Técnicas de estudio y análisis en literatura ingles

Exam 3
Dpto. de Filología Inglesa

Name and surname______________________________________

Date___________________________________________________

I. Anwer the following brief questions. Please, left a wide left margin for the corrector to
add notes. (5 points each)
1. 1.2. What is the metalinguistic function?
Metalinguistic. It is the function oriented towards the code. It consists in the use of the
code (language) to discuss or describe itself. It is the function typically fulfilled by
grammars or works of linguistics.
2. 1.2 Who is the author and what is the title of the work from which the following
stanza has been extracted? (5)
Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the eagle and the dove.
The phœnix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
John Donne. “The Canonization”.
3. 1.2. Mention five features of mycrostile in the above stanza.
Similes, parallelisms, anaphoric references, ellipsis, rhymed verse with end-stopped and
run-on lines, etc.
4. 1.3. Discuss the concept of “suspension of disbelief” in relation to literature and other
arts.
Poetry, drama, and novels, no matter how realistic they try to be (consider, for instance,
Dickens, Hardy, Thackeray), are characterized as literature on account of their fictive
nature. They create worlds of fictions in which readers accepts what is called the
“suspension of disbelief”, i.e., they accept to take for real, as far as the act of reading
goes on, the imaginary worlds proposed by the literary text. This, of course, is not
privative of literature, for we can find this fictive principle in film, in video-games, in
dances, in rituals, and in general in games as practices by children and grown-up
people, but, as far as the language is concerned, we can say that when a text endeavours
to create a fictive world (think, for instance, in Alice in Wonderland or The Lord of the
Rings) it is apt to claim a literary status, provided that it has a certain stylistic quality
5. 1.6. Which are the four conditions which any system (literature included) complies
with?
1. It forms part of other superior systems in which it is embedded.
2. It is the core what regulates the system
3. The system includes other elements which lie in peripheral or liminal areas
of the system and which are the areas of intersection with other systems.
4. Systems are not static, but change along time (either evolutionary or
catastrophically) by the interplay between central and peripheral elements
or/and by the contact with other systems.
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6. 2.1. Complete the following statement according to what you have studied in the
classnotes and relate it to the communicative experience: “When we read, and above
all when we read literary texts, we engage in an amazingly complex set of
operations…”
…In its very first stages, the process of reading involves what is apparently a very
objective activity, as its goal is to find out what the words in the text mean. But no single
word has one and only one meaning. The reader will have to choose what they mean in the
text, and will have to decide how they contribute to the general message. Eventually, every
act of reading becomes the personal re-elaboration of the contents (what the text says) and
message (what the author intended to say) of the text. The result will always be an act of
interpretation (no longer an act of reading; or at any rate not a fully objective activity)
which produces a new, personal and virtually unique textual source –something that can
be easily attested if we compare several readings of the same text: no two versions of the
same original text will ever be the same, even when the readers may agree that each
version is an appropriate rendering of the original. The reasons for such an extreme
variation lie in that the operations of reading and interpreting texts are determined by each
reader’s activation of what has been called communicative experience.
7. 2.2. What is literary competence? What is literary encyclopedia? What is the
relationship between the two?
The term LITERARY COMPETENCE can then be understood as our knowledge about
and our ability to interact with literary texts. The term LITERARY ENCYCLOPEDIA can
be defined as the part of our literary knowledge resulting from the double-sided activity of
compiling, organizing and classifying the information extracted from literary and non-
literary texts in the course of our contacts with them. Both activities are closely
interrelated, and are very hard to separate. The literary encyclopedia is in fact a branch of
what might be called reading encyclopedia (if we focus on the activity) or textual
encyclopedia (if on the objects from which this experience is drawn), since the notion of
what a literary text is springs from the comparison with non-literary texts; in other words,
from the ability to discriminate which features identify and therefore allow us to classify a
text as literary or as non-literary, or as pertaining to a specific sub-category within each of
them. Our compilation and classification start in the earliest formative years, with the first
nursery rhymes and elementary tales told to children, and grow with every new reading
experience; and so does our ability to use this knowledge whenever we wish to
accommodate every new reading experience into the corpus of experiences we already
have. But whereas a text read can always be more or less accurately recounted, the
explication of the activities executed in the acquisition of the reading experience is a much
more complicated, sometimes an impossible task for many readers who simply cannot
verbalize what they have done automatically.
8. 2.4 Give the name of the three different schools of psychoanalytic criticism and their
approximate chronology.
— Freudian criticism (c. 1900–present)
— Jungian criticism (1920s–present)
— Lacanian criticism (c. 1977–present):
9. 3.1. Discuss the definition and nature of verse including the perceptual point of view
(Pöppel 1993).
Verse could be defined as a mode of segmental formalization of language, by which
utterances are delivered or encapsulated in stretches of a variable length (lines) such as can
be perceived by the human mind as constituting a moment or a quantum of reality. The
underlying principle of verse composing is human perception. Studies on human
