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it.
Friday, Mar 2.
48. Tue, Mar 6, 2012: Have finished Tolstoy, War and Peace, and Ch. 10 of Booth. Free discussion: theme in War and Peace. Assign presentation topics on Heart of Darkness: these are to be chosen from among the various critical schools mentioned there.
49. Thu, Mar 8, 2012: War and Peace — wrap-ups and leftovers.
E: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it.
Friday, Mar 9.
50. Tue, Mar 13, 2012: Have read Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
51. Thu, Mar 15, 2012: Heart of Darkness, and Ch. 11 of Booth.
21: Write your seminar presentation on Heart of Darkness from the Murfin edition.
Friday, Mar 16.
52. Tue, Mar 20, 2012: Heart of Darkness presentations. You should have begun your reading of Ethan Frome.
53. Thu, Mar 22, 2012: Discussion of Ethan Frome.
22: Post your Ethan Frome presentations to the forum.
Friday, Mar 23.
54. Tue, Mar 27, 2012: Discussion of Ethan Frome..
55. Thu, Mar 29, 2012: Please read Ch. 12 of Booth. In class we’ll go over Ethan Frome, individual presentations.
F: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it.
Friday, Mar 30.
Best Wishes to you and to your families and loved ones for a blessed celebration of Holy Week and the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord.
56. Tue, Apr 10, 2012: Please have read Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and Ch. 13 of Booth. General discussion of The Great Gatsby.
57. Thu, Apr 12, 2012: The Great Gatsby, concluded.
G: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it.
Friday, Apr 13.
58. Tue, Apr 17, 2012: Have read C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces, and Booth’s Afterword.
This novel is the last Lewis wrote, and it is one of his most thoughtful and challenging. I hope you will find it as thought-provoking as I have.
59. Thu, Apr 19, 2012: C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces, general discussion and conclusion.
H: I am sending you a sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it.
Monday, Apr 20.
60. Tue, Apr 24, 2012: Have read entire, Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day.
This remarkable novel is written by a Japanese author, but is virtually pitch-perfect in the way it resonates with English social life of the period between the World Wars. At the same time, it is a structurally fascinating novel, governed by an overall metaphor of the journey. It probably indicates something about where the novel (at its best) is headed in the twenty-first century — an international English voice seems to be prevailing for now.
61. Thu, Apr 26, 2012: Finish discussing Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day.
I: I am sending you one last sample AP exam question by e-mail. You should not take more than forty minutes completing it..
Friday, Apr 27.
62. Tue, May 1, 2012: Overall discussion; review of Booth, Perrine, and Bentley; exam-taking strategies.
63. Thu, May 3, 2012: More on exam-taking strategies.
64. Tue, May 8, 2012: More on exam-taking strategies.
65. Thu, May 10, 2012: No class.
AP EXAM, MORNING ADMINISTRATION (8:00 A.M., your region).
66. Tue, May 15, 2012: Exam debriefing.
67. Thu, May 17, 2012: Retrospective and assessment; party. We’ll determine whether there are to be any further meetings after this.
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