PEC Ctlli 2019 Kesec Kesec Cristina Camelia PDF

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PEC 2019 12 O'Clock News by Elisabeth Bishop...

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Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa (CTLLI) PEC 2019 (Units 1-2) PARTA:choosethecorrectanswerineachcase.Youmusthave5correctanswers outof8inordertopassandhavePARTBmarkedaswell.MAX:4POINTS(0.5each)

1) To show that the text is characterised by disunity rather than unity is one of the objectives of: a) Structualism b) Post-structuralism c) New-Historicism d) Formalism 2) _____________ is the whole mental set and ideology which encloses the thinking of all members of a given society. a) Discourse b) Text c) Co-text d) Archival continuum. 3) According to Derrida, critical reading should a) connect the text and the author’s biography. b) identify the author’s intentions. c) produce the text. d) take the context into account. 4) Which of the following is not characteristic of post-structuralist theory? e) Relativism. f) A belief in fixed knowledge. g) A flamboyant writing style. h) Textualism. 5) According to Barthes, the death of the author a) is only possible in contemporary writing. b) is accompanied by the death of the text. c) is followed by the birth of the reader. d) results in the greater relevance of context. 6) The phrase “tell with silence” in “A Refusal to Mourn…” is an example of a) simile. b) synaesthesia. c) metaphor. d) paradox. 7) Hayden White blurs the distinction between a) historicists and New Historicists. b) literature and the author’s biography. c) plot and story. d) historical narrative and narrative fiction.

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8) One of the differences between new historicism and cultural materialism is that a) cultural materialism situates the literary text in our own political situation. b) cultural materialism is not interested in politics. c) the latter combines Marxism and anti-feminism. d) the former is quite optimistic about individuals to make their own history

PARTB:thispartoftheexammustbewritteninfullparagraphsincorrectEnglish.Makesure thatyoudiscussall the aspectsindicated.Please write 1)CONTEXT, 2)FORMANDCONTENT,and3)THEORYANDCRITICISM,beforeyouanswereachsecti on,notexceedingthelimitofwordsforeachpart.MAX.:4POINTS.

TEXT FRAGMENT As you all know, tonight is the night of the full moon, half the world over. But here the moon gooseneckseems to hand motionless in the sky. It gives very lamplittle light; it could be dead. Visibility is poor. Nevertheless, we shall try to give you some idea of the lay of the land and the present situation. The escarpment that rises abruptly from the central plain is in heavy shadow, but the elaborate terractypewritering of the southern glacis gleams faintly in the dim light, like fish scales. What endless labor those small, peculiarly shaped terraces represent! And yet, on them the welfare of this tiny principality depends.

1) CONTEXT(MAX.70WORDS).Indicatetheauthorandthetitleofthetextandexpl aintheirhistorical,literary and culturalcontexts.(Up to0.5 point). 2) FORMANDCONTENT (MAX.70WORDSEACHQUESTION).(i)How could the first fragment on the right represent journalism?(ii)What poetic qualities dothese fragments have (and the work they belong to) tobe called a poem?(Up to1.5points). 3) THEORYANDCRITICISM(MAX.200WORDS).(i)Explain

briefly what “equal-weighting” and a “co-text” are in New Historicism and use the concepts and cotexts you find suitable to analyse the work that the fragment belongs to.

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1) CONTEXT This fragment is part of the poem titled “12 O’clock News” by Elizabeth Bishop, one of the most refined voices of the American poetry of the last century. The poem, written and published during the Vietnam War, was included in the 1976 collection Geography III and it is inspired by war and its consequences. Bishop was known as one of the best female American poets of the contemporary period famous for her style patent with simplicity and precision. 2) FORM AND CONTENT I) The way it is written this fragment in conjunction with the title encourages us to read it as journalism. Bishops uses metaphorical description of the objects that we normally find in a newsroom. The last two lines of the first stanza sound like a reporter on the news, which incorporates the idea of limited perspective of the media. By choosing the newsroom to manipulate the poem, she draws attention to the relationship between the news and the public. II)Though at first glance the fragment may not seem to be a poem, as it is not written in verse, we can deduce its true nature by the presence of poetic devices such as metaphors and personification(gooseneck lamp- “the full moon”; typewriter – “abrupt escarpment”, “elaborate terracing”) as well as the figurative intent of the text. Alliteration is other poetic characteristic and it is used by Bishop to provide musicality and rhythm to the text. 3) THEORY AND CRITICISM In New Historicism the concept of equal-weighting suggests that literary and historical text have similar status and the latter should be considered co-text. Analyzing Mary McCarthy’s text and the poem by placing them at the same level and equal we can determine clearly their inter-connections: war and death as theme, aerial viewpoint, detailed description and use of irony. The poem doesn’t mention any country although we can perceive it is an Oriental landscape from the descriptive elements, and if we take into account the period in which it was published, we can infer it is linked to the Vietnam War. In the poem we find a mock reportage with strikingly cold depiction of the media and Bishop accentuates the difficulty involved in perceiving the “truth”. She utilizes a technique of constructing an exotic world out of the objects that can be found in a newsroom. By defamiliarzing a newsroom, she questions our trust in what we perceive. The news media are capable of creating a world beyond what we see every day. Bishop`s manipulation of a newsroom parallels the way the media distorts our perception of the world, and by doing so questions our ability to find our way out of this fog which is “reality”.

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