Exercises The Canon and Popular Literature

This document contains exercises from a literary criticism and contemporary English language course. It includes lists of books categorized as "literature" or other reading, examples of popular literature genres, a reaction to Harold Bloom's list of authors and works in the Western canon, inclusion of additional authors like C.S. Lewis and Ellen G. White, and comments on two poems about the role of authors - one portraying them as having certain political stances and the other discussing Emily Dickinson's views on publishing.

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Exercises The Canon and Popular Literature

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Lory Denise

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Crtica literaria e investigacin contempornea en lengua inglesa

Prof. Mara Goicoechea de Jorge

The Literary Canon and Popular Literature:

Exercises:
1. Write a list of the books you have read over the last six months. Sort them into
Literature and other kinds of reading.
Literature

Other

-Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

-Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Towsend
Warner
-If I Stay by Gayle Foreman
-Where She Went by Gayle Foreman
- No culpes al Karma de lo que te pasa
por gilipollas by Laura Norton
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry
Pratchett
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf
- Si tu me dices ven lo dejo todo pero
dime ven by Albert Espinosa
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- While were far apart by Lynn Austin
- The Richest Caveman by Doug
Batchelor
- Yo pensaba que by Samuel Gil
Soldevilla
- The Desire of Ages by Ellen G. White

- Too busy not to pray by Bill Hybels

- The Gift of Imperfection by Bren
Brown
- The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's
Best Version of You by John Ortberg
- Know Doubt: The Importance of
Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith by
John Ortberg
- Metaphors we live by by George Lakoff

Now, think about how you decided which category each book should go in. Comment.
Personally, I believe that books that could fit into the self-help book category or the
ones that inform you about a certain subject, such as language or science, should not be
considered as pure literature. They are very helpful and enjoyable for the reader, indeed,
but in a way they limit the creativity of the author.
-Enumerate the main genres of popular literature. Provide some examples:
1. Poetry: Songs to Myself by Walt Whitman

2. Prose: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

3. Drama: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
4. Nonfiction: The Richest Caveman by Doug Batchelor
2. Revise Harold Blooms Appendixes to The Western Canon, in the following link:
http://home.comcast.net/~dwtaylor1/theocraticcanon.html
-

What is your reaction towards these lists of authors and works?

My first reaction was Wow, this list is so long and there are so many names I
havent even heard about, I should find out who they are and what have they
written. Then I thought about the time that Harold Bloom has invested in
making this list, he definitely deserves a medal.

Have you noticed relevant absences?

I have looked twice through the list and I havent seen C.S. Lewis s name.
Maybe I am wrong and he is on the list.

Which authors and works would you include?

C.S. Lewis, if he is not included, and I would add some contemporary authors
such as J.K. Rowling (maybe they were books for children and the reasons for
which it was written were wrong but the Harry Potter saga is definitely a master
piece). And also Ellen G. White (if people would try to cope and not criticize the
religious message they would find out that she was a genius).

3. Terry Eagleton is a Marxist critic and a writer about literary theory who teaches at
Oxford University. Read the following poem and discuss the underlying assumptions it
projects regarding the role of the great author:
The Ballad of English Literature [Sung to the tune of "Land of Hope and Glory"]
Chaucer was a class traitor
Shakespeare hated the mob
Donne sold out a bit later
Sidney was a nob
Marlowe was an elitist
Ben Jonson was much the same
Bunyan was a defeatist
Dryden played the game
There's a sniff of reaction

About Alexander Pope

Sam Johnson was a Tory
And Walter Scott a dope
Coleridge was a right winger
Keats was lower middle class
Wordsworth was a cringer
But William Blake was a gas
Dickens was a reformist
Tennyson was a blue
Disraeli was mostly pissed
And nothing that Trollope said was true
Willy Yeats was a fascist
So were Eliot and Pound
Lawrence was a sexist
Virginia Woolf was unsound
There are only three names
To be plucked from this dismal set
Milton Blake and Shelley
Will smash the ruling class yet
Milton Blake and Shelley
Will smash the ruling class yet.
in Against the Grain, Essays by Terry Eagleton, Verso Books.
As I understand it, this poems hidden message regarding to the role of the great
author is that he/she should not only write and create literature but also be aware of
his/hers importance in society and have healthy political and social ideas. In other
words, to be a proper role model.

4. Now read this poem by Emily Dickinson and comment on her attitude regarding the
role of literature and publication:
(788)
Publication is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man
Poverty be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly but We would rather
From Our Garret go
White unto the White Creator

Than invest Our Snow

Thought belong to Him who gave it
Then to Him Who bear
It's Corporeal illustration sell
The Royal Air
In the Parcel Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price
I am a little confused by this poem. At the beginning she says that publication is wrong,
but then she contradicts that argument by claiming that literature comes from God and
publishing it is the only way to spread what He gives to people. Maybe this poem could
mean that if an author wants to publish his/her work he/she should do it because he/she
wants to give people a message, not in order to become wealthy.