What is the difference between story and plot? What is the difference between plot summary and plot interpretation? How do you analyze the relationship between the main plot and a subplot? What are the purposes of literary elements and literary techniques? What are the writer’s literary devices and reader’s literary devices? How do you recognize and appreciate ways in which writer use language, structure and style to achieve his intended effects on the reader? How do you shift from mere appreciation of a literary text to critical literary appreciation? How do you engage in literary analysis & what is the purpose? What is the difference between topic and theme and how do you arrive at the theme? How do you compare the theme and the moral message? How do you develop an interpretation of a work of literature (drama, poetry and prose) and what is the purpose? How do you present critical appreciations or your individual responses to literary texts composed in different forms and in different periods and cultures? How do you know your individual response is valid? What are the differences between Critical Literary Appreciation, Literary Criticism, and Literary Theory? Why should there be a Literary theory at all?
“The Divorcee” and “The Defeated”: the socially condemned “Both Ken Saro-Wiwa and Nadine Gordimer portray the plight of groups of people who have been socially condemned.” Discuss this statement with reference to short stories ‘The Divorcee” and ‘The Defeated.” Written in PEEL [Point, Explanation, Evidence, Link] format by BunPeiris Both Ken Saro-Wiwa and Nadine Gordimer portray the plight of groups […]
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Plot construction & Aspects of Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Written by BunPeiris “Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to meThat yet we sleep, we dream” [A Midsummer Night’s Dream: William Shakespeare] Plot construction A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy composed and stage directed by the foremost dramatist, the ultimate humanist writer ever. But Shakespeare would […]
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Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte : women ahead of their times Written by BunPeiris In what ways might the knowledge of the social and political context in which Jane Eyre was written and first published contribute to an understanding of the novel? “I resisted all the way; a new thing for me…,” [10 year old Jane, while being dragged by […]
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George Herzog and Harold Courlander Talk Once, not far from the city of Acera on the Gulf of Guinea, a country man went out to his garden to dig up some yams to take to market. While he was digging one of the yams said to him: “Well, at last you’re here. You never weeded me, but now you come […]
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Amy Tan Rules of The Game I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games. “Bite back your tongue,” scolded my mother when I cried loudly, yanking her hand toward the store that […]
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The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind “The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind” was written during the Cold War, a period of intense rivalry between the United States and the former Soviet Union that shaped the politics in the second half of the twentieth century. During this time, each action by one country-the creation of a weapon, the launching of a […]
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Little Gems of Literature: Holiday reading for Grade 8,9,10 & 11 with bunpeiris in April, August & December at Kandana bunpeiris@gmail.com 0777 1000 60 The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy When Grandmama died at 83 our whole household held its breath. She had promised us a sign her leaving, final proof that her present life had ended well. My parents […]
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Little Gems of Literature: Holiday reading for Grade 8,9,10 and 11 with bunpeiris in April, August & December at Kandana. bunpeiris@gmail.com 0777 1000 60 New Directions by Maya Angelou In 1903 the late Mrs. Annie Johnson of Arkansas found herself with two toddling sons, very little money, a slight ability to read and add simple numbers. To this picture add a disastrous […]
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Teaching & Learning Literature REQUIREMENTS, APPRECIATIONS AND EXPERIENCES by bunpeiris Stories tell us how to live. Literature being all about us, the human race; being trained upon of the tragicomedy of the lonely race with intelligent aliens yet to be found for company; being homed in on the march of folly throughout their millenniums of history; being bullseyed on the human condition, to introduce this man-made treasure […]
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Homer and Shakespeare “Short is the life of man, just like the dew-drop on the tip of a blade of grass; a bubble appearing on the water when rain falls; a line drawn on water with a stick; a mountain stream; a lump of spittle on the tip of the tongue; a piece of meat thrown into an extremely hot iron […]
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1001 Arabian Nights: Richard Burton’s Foreword Following Forward to the 1001 Arabian Nights by its illustrious translator Richard F. Burton is reproduced herein by the kind cortesy of The Dunyazad Digital Library www.dunyazad-library.net This work, labourious as it may appear, has been to me a labour of love, an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During my long years […]
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Chinua Achebe’s Times Engagement and Estrangement Chinua Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite, by Terri Ochiagha Willy Maley on an ‘Eton of the East’ in Nigeria that inadvertently inspired a generation of writers At a time when UK higher education managers talk of “internationalisation” and “world-changing research” while limiting participation and undermining the arts and […]
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