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Guide to Literary and Critical Theory

Guide to Literary and Critical Theory

Imagism - Wikipedia Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. Imagism has been described as the most influential movement in English poetry since the activity of the Pre-Raphaelites.[1] As a poetic style it gave Modernism its start in the early 20th century,[2] and is considered to be the first organized Modernist literary movement in the English language.[3] Imagism is sometimes viewed as 'a succession of creative moments' rather than any continuous or sustained period of development.[4] René Taupin remarked that 'It is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles'.[5] Imagist publications appearing between 1914 and 1917 featured works by many of the most prominent modernist figures, both in poetry and in other fields. Pre-Imagism[edit] Des Imagistes[edit] Legacy[edit]

Winston Churchill's Way With Words hide captionWinston Churchill wrote every word of his many speeches — he said he'd spend an hour working on a single minute of a speech. Above, he is shown speaking during the 1945 election campaign. Express/Getty Images Winston Churchill is best remembered as the British prime minister whose speeches rallied a nation under a relentless Nazi onslaught in World War II. hide captionThough he went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Churchill didn't always excel in school. Courtesy of Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge Now, a new exhibition at the Morgan Library in New York City, Churchill: The Power of Words, holds a megaphone to Churchill's extraordinary oratory. On May 13, 1940, three days after Germany invaded France, Churchill gave his first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons, a speech that was later broadcast to the public. In another landmark speech, Churchill proclaimed: "You ask, what is our aim? The citation, Kiely says, is wonderful. Keystone/Getty Images

Paragraphs and Topic Sentences A paragraph is a series of sentences that are organized and coherent, and are all related to a single topic. Almost every piece of writing you do that is longer than a few sentences should be organized into paragraphs. This is because paragraphs show a reader where the subdivisions of an essay begin and end, and thus help the reader see the organization of the essay and grasp its main points. Paragraphs can contain many different kinds of information. A paragraph could contain a series of brief examples or a single long illustration of a general point. It might describe a place, character, or process; narrate a series of events; compare or contrast two or more things; classify items into categories; or describe causes and effects. A well-organized paragraph supports or develops a single controlling idea, which is expressed in a sentence called the topic sentence. Most paragraphs in an essay have a three-part structure—introduction, body, and conclusion. Repeat key words or phrases.

Partially Examined Life Ep.52: Saussure/Levi-Strauss/Derrida Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:47:06 — 98.1MB) On Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics (1916) (Part I and Part II, Ch. 4), Claude Levi-Strauss’s “The Structural Study of Myth” (1955), and Jacques Derrida’s “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” (1966). What is language? What is the relation between language and reality? End song: “Slipped into Words,” written and recorded by Mark in 1991, released on The MayTricks, which you can freely download in full. If you enjoy the episode, please donate at least $1: by

Modernist literature - Wikipedia Literary Modernism has its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in Europe and North America. Modernism is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional styles of poetry and verse. Modernists experimented with literary form and expression, adhering to the modernist maxim to "Make it new." The modernist literary movement was driven by a desire to overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of their time. [ 1 ] [ edit ] Introduction In the 1880s a strand of thinking began to assert that it was necessary to push aside previous norms entirely, instead of merely revising past knowledge in light of contemporary techniques. Friedrich Nietzsche was another major precursor of modernism [ ] with a philosophy in which psychological drives, specifically the 'Will to power', were more important than facts, or things. [ edit ] Origins of Modernist literature [ edit ] Continuation: 1920s and 1930s [ edit ] Modernist literature after 1939

LitWeb - The Norton Introduction to Literature: W. W. Norton & Company StudySpace When it comes to the study of literature, reading and writing are closely inter-related—even mutually dependent—activities. On the one hand, the quality of whatever we write about a literary text depends entirely upon the quality of our work as readers. On the other hand, our reading isn’t truly complete until we’ve tried to capture our sense of a text in writing. Indeed, we often read a literary work much more actively and attentively when we integrate informal writing into the reading process—pausing periodically to mark especially important or confusing passages, to jot down significant facts, to describe the impressions and responses the text provokes—or when we imagine our reading (and our informal writing) as preparation for writing about the work in a more sustained and formal way. Writing about literature can take any number of forms, ranging from the very informal and personal to the very formal and public.

LitWeb - The Norton Introduction to Literature: W. W. Norton & Company StudySpace W. W. Norton Home | Help | Contact Us | Site map | Site Credits LitWeb - The Norton Introduction to Literature StudySpace Genres Workshops Writing About Literature Glossary Tutorials Writing about Literature Paraphrase, Summary, Description Quiz Take the quiz about this section. Norton/Write The Norton Gradebook Instructors and students now have an easy way to track online quiz scores with the Norton Gradebook. Go to the Norton Gradebook American Passages Visit our companion site, American Passages. Back to Top Links Norton Website College Books Professional Books Trade Books Help Desk About W. W. This site and the materials contained herein ©2014 W.W. Literature

Stream of consciousness - Wikipedia This article is about the literary device. To read about the prewriting technique, see Free writing. Stream of consciousness is a narrative device used in literature "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind. Another phrase for it is 'interior monologue'."[1] The term "Stream of Consciousness" was coined by philosopher and psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890): consciousness, then, does not appear to itself as chopped up in bits ... it is nothing joined; it flows. In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue (see below), or in connection to his or her actions. Stream of consciousness The technique continued to be used into the 1970s in a novel such as Robert Anton Wilson/Robert Shea collaborative Illuminatus! Jump up ^ J. Cohn, Dorrit.

Exquisite corpse an exquisite corpse Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver (from the original French term cadavre exquis) or rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun," as in “The green duck sweetly sang the dreadful dirge”) or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed. History[edit] In a variant now known as picture consequences, instead of sentences, portions of a person were drawn.[3] Later the game was adapted to drawing and collage, producing a result similar to children's books in which the pages were cut into thirds, the top third pages showing the head of a person or animal, the middle third the torso, and the bottom third the legs, with children having the ability to "mix and match" by turning pages. Modern examples[edit] William S. See also[edit] Notes[edit]

Nominalizations Are Zombie Nouns Draft is a series about the art and craft of writing. Take an adjective (implacable) or a verb (calibrate) or even another noun (crony) and add a suffix like ity, tion or ism. You’ve created a new noun: implacability, calibration, cronyism. Sounds impressive, right? Nouns formed from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction. The sentence above contains no fewer than seven nominalizations, each formed from a verb or an adjective. Writers who overload their sentences with nominalizations tend to sound pompous and abstract. Only one zombie noun – the key word nominalizations – has been allowed to remain standing. At their best, nominalizations help us express complex ideas: perception, intelligence, epistemology. Elena Giavaldi Most major scientific theories rebuff common sense. Why does reading this paragraph feel like trudging through deep mud?

Humanities

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