甘肃省玉门市陇中苜蓿良种繁育基地.doc

Introduction I. Why do we have such course? English literature is one of the compulsory and most important courses. However, the English literature courses offered are merely taught at the level of learning general information and developing literal understanding. Admittedly, such courses help them/you a lot in their/your acquisition of the English language. But the function of English literature reaches far beyond that. In reading English literature, a student should have the power to discern how human beings translate their experience into artistic expression and representation; how writers, through their creative impulses, convey to us their insights into human destiny and human life; and how social concern is involved in a specific form of human imagination. In addition, students should elevate to the level of cultivating a curiosity for the unknown, thinking cogently and logically, expressing themselves clearly and concisely, and observing the world around them critically and objectively. But most students are still at a loss as to how they can effectively analyze a literary work by themselves in any of these respects, even though they have read plenty of excerpts from representative works in the British and American literary canon. And they tend to have little idea what role the beginning part plays in the whole story, how the plot develops and comes to resolution, in what way point of view determines a readers understanding of the story, and how the images and symbols are related to the theme. Upon consideration of these factors, we have such course with the intention of cultivating both students literary sensibilities and their /your critical power when reading English short stories and novels. II. Introduction about reading a story 1. What is Story? “Yes oh, dear, yesthe novel tells a story.” This is Forsters remark, which is worth special attention, for he is someone in the trade and with rich experience. In his Aspects of the Novel he lists “story” as the first aspect. People reading novels for stories usually ask questions like “what happened next?” and “and” what would he do next?” These questions attest to the two basic elements of a story. The one is the event and the other the time. A story is a series of happenings arranged in the natural temporal order as they occur. Story is the basis of the novel, and indeed the basis of narrative works of all kinds. 2. The structure and functions of a story Plot; character; point of view; theme; style 3. What is Fiction? Fiction, the general term for invented stories, now usually applied to novels, short stories, novella, romances, fables, and other narrative works in prose, even though most plays and narrative poems are also fictional. (P. 83. Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms) 4. The Story and the Novel To read novels for story is nothing wrong, but nothing professional either. “One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.” The remark by the French writer jean de La Bruyere (16451696) is also true of the reader. If the purpose of the novel is only to tell stories, it could as well remain unborn, for newspapers and history books are sufficient to satisfy peoples desire for stories about both present and past, and even about future. In fact, many newapapermen have been dissatisfied with their job of reporting and come into the field of novel writing. Defoe, Dickens, Joyce, Hemingway and Camus were among the most famous and the most successful converts. Even historians may feel obliged to do more than mere stories or facts. Edward Gibborns Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is praised not only for its multitudinous facts and rationalistic analysis, but more for its beauty of narrative style. In telling stories, the novelist aims at something higher or he intends to add something to the mere “facts.” As indicated in the definition of the novel, what makes a novel is the novelists style (personalized presentation of the story) and interpretation of the story. Chapter One Plot I. What is Plot? 1. According to Aristotle what are the six elements of the structure of tragedy? Tragedy as a whole has just six constituent elements and they are plot, characters, verbal expression, thought, visual adornment, and songcomposition. For the elements by which they imitate are two (verbal expression and songcomposition), the manner in which they imitate is one (visual adornment), the things they imitate are three (plot, characters, thought), and there is nothing more beyond these. 2. What is Plot under the pens of modern novelists and storytellers? And how to understand “Plot” in a story? (“”ppt: The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.P. 6 It suspends the time-sequence, it moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow.) The story and the character alone can not make a novel ye. To make a novel, a plot is prerequisite. A look at the example suggested by E.M. Forster will help to distinguish between the story and the plot. “The king died and then the queen died” is not a plot, but a story. If we make it “The king died and then the queen died of grief, we have a plot. This causal phrase “of grief” indicates our interpretation and thus arrangement of the happenings. In the world of reality events take place one after another in the natural temporal order, but in the world of fiction it is the novelists design that one particular event occur after another particular event. The very word “plot” implies the novelists rebellion against the natural law and his endeavor to make meanings out of the happenings that may otherwise be meaningless. “The happenings” may or may not be real happenings.(So what plot is -) A plot is a particular arrangement of happenings in a novel that is aimed at revealing their causal relationships or at conveying the novelists ideas. A plot is sometimes called a story line. The most important of the traditional plot is that it should be a complete or unified action, that is, something with a beginning, a middle, and an end. 3. The dramatic situation in a story. 4. The three parts of a plot: a beginning (exposition), a middle (suspense or a series of suspense .foreshadowing crisis a moment of high tension), and an end(a climax, the moment of greatest tensionthe conclusionfalling action, resolution or denouement). Plot a beginning a middle an end exposition some other events climax (the moment (suspense, a series of suspense, of greatest tension, foreshadowing, crisis) the conclusion-falling action, resolution or denouement) II. Read the stories of Rip Van Winkle(Washington Irving) and David Swan (Nathaniel Hawthorne) III. Questions: (Finish reading the two stories and point out the plots of the two stories, the descriptive details, the exposition, characters) Rip Van Winkle 1. Descriptive details: the plot of the story? 2. What part of the story seems like the exposition? 3. Where does the dramatic conflict? 4. What is the climax of the story? David Swan 5. the plot of the story? 6. How fully does the author draw the characters in the story? (Character traits are the qualities of a characters personality. They are revealed through a characters actions and words and through description). 