Reading and Writing about Literature
Compiled by
Wang Langlang
Xiamen University
2007
中英翻译网站Revid and adapted from
Aho, William, ed. Reading and Writing about Short Stories. Unpublished manuscript, 2003.
hkmaWang Shouren and Zhao Yu, eds. British and American Fiction. Nanjing: Nanjing Unversity Press, 1994.
Yuan Xianjun and Qian Kunqiang eds. Approaching Fiction. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2004
Foote, David W., et al. Contemporary Short Stories. New York: McDougal, Littell and Company, 1996.
Short stories and poems texts taken from various Internet faithlesslibraries.
Part I
Reading and Writing about Short Stories
Introduction
Everyone has a story of some kind to tell. In ancient times, before TV and the printing press, story telling was the chief amument新概念美音版—nearly the only entertainment in town. Music and stories whiled away long nights, and the yarn-spinners that most cleverly embellished their tales were usually honored guests at campfires and tables. Polished and honed stories of valor and conquest also became the primary means of transferring cultural values to the next generation. A clever hero inspired emulation; a despid villain中小学辅导网 invoked ridicule.
The value of a good story, taken as a whole, considers both the literal and the implied meaning, and thus is always greater than the sum of the two parts. There are nebulous aspects of tone and style in literature that affect emotions, and are often difficult to pinpoint. Attempts to explain the unexplainable impact of literature on the human mind and soul has kept critics occupied since Plato
新东方优能Readers of fiction are awakened to the common denominations of human nature. Although times, places, and peoples change, the human struggle repeats itlf with different names. Inhabitants of this planet past and prent, reprent one people and literature recreates this common ground. Daily life, romance, hope, despair, fear, love, hate, good and evil are the matter of life in every age and every culture from Homer, to Shakespeare, to Hemingway. By studying literature we realize we are not so different as we may have thought.
Good stories survive becau of the fresh and startling ideas and insights they offer. Ideas and insight have the power to liberate our minds and our imaginations and to cau us to reflect critically about our own values, beliefs, and assumptions.
The short stories in this text are carefully chon for two purpos: to delight the reader, and to rve as illustrations of rhetorical techniques that turn reporting into literature. Getting a grip on the techniques is the key to the enjoyment and analysis of the art of literary communication.
Literary Vocabulary
Irony. Irony is a contrast between appearance and actuality.
斯图尔特和帕丁森 Situation irony is the contrast between what a reader or character expects and what actually exists or happens.
Dramatic irony is the contrast between what a character in a story knows about events and what the reader knows.
Theme. Theme is the central idea, or message, in a work of literature. It is the writer’s perception about life or humanity that is shared with the reader.
Mood. Mood is the feeling, or atmosphere, that a writer creates for the reader. The mood of a work could be described as sinister, cheerful, exciting, dreamlike, or ntimental.
Setting. Setting is the time and place of the action of a story.
Symbol. A symbol is a person, place, activity, or object that reprents something beyond itlf.
Characterization. Characterization refers to the techniques a writer us to develop characters. There are four basic methods of characterizations: (1) through physical description; (2) through a character’s speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions; (3) through the speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions of other characters; and (4) through the narrator’s direct comments about a character.
Point of View.社会实践调查报告格式 Point of view refers to the工业机器人教育 narrative method, or the kind of narrator, ud in a literary work. Many stories u third-person point of view: the story is told by a narrative voice outside the action. Other stories, however, ud first-person point of view: the narrator is a character in the story who tells everything in his or her own words.
Plot Structure. Plot refers to the actions and events in a literary work. In a traditional narrative, plot structure consists if the exposition, the rising action, the climax, and the falling action.
Style. Style is the way in which piece of literature is written. Style refers not to what is said but to how it is said. Elements such as word choice, length of ntence, comparisons, tone, mood, and u of dialogue contribute to a writer’s personal style. (Earnest Hemmingway’s汽车抛光 style might be described as restrained in its u of short ntences and minimal description.)
