In evaluating some of Heaney's prose writings about the art of poetry -- what I have called his 'Poetics' -- the paper explores how those ideas could enhance the teaching of poetry in the upper post-primary schools. The paper is divided into four closely interconnected sections. The first section evaluates Heaney's thoughts about the potential…

This article presents an interview with the noted Nepali American fiction writer Samrat Upadhyay. Samrat Upadhyay's fiction is mostly about his native country of Nepal, but he writes mainly for an Anglo-American audience. In the interview, Upadhyay not only discusses his own work, but he also examines samples of prose by other Asian or Asian…

I propose that we think about what a paragraph is by considering its "function," what it does in a piece of writing, whether in a popular novel, a newspaper article, an e-mail, a business report, or a lofty piece of literary criticism. We might think about a paragraph as a "rhetorical dwelling."

In this article, the author offers cautionary advice to help avoid some tempting morasses to unwittingly fall into as well as some more solid ground to stroll along when composing institutional prose. Ultimately, drawing on concepts from the fields of business, linguistics, social psychology, and professional writing, the author wishes to…

Argues against Thomas O. Sloane's allegation that John Milton's "Artis Logicae," a commentary on Pierre de la Ramee's "Dialecticae libri duo," manifests antihumanism characteristics of Milton and Ramus. Reexamines Milton's account of probability, the links between Ramus and Cicero, and the roles Ramism played in sixteenth- and…

Students can learn to understand prose by carefully listening to the author's voice. The paper gives examples of prose in standard block form and in a poetic form, explaining why students find the poetic form more comprehensible. Students' awareness of rhetoric can be developed through the Myers Briggs inventory. (SM)

This issue of "Mahfil" is devoted to Sanskrit literature and contains a note on Sanskrit pronunciation and selections of Sanskrit literature. It also contains articles analyzing and discussing various aspects of the literature, including "Sanskrit Rhetoric and Poetic,""The Creative Role of the Goddess Vac in the…

This volume contains articles about South Asian literature and poetry by G.M. Muktibodh, P. Naik, S. Chattopadhyay, M. Kureishi, and P.S. Rege. The articles and authors are: "The Hindi 'Riti' Tradition and the "Rasakapriya' of Keshavadasa: An Introductory Review" by K.C. Bahl; "Tradition and Modernity in Literature" by…

This volume contains both literature from South Asia and articles about South Asian literature. The first article consists of an interview with a leading Pakistani poet, N.M. Rashed, who discusses modern Urdu literature. Other articles are: "Five 'Dangerous' Books"--on censorship in East Pakistan--by P. Sarkar; "Baluchi Language and…

Traces the history of English prose from Francis Bacon to the present, commenting on the quality of various authors' writing and of fiction today. (HTH)

The collection of articles in this volume focuses on different kinds of folk literature from Bengal, Tamilnad, Bihar, Hindi-speaking North India, and Nepal. An introductory article by S.S. Wadley discusses types of folk literature in Karimpur. The remaining articles are organized according to cultural themes: "The Lustful Stepmother in the…

Discusses how narrators (distinct from authors) emerged in English prose works during the last decade of the sixteenth century. Reports that instances of the use of narrators can be found throughout the seventeenth century, but that it was another hundred years before the technique developed fully enough to constitute a recognizable narrative…

Traces the denigration of discursive prose back through the "New Criticism" to Romanticism and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who saw poetry as special and separate from other rhetoric. Notes that discursive prose can be just as creative and interesting as poetry. Urges composition teachers to shift their point of view accordingly. (RL)

Includes: (1) "A Comment on 'Lacan, Transferences, and Writing Instruction'," Janet Hiller and Barbara Osburg; (2) "Robert Brooke Responds"; (3) "A Comment on 'Writing (with) Cixous'," Debra Raschke; and (4) "Clara Juncker Responds." (RAE)

George Orwell, in the essay "Politics and the English Language," criticized pretentious doublespeak and technobabble that numb the consciousness and hide political power plays. Judith Butler defends the "nuanced" prose of her fellow postmodernists as necessary to convey the complexity of their thoughts. Stephen Roney contrasts the two and…