English 480 Fall 2023

We’re going to move on now to start looking at narrative prose fiction.  We’ll kick off this new episode by talking about characters and “characterization” – – a pretty universal feature of narrative.  For Thursday, read this summary of characterization.  For Tuesday, September 19, read the short story, “Two Gallants,” from James Joyce’s Dubliners.

Also, I’ve posted info for our first formal assignment – – the “Mystery Text Assignment.”  It’s due on Tuesday, September 26.  Take a look at it and bring any questions etc. to class this Tuesday.

For Thursday, read through the poems by Rich, Rukeyser, and Plath.  Pick the one that seems the richest and most interesting to you.  Start a semiotic reading of your selected poem.

To do this, recall the steps:

1. First, get a sheet or two or three of paper and a writing instrument.
2. Next, print the poem out and highlight or underline all the high-value words in the poem.  High-value words are words that seem very particular or very important.  I.e. “the,” “a,” “is,” etc. are not usually high-value words.  (Recall the list of high-calorie words we culled from Frost’s “Stopping by Woods.”)
3. Make a list of these high-value words.  Examine the list and ask yourself some questions: are there any similar words in the list – – words that go together? are there contrasting words in the list – – words that seem opposite in meaning?  Re-organize your list to group these similar and dissimilar words together.
4. Focus for the moment on the dissimilar or opposing words.  Do these pairs seem to echo some common opposition or contrast?  (E.g. natural/human, colors, solitude/company, sound or other senses, etc.). What you are doing here is looking for patterns, groups of words that seem to cluster around a particular difference or opposition.
5. Once you’ve found a pattern – – that begins with particular paired words from the poem – – now is the time to re-read the poem.  How does your pattern help you to grasp a meaning/s for the poem?  How might this pattern help you to interpret the poem?  Write a couple of paragraphs answering these questions.

Bring all your work on your selected poem (along with your Frost stuff, which I forgot to collect on Tuesday) – – highlighted text of poem, list of paired/associated words, pattern clusters, and your two or three paragraphs – – to class on Tuesday.

For Tuesday, let’s keep practicing our semiotic reading.  This time, let’s go to town on Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”

Don’t worry about working on the three poems – – Plath, Rich, Rukeyser – – indicated on our syllabus.  But do print out the poems and bring them to class on Tuesday. (I would happily print and duplicate – – but the university is restricting instructors’ xerox accounts to minimal quantities.)

Remember, here’s our working procedure for semiotic reading:

1. First, get a sheet or two or three of paper and a writing instrument.
2. Next, print the poem out and highlight or underline all the high-value words in the poem.  High-value words are words that seem very particular or very important.  I.e. “the,” “a,” “is,” etc. are not usually high-value words.  Recall that in Frost’s “Two Roads,” I suggested that the high-value words in the first line included “roads,” “diverged,” “yellow,” “wood.”
3. Make a list of these high-value words.  Examine the list and ask yourself some questions: are there any similar words in the list – – words that go together? are there contrasting words in the list – – words that seem opposite in meaning?  Re-organize your list to group these similar and dissimilar words together.
4. Focus for the moment on the dissimilar or opposing words.  Do these pairs seem to echo some common opposition or contrast?  (E.g. natural/human, colors, solitude/company, sound or other senses, etc.). What you are doing here is looking for patterns, groups of words that seem to cluster around a particular difference or opposition.
5. Once you’ve found a pattern – – that begins with particular paired words from the poem – – now is the time to re-read the poem.  How does your pattern help you to grasp a meaning/s for the poem?  How might this pattern help you to interpret the poem?  Write a couple of paragraphs answering these questions.

Bring your all of your work on “Road Not Taken” (and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”) – – highlighted text of poem, list of paired/associated words, pattern clusters, and your two or three paragraphs – – to class on Tuesday.

We talked about Saussure and semiotics on Tuesday – – and Maya has rendered some excellent class notes to refresh your memory.

For Thursday, I’d like you to start a semiotic reading of another Frost poem – – “Stopping by Woods on a Snow Evening.”  Remember, the goal (and method) of reading semiotically is to work inductively (from particulars to generals) rather than deductively (from general to particular).  Another way of thinking about this: we don’t start out looking for the meaning of a poem; we start by looking for patterns created by the words (i.e. signifiers).

Here’s how I want you to try reading the poem:

1. First, get a sheet or two or three of paper and a writing instrument.
2. Next, print the poem out and highlight or underline all the high-value words in the poem.  High-value words are words that seem very particular or very important.  I.e. “the,” “a,” “is,” etc. are not usually high-value words.  Recall that in Frost’s “Two Roads,” I suggested that the high-value words in the first line included “roads,” “diverged,” “yellow,” “wood.”
3. Make a list of these high-value words.  Examine the list and ask yourself some questions: are there any similar words in the list – – words that go together? are there contrasting words in the list – – words that seem opposite in meaning?  Re-organize your list to group these similar and dissimilar words together.
4. Focus for the moment on the dissimilar or opposing words.  Do these pairs seem to echo some common opposition or contrast?  (E.g. natural/human, colors, solitude/company, sound or other senses, etc.). What you are doing here is looking for patterns, groups of words that seem to cluster around a particular difference or opposition.
5. Once you’ve found a pattern – – that begins with particular paired words from the poem – – now is the time to re-read the poem.  How does your pattern help you to grasp a meaning/s for the poem?  How might this pattern help you to interpret the poem?  Write a couple of paragraphs answering these questions.

Bring your analysis of the poem – – highlighted text of poem, list of paired/associated words, pattern clusters, and your two or three paragraphs – – to class on Tuesday.

For Tuesday, read Daniel Chandler’s “Semiotics for Beginners.”  This may help to clear up some of the confusion you may have experienced with Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics.

For Thursday, read this brief excerpt from de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics and Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.”  We’ll talk about the Frost poem on Tuesday (8/29).  For Thursday, answer the questions in the box below. (Try to answer the questions by Friday (8/25) at noon.)

Welcome to English 480/Junior Seminar!

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