We argue for a course in which students analyze writing about a common topic--in this case World War I--from multiple genres (e.g., poetry and technical manuals). We address the divide between instruction in pragmatic and literary writing and calls to bridge that gap. Students working in disparate areas of English learn the strengths and the…

Poetry is about the experience of meaning as well as the meaning of experience. To read a poem is to feel one's way into the inner workings of its language, rather than to peer through that speech to an extractable truth. Most students of literature today have difficulty in grasping the performative or rhetorical dimensions of the texts with which…

Examines three representative short poems to illustrate some of the difficulties that traditional textual criticism would encounter with them. Outlines some ways in which different approaches could deal with these difficulties. (RL)

Intended as a guide for students of literature, this book introduces literary analysis through discussion of forms, elements, and genres. The first half of the book focuses on theory, with each section preceded by literary passages and interpretative questions. The second half is devoted to practice, and contains three contrasting literary genre…

A dialectical heuristic that can be used to guide students through the stages of writing about a literary experience is discussed in this paper. The first section of the paper provides a working definition of literature as an area of discourse and divides the process of reading and writing about literature into three general phases: progressive,…

Offers a dissenting interpretation of Adam Smith's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres and a more conservative perspective on Smith's significance to the history of rhetorical theory. Views the lectures as an historical commentary on literature and rhetoric from the perspective of an eighteenth-century lecturer. (JD)

To help students develop a broadly generative approach to reading and writing about literature, teachers of literature should employ not only systematic procedures, but also the eclectic and utilitarian spirit of rhetorical invention. A semiotic perspective offers the most solid theoretical foundation for establishing a genuinely heuristic…

The teaching-questioning strategy developed in this paper, based on reader-response criticism and Kenneth Burke's pentad, can be used by teachers to elicit responses to any literary work and is designed to help students participate in a work's dramatic context, discover meaning as they read, and assure that their critical essays are based on an…

The articles in this publication consider the way in which freshman English students can gain insights into both the reading of literature and the workings of the mind by discussing and writing about their dreams; the function of names in Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"; folklore and…

Examines how literary criticism exploits and marginalizes the poem as printed artifact. Argues that the author-centered, phonocentric premise of close reading neutralizes spatial dynamics and reduces material identity to the status of a transparent medium. Suggests that appreciation of silent visual form is a convention of post modernist writing.…

Presents an exchange between two English professors who offer opposing perspectives on the profession of English. Covers arguments on the understanding of theory, literary history, reading, curricular design, and pedagogy through the examination of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil." (MM)

Argues the usefulness of the New Rhetorical method epitomized by the critical work of Kenneth Burke utilizing two concepts from communication theory. Specifically, demonstrates how the method can guide readers methodically to insights that make sense of apparent anomalies in "Dracula" and call attention to major features of the text that…

In recent years a new event called "Interpretation Analysis" has appeared at certain forensic events. The objective is for the student, through analysis and performance, to study a piece of literature and to communicate his or her understanding of that literature to a specific audience. Perhaps there is room within the established…

Outlines requirements for an exploratory account of "imaging" the future. Examines relationship of Kenneth Burke's notions of "piety" to (1) the nature of language and forming, (2) Kenneth Boulding's concept of subjective knowledge structure presented in "The Image," and (3) various aspects of an "image."…

Plato's "Republic" and George Orwell's "1984" both posit visionary worlds, one where humans are virtuous and understand what Plato refers to as "the Good," and the other where citizens are pawns of a government which uses language as a form of tyranny and control. Despite these overarching differences in philosophical…