Class Notes- Week Four Oct 4-8

Week Four

Perrine Reading

Chapter 8-Allusions

• Allusion- reference to something in history or previous literature
• Titles can be allusions
• Allusions can be dangerous, not everyone may know to what you are referring.
• Many come from the Bible

Chapter 9- Meaning and Idea

• Total meaning- experience it communicates
• Prose meaning- ‘ingredient’ of a poem that can be separated out\
• Prose meaning will not necessarily or perhaps even usually be an idea
• There may not always be a message
• Value of a poem is not so much on truth of an idea, as it is on the power to which it is communicated

Ap Test

Two Sections actual test and a writing portion.

• 50-55 multiple choice questions
• Look more at style then symbols
• Always ask why author does this
• Need to study vocab
• Have two hours for essays and one hour for multiple choice
• Three open response essays
• A closed reading section

The Critical Approaches and Test

• Feminism- Examines women’s roles and the treatment of women in literature.  Focuses on gender stereotypes, differences between males and females, as well as power struggles between the two genders.
• Archetypal and Mythological- Focuses on myths
• mythological= human nature, religion, culture, and history
• archetypal= universally well-known themes from myths
• Psychoanalytical-Literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author. About what author didn’t intend.
• Formalism-Focuses on literary tools and devices used in a text. Author uses literary elements to present point. 
• Postcolonial- Concerned with postcolonial texts. Looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture. Analyzes changes as a result of colonialism and its end
• New Historicism- Looks at the historical context and implications of the piece. Utilizes historical influence author’s background, and social background to draw conclusions.
• Marxist-Society is made up of 2 parts: base (economic structure) and the superstructure (everything else). Provides an angle on literature that analyzes the economic, and resulting social situations in a story. Class Struggle.