7. More works to do: something about the writers of the two stories. Chapter Two Character In the introduction we have said that fiction is an image of people in action, moving towards an undeclared end. Thus character is always involved in fiction, even in the story of the simplest action. Sometimes character is at the center of our interest because in character we may see many facets of the people we meet in our daily life and even of ourselves. Fictional character is always character in action and the character gets into action because it is caught in a situation of conflict and he/she is always provided with motivation: he/she has sufficient reasons to act or behave as he /she does. The character is doing something and the reader while reading fiction wants to know the “why” as well as the “what” of the affairs. (Sometimes a characters motive for an action is not explained on acceptable grounds, for example, the villain in Adgar Allan Poestory “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and thus the reader feels cheated. In this case, the writer of detective fiction who makes the criminal a mere lunatic has cheated the reader by avoiding the problem of motive.) And generally, the action itself is humanly significant and it ends usually in a shift in or clarification of human values, as displayed in John Updikes “A how writers, through their creative impulses, convey to us their insights into human destiny and human life; and how social concern is involved in a specific form of human imagination. In addition, students should elevate to the level of cultivating a curiosity for the unknown, thinking cogently and logically, expressing themselves clearly and concisely, and observing the world around them critically and objectively. But most students are still at a loss as to how they can effectively analyze a literary work by themselves in any of these respects, even though they have read plenty of excerpts from representative works in the British and American literary canon. And they tend to have little idea what role the beginning part plays in the whole story, how the plot develops and comes to resolution, in what way point of view determines a readers understanding of the story, and how the images and symbols are related to the theme. Upon consideration of these factors, we have such course with the intention of cultivating both students literary sensibilities and their /your critical power when reading English short stories and novels. II. Introduction about reading a story 1. What is Story? “Yes oh, dear, yesthe novel tells a story.” This is Forsters remark, which is worth special attention, for he is someone in the trade and with rich experience. In his Aspects of the Novel he lists “story” as the first aspect. People reading novels for stories usually ask questions like “what happened next?” and “and” what would he do next?” These questions attest to the two basic elements of a story. The one is the event and the other the time. A story is a series of happenings arranged in the natural temporal order as they occur. Story is the basis of the novel, and indeed the basis of narrative works of all kinds. 2. The structure and functions of a story Plot; character; point of view; theme; style 3. What is Fiction? Fiction, the general term for invented stories, now usually applied to novels, short stories, novella, romances, fables, and other narrative works in prose, even though most plays and narrative poems are also fictional. (P. 83. Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms) 4. The Story and the Novel To read novels for story is nothing wrong, but nothing professional either. “One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.” The remark by the French writer jean de La Bruyere (16451696) is also true of the reader. If the purpose of the novel is only to tell stories, it could as well remain unborn, for newspapers and history books are sufficient to satisfy peoples desire for stories about both present and past, and even about future. In fact, many newapapermen have been dissatisfied with their job of reporting and come into the field of novel writing. Defoe, Dickens, Joyce, Hemingway and Camus were among the most famous and the most successful converts. Even historians may feel obliged to do more than mere stories or facts. Edward Gibborns Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is praised not only for its multitudinous facts and rationalistic analysis, but more for its beauty of narrative style. In telling stories, the novelist aims at something higher or he intends to add something to the mere “facts.” As indicated in the definition of the novel, what makes a novel is the novelists style (personalized presentation of the story) and interpretation of the story. Chapter One Plot I. What is Plot? 1. According to Aristotle what are the six elements of the structure of tragedy? Tragedy as a whole has just six constituent elements and they are plot, characters, verbal expression, thought, visual adornment, and songcomposition. For the elements by which they imitate are two (verbal expression and songcomposition), the manner in which they imitate is one (visual adornment), the things they imitate are three (plot, characters, thought), and there is nothing more beyond these. 2. What is Plot under the pens of modern novelists and storytellers? And how to understand “Plot” in a story? (“”ppt: The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.P. 6 It suspends the time-sequence, it moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow.) The story and the character alone can not make a novel ye. To make a novel, a plot is prerequisite. A look at the example suggested by E.M. Forster will help to distinguish between the story and the plot. “The king died and then the queen died” is not a plot, but a story. If we make it “The king died and then the queen died of grief, we have a plot. This causal phrase “of grief” indicates our interpretation and thus arrangement of the happenings. In the world of reality events take place one after another in the natural temporal order, but in the world of fiction it is the novelists design that one particular event occur after another particular event. The very word “plot” implies the novelists rebellion against the natural law and his endeavor to make meanings out of the happenings that may otherwise be meaningless. “The happenings” may or may not be real happenings.(So what plot is -) A plot is a particular arrangement of happenings in a novel that is aimed at revealing their causal relationships or at conveying the novelists ideas. A plot is sometimes called a story line. The most important of the traditional plot is that it should be a complete or unified action, that is, something with a beginning, a middle, and an end. 3. The dramatic situation in a story. 4. The three parts of a plot: a beginning (exposition), a middle (suspense or a series of suspense .foreshadowing crisis a moment of high tension), and an end(a climax, the moment of greatest tensionthe conclusionfalling action, resolution or denouement). Plot a beginning a middle an end exposition some other events climax (the moment (suspense, a series of suspense, of greatest tension, foreshadowing, crisis) the conclusion-falling action, resolution or denouement) II. Read the stories of Rip Van Winkle(Washington Irving) and David Swan (Nathaniel Hawthorne) III. Questions: (Finish reading the two stories and point out the plots of the two stories, the descriptive detail