Section outline
-
-
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
Being a student of English program, this is a privilege to know about American Literature. This well-designed course will enable students to get introduced with some ground-breaking literary products of different eras which will broaden learners’ perspectives to extract the essence of the time that mould the writers’ thoughts.
-
-
Lesson Plan 1
Topic : Introduction to American Literature (Social, Political, Cultural and Literary aspects)
Objectives: Learners will able to take notes on New England. They can say key points on rise of American literature.
-
-
-
Topic:
Introduction to Emily Dickinson: biographical note, the major features of his poetry, Poetic style, form and structure of some selected poems.
Objectives:
Learners’ can write critical appreciation.
They can identify the literary devices.
They can describe the themes.
-
https://poets.org/poem/i-cannot-live-you-640
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49909/a-narrow-fellow-in-the-grass-1096
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47652/because-i-could-not-stop-for-death-479
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45703/i-heard-a-fly-buzz-when-i-died-591
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45706/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain-340
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - (591)
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -The Stillness in the RoomWas like the Stillness in the Air -Between the Heaves of Storm -The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -And Breaths were gathering firmFor that last Onset - when the KingBe witnessed - in the Room -I willed my Keepsakes - Signed awayWhat portion of me beAssignable - and then it wasThere interposed a Fly -With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -Between the light - and me -And then the Windows failed - and thenI could not see to see -I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340)
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,And Mourners to and froKept treading - treading - till it seemedThat Sense was breaking through -And when they all were seated,A Service, like a Drum -Kept beating - beating - till I thoughtMy mind was going numb -And then I heard them lift a BoxAnd creak across my SoulWith those same Boots of Lead, again,Then Space - began to toll,As all the Heavens were a Bell,And Being, but an Ear,And I, and Silence, some strange Race,Wrecked, solitary, here -And then a Plank in Reason, broke,And I dropped down, and down -And hit a World, at every plunge,And Finished knowing - then -
The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -And Breaths were gathering firmFor that last Onset - when the KingBe witnessed - in the Room -I willed my Keepsakes - Signed awayWhat portion of me beAssignable - and then it wasThere interposed a Fly -With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -Between the light - and me -And then the Windows failed - and thenI could not see to see -Because I could not stop for Death – (479)
Because I could not stop for Death –He kindly stopped for me –The Carriage held but just Ourselves –And Immortality.We slowly drove – He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility –We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess – in the Ring –We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –We passed the Setting Sun –Or rather – He passed Us –The Dews drew quivering and Chill –For only Gossamer, my Gown –My Tippet – only Tulle –We paused before a House that seemedA Swelling of the Ground –The Roof was scarcely visible –The Cornice – in the Ground –Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yetFeels shorter than the DayI first surmised the Horses' HeadsWere toward Eternity –
-
-
https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/dickinson/section8/
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/emily-dickinson/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/emily-dickinson/because-i-could-not-stop-for-death
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/emily-dickinson/a-narrow-fellow-in-the-grass
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/04/emily-dickinson-i-cannot-live-with-you-poem-640/308055/ -
-
Topic:
Introduction to Frost: His biographical note, the major features of his poetry, Poetic style, form and structure.
Objectives:
Learners can say about Frost
Learners’ can write critical appreciation.
They can identify the literary devices.
They can describe the theme .
-
-
The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours." -
-
Topic : Death of a Salesman
Objectives:
Students can write on Arthur Miller
They can say the summary.
The can critically analyze the text. They can write notes and make comparative study.
-
-
-
removes blame from Willy as an individual by explaining the grueling expectations and absurd demands of his profession. The odd, anachronistic, spiritual formality of his remarks (“Nobody dast blame this man”) echo the religious quