ENGL 2260 Final Exam

free verse

-poetry that avoids consistent patterns of meter and rhyme using other formal strategies to establish meaning instead

realism

-protagonist is a real, flawed person

-plot tries to imitate nature (mostly episodic)

-language is authentic, even if it's plain or ugly

dialect

-a regional or social variation of a language marked by nonstandard pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary

-authenticity of character, connection to place

code-switching

-multiple variations within the same person's voice

-ex: "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," "Drown"

allusion

-a reference, often indirect or unidentified, to a person, thing, or event

-a reference in one literary work to another literary work, whether to its content or its form

-ex: "Lady Lazarus," "Entropy," "Hamilton"

pattern of imagery

-continued use of figurative images to represent objects, actions, and ideas in a way that appeals to physical senses

-ex: "Morning Song"

counterculture

-a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to the prevailing social norms

-ex: "Howl," "Entropy"

confessional poetry

-uses personal experience in a more direct way

-still a persona, not actually the poet speaking

-themes of counterculture, civil rights, political is personal

postmodernity

-mid 20th to early 21st century

-technological changes: computers, media, and reproduction

-beliefs: fragmented, virtual communities

-"Who said anything was solid?"

postmodernism

-more detail, often for its own sake

-cultural specificity, outsider's POV

-focuses on information

-engages the audience in playful ways

-obsessed with past

-breaks down the division between "high" art and "low", popular art

-ex: "Entropy," "Maus," "Recitatif," "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," "Drown," "Hamilton"

intersectional identity

-specific use of term comes from legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw

-not all "x" experience is the same, depends on how your different experiences overlap

-ex: "Recitatif," "How to Tame a Wild Tongue"

autobiography

-non-fictional writing that is based on the author's own lived experience

-ex: "Maus"

Howl

-Allen Ginsberg

-obscenity trials end in 1957 with decision that the book is not obscene

~gay sex the "most obscene"

-Structure

~I: opening/best minds, counterculture

~2: "Moloch," mainstream culture

~3: "Rockland," institutionalized

Morning Song

-Sylvia Plath

-make images of mother and child less familiar but keeps the beauty/feeling

-follow patterns of imagery within poems (baby crying) and between poems (reflection)

-enjambment

Lady Lazarus

-Sylvia Plath

-allusions to Bible (Lazarus), history (WWII), mythology (phoenix at the end)

-mocking tone vs. suicide attempts (mismatch)

Blackberrying

-Sylvia Plath

-connection between speaker and berries

-landscape, birds and flies, cliffs and sea

-understanding the natural world in human terms

Entropy

-Thomas Pynchon

-switching between two apartments-open system vs closed system

-allusions show obsession with the past (postmodernism)

Maus

-Art Spiegelman

-postmodernism breaks down the division between high art and low, popular art

-borrows from crime fiction, film noir, war stories, boys' adventure stories, movie musicals

-Spiegelman's parents in Nazi Germany

-his experience as their son listening to the story in the present

-the relation of past and present

-narration of the present over image of the past

-still a crafted form of autobiography

-money-paying to be hidden

-scary walks

-pretending to be someone you're not

-past influencing present

-language-odd order of words, English not first language, using German and Yiddish

Recitatif

-Toni Morrison

-postmodernism: outsider's POV, obsession with history

-removed all racial codes but you know one is white and one is black

-intersectional identity

-talking about traumatic events

~details surrounding reoccurs and trigger but can't place the actual event

How to Tame a Wild Tongue

-Gloria Anzaldúa

-postmodernist: outsider's POV, intersectional identity, processing lots of different kinds of info at once

-emphasizes differences of border cultures and the mix & exchange of ideas

-both division and fusion

-Chicano Identity

~"poor Spanish"

~authenticity vs cultural use

~indigeneity

~not one single identity

-changing ideas about language variation and identity

-code-switching

Drown

-Junot Diaz

-Dominican slang, Spanish, drug slang, curse words, occasional hints of book smartness, pop culture

-moving around in time with flashbacks and flashforwards

-structured according to first person narrative

-what's going on in the present links to memories of the past

-possibilities for escape: college, pool, bus, running, army, shuttle

Hamilton

-Lin-Manuel Miranda

-code-switching like Anzaldúa and Diaz

-using pop culture forms to understand history like Spiegelman

-changes definition of originality form solely one person creating something completely new to making something interesting and novel out of something which already exists

-hip hop references

-postmodernist relationship