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?
How the British Exploited Sri Lanka By J.B. Müller The Sri Lankan Diaspora overseas (mainly in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the USA) eagerly and indiscriminately absorbs everything appearing about their Motherland in the international print and electronic media. All what is done is done in the naïve belief that there isn’t a spin on the news and that it […]
Read moreWhy Do We Study Literature Banquet Speech John Steinbeck’s speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962 Listen to an Audio Recording of John Steinbeck’s Speech at the Nobel Banquet Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches – nor is it a game for […]
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B.A. in English from University of London B. A. in English from University of London External Programmes Are you a voracious reader of works of literature? Do you have a “Sense of English Language” coupled with a “Bent on Literarture”? Would you love to become a teacher of literature? Would you love to engage your learners in discussions instead of one man […]
Read moreReading & Enjoying Shakespeare, the supreme center of the Western Canon Compiled by bunpeiris Of all the images of Shakespeare, I like this most: the image with a ring in the ear. Of course, Shakespeare had no pretensions. An interesting idea by some punk [eh!] painter. I love that ring, a glorious diamond in the ear like that of […]
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William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet Marginal Comments by bunpeiris It all catches fire with insanely wagging tongues of a couple of slapstick cowards, minions: not at all by steel of the masters. A brawl among the bawdy & rowdy from the houses of Montague and Capulet equal in dignity, succeeds in setting ablaze an unknown ancient feud between the […]
Read moreFigurative Language [ Part 1] Figurative language The use of words to express meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words themselves: metaphor, simile, hyperbole, oxymoron, personification Figurative language is the opposite of literal language Literal language means exactly what it says. Figurative language makes the reader or listener use his imagination & understand much more than plain words. He […]
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The Iliad. His mind fluttered; his fingers almost trembled. He was only eight years old & the epic narration of a war that had lasted no less than a decade held him,gripping tightly, at once with a pain and a pleasure in an unbearable state of being. Unbearable, for the reason, now it praises the gallantry of a hero; then it weeps at […]
Read moreTHE GOD OF POEMS: RABINDRANATH TAGORE by bunpeiris Rabindranath Tagore http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22217/22217-h/22217-h.htm No single modern literary work has ever revealed to the West the beauty of Indian culture as Gitanjali has done. Gitanjali is a work of literature like none other: it is timeless and priceless. All the poems under the stars are fickle drops of glistening dew on the cusps of petals of […]
Read moreAnthony Burgess Following article is republished herein by the kind courtesy of International Anthony Burgess Foundation. Anthony Burgess was a late starter in the art of fiction. He spent many years as a school teacher in England and Malaya before his first novel, Time for a Tiger, was published in 1956, by which time he was 39 years old. He had […]
Read moreShakespeare in a nutshell by bunpeiris Was Shakespeare [1564- 1616] fortunate to have lived in the golden age [Queen Elizabeth’s reign: 1558–1603] of English history, or was it the golden age that was fortunate to have him? The worst of times, the best of works It has been argued the best of the literary works comes into life in […]
Read moreShakespeare was and wasn’t Following gleaning is off the website of Virginia Commonwealth University VCU MENORAH REVIEW Winter/Spring 2009Number 70 The Ancient Grudge: The Merchant of Venice and Shylock’s Christian Problem Shakespeare was not an anti-Semite like Antonio and Gratiano nor a racist like Portia and Brabantio nor a sociopath like Richard III nor cynical like Jaques nor disdainful like Coriolanus […]
Read moreBreathe your voice to those nightingales Breathe your voice to those nightingales, so they may sing sweeter Offer your cheeks to the pink lotus overwhelming the pond, so they look still more rosier Let the jewels hold the sparkle of your eyes tight, so those may shine brighter share your vermilion lips with the tender leaf of Ironweed, so […]
Read moreThe Bible Vs. Western Cannon So, we are back. You guys [as you say] must have viewed and enjoyed, during the holidays, at MC, Sir Ridley Scott’s [Unlike, your sirs at the school, eh!, Scott was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his “services to the British film industry” in the year 2003- Hollywood blockbusters Gladiator (starring Russel Crowe), Black Hawk […]
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Becoming Krishna by bunpeiris Let noble thoughts come to us from every side. Rigveda 1-89-I [1] “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare “She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks […]
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