perception has shown that temporal grouping of successive stimuli has a temporal limit of
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approximately 3 second. This means that what the human mind perceives as an instant
comprises goes not beyond that time span (Pöppel 1993: 91-104). The consequence of this
fact for verse is that these three seconds are at the base of verse modalization (Pöppel
1993: 91-104). Three seconds is the usual time we take in reading or declaiming a
pentameter, for instance. That is why lines do not usually go much longer than the span of
what it takes to be pronounced in more than three or four second at the most (more or less,
about sixteen syllables in English or Spanish); after that limit lines tend to split us into
halves.
10. 3.2. Discuss the nature of poetry in relation to emotion as embodied in the lyric as
core of poetry.
What has been said of the attitude of the poetic-I towards its subject is intimately related to
what constitutes the matter of poetry: emotion. The core of poetry is lyric. Lyric does not
tell a story, but shows a situation or enact an emotion, and in showing any of them makes
us feel. A lyrical poem does not tell, does not narrate, but makes us feel. Of course,
sometimes feelings in lyrical poetry may be conveyed through a very brief story (“Western
Wind”, “Alison” for instance) but this story to be really part of a clear lyrical mood must
be short, anecdotal or vague. This point to a further consequence of lyrical poetry: it is
usually concentrated and short. In effect, most of the lyrical poems are brief, although
there are as well long poems in which different lyrical episodes are put together, making
the whole poetic (think, for instance, of the eclogues).
11. 3.3. Give 5 classifications and definitions of lines according to the number of feet.
• monometer (line consisting of one foot, i.e. two syllables in disyllabic feet, of rare
occurrence)
• dimeter (two feet, i.e., four syllables in disyllabic feet, also rare)
• trimeter (three feet or six syllables)
• tetrameter (four feet)
• pentameter (five feet)
• hexameter also called alexandrine (six feet)
• heptameter (seven feet, also rare), or octameter (eight feet, i.e, sixteen syllables, even
rarer).
12. 3.3. Discuss the differences between simile, metaphor and conceit?
• Simile. A comparison of two things through the use of “like” or “as”. (or in Early
Modern English “like as “).
• Metaphor. The substitution of a word for a word whose meaning is close to the
original word [external relation].
• Conceit. An extended metaphor or simile that extend iteself over the whole poem or a
large part of the poem.
13. 4.2. Explain the following scheme concerning the discourse structure of David
Copperfield:
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Unless there are clues to the contrary, the different levels of discourse are conflated. Thus,
David Copperfield is narrated by an I-narrator, David, apparently to an interlocutor; but
because there is no direct evidence of someone listening to David, we tend to assume that
he is talking directly to us. As there is also no obvious reason to distinguish between
author and implied author, and reader and implied reader in this novel there is little need to
distinguish between the first-person character (David as child and young man), the
narrator (David as adult), the implied author ('Dickens') and the real author (Dickens).
14. 4.3-4. From which textual and non-textual elements are value pictures inferred or
derived by the readers in a literary text (such as explained for Sense and Sensibility in
our classnotes)
– direct statement and attribution
– other clues.
– Of paramount importance in this picture are the inferences which we draw from
characters' words and behaviour. Thus when Mr and Mrs Dashwood after their
introduction above go on to deprive Mr Dashwood's mother of her intended share of
her husband's inheritance, our poor opinion of them is confirmed.
15. 4.6. Explain what are the differences between third omniscient person, third limited
person, and third observer / objective person.
Third omniscient person: the author describes all that the characters see, hear, feel, as
well as events in which none of the characters takes part. It is well understood that the
author has an absolute knowledge of everything: characters’ feeling, emotions, thoughts,
events.
Third limited person: the author (as any observer) refers to all the persons in the third
person, but he only relates what can be seen, heard or thought by only one character. He
has not omniscient knowledge but limited. Eg. Robert Jordan in Ernest Hemingway’s
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Third observer / objective person: the author narrates as if he were a witness, as if he
witnessed the events, but limiting himself to what he can know. He cannot get access to
the inner self of the character. Eg.: Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
16. 4.8. Roland Barthes (1977: 88-93) distinguishes two main types of functional units in
narratives: functions and indices. Explain the differences between them.
Functions can be defined as any segment of the story which can be seen as the term of a
correlation of the action in that story. They are distributional units, in the sense, that they
appear distributed in complementary and consequential items forming the chains that
make up the story.
Indices, however, are unit referring not to a complementary and items but to a more or
less diffuse concept which is nevertheless necessary to the meaning of the story:
psychological indices concerning the characters, data regarding their identity, notations of
'atmosphere', and so on. They are integrational units, in the sense that they integrate into a
superior whole to acquire full sense where the index is wholly clarified. This superior
whole may be a character’s actions or narration, for instance.
17. 5.1. What elements does the double communicative system of drama comprise?
 Double communicative system:
o Characters-character
o Play-audience
o Dramatic irony. Presence of the audience. Characters say or do something that
has meaning that the audience recognizes but the characters do not.
18. 5.2 In which ways does the playwright communicate the setting to his/her audience:
• Through the characters’ words (and sometimes names), dress, and behaviour.
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• Through the sets produced by the set designer.

• Through the knowledge the audience bring to the performance, our cultural or
encyclopedic knowledge.
19. 5.2. In drama the characters pretend, i.e., they present several faces in front of other
characters or the public. This could be termed “mask wearing”. Which four
implications has this “mask wearing” in its interaction with the audience?
• The audience may be fully aware of the mask the characters wear and thus of the
disparity between appearance and reality. Hamlet, mask of madness; Oedipus,
unaware of his mask.
• Or they may at first be as unaware of the mask as are the other characters in the
play.
• Sometimes mask wearers are themselves unaware or partially unaware of their
masks, as in the case of Oedipus.
• Moment of revelation: unmasking = climax of the plot. Iago in Othello
20. 5.6. The breaking (flouting) of one or several of the four maxims of the cooperative
principle in conversation is frequently the source of second meanings, innuendos,
understatements in drama. It is also an index of the psychological attitude of the
characters and their mutual relation: irony, procrastination, frustration, covered
hostility. Give the name and a brief definition of these four maxims:
o Maxims of quality: a speaker will not say what he believes to be false or lack
adequate evidence to assure.
o Maxim of quantity: the contribution of the speaker must be neither more nor less
informative than is required
o Maxim of relation or relevance: the speaker will be relevant, he will focus on the
point he wishes to make and that the hearer expects.
o Maxim of manner: the speaker will make his message clear and will therefore avoid
obscurity or ambiguity
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II. Make a comments as requested of three of the following passages below. Please, left a
wide left margin for the corrector to add notes.

1. Give the title and name of author of the following poem and analyze it according to
the guidelines provided in the classnotes, or at best you can.
Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give 5
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth;
Th’other let it sleep with death: 10
Fitter, where it died, to tell,
Than that it liv’d at all. Farewell.

2. Give the title and the author of the following excerpt. Explain what is its main
theme or themes, what does the author possibly want to tell us with the elaboration
of this / these theme(s), and how thy are supported by the stylistic devices
employed:
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

3. Give the author and the title of the following excerpt. Discuss the use of stream of
conciousness in this excerpt, disentangling the different narrative voices appearing
and making resort to the implicit cultural or encyclopedic elements present there:
Bald head over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him an ad. Still he knows
his own business best. There he is, sure enough, my bold Larry, leaning against the
sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching the aproned, curate swab up with mop and bucket.
Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I'm
going to tell you? What's that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they'd
only be an eight o'dock breakfast for the Japanese.
Stop and saya word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor Dignam, Mr
O'Rourke.
Turning into Dorset street he said freshly ingreeting through the doorway:
- Good day, Mr O'Rourke.
- Good day to you.
- Lovely weather, sir.
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- 'Tis all that.

4. Give the author and title of the play from which this excerpt is taken. Discuss the
interrelationship of dramatic an performance texts in it, especially as to achieve
effects of dramatic irony. Take into the account intertextual relationship of the play
to Hamlet.
GUIL (gently wry): Guildenstern...
ROS (irritated by the repetition): What?
GUIL: Don't you discriminate at all?
ROS (turning dumbly): What?
(Pause.)
GUIL: Go and see if he's there.
ROS: Who?
GUIL: There.
(ROS goes to an upstage wing, looks, returns, formally making his report.)
ROS: Yes.
GUIL: What is he doing?
(ROS repeats movement.)
ROS: Talking.
GUIL: To himself?
(ROS starts to move. GUIL cuts him impatiently.)
Is he alone?
ROS: No.
GUIL: Then he's not talking to himself, is he?
ROS: Not by himself... Coming this way, I think. (Shiftily.) Should we go?
GUIL: Why? We're marked now.
(HAMLET enters, backwards, talking, followed by POLONIUS, upstage. ROS and GUIL
occupy the two downstage corners looking upstage.)
HAMLET: ...for you yourself, sir, should be as old as I am if like a crab you could go
backwards.
POLONIUS (aside): Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
Will you walk out of air, my Lord?
HAMLET: Into my grave.
POLONIUS: Indeed, that's out of air.
(HAMLET crosses to upstage exit, POLONIUS asiding unintelligibly until -)
My lord, I will take my leave of you.
HAMLET: You cannot take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal -
except my life, except my life, except my life...
POLONIUS (crossing downstage): Fare you well, my lord. (To ROS.) You go
to seek Lord HAMLET? There he is.
ROS (to POLONIUS) God save you, sir.
(POLONIUS goes.)
GUIL (calls upstage to HAMLET): My honoured Lord!
ROS: My most dear Lord!
(HAMLET centred upstage, turns to them.)
HAMLET: My excellent good friends! How dost thou Guildenstern? (Coming downstage
with am arm raised to ROS, GUIL meanwhile bowing to no greeting.
HAMLET corrects himself. Still to ROS.) Ah Rosencrantz!
(They laugh good naturedly at the mistake. They all meet midstage, turn upside to walk,
HAMLET in the middle, arm over each shoulder.)
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HAMLET: Good lads, how do you both?

(A fade out. That is to say, the conversation - see Shakespeare, Act II, Scene ii - runs
down quickly; it is still animated and interspersed with laughter, but it is overtaken by
rising music and fading light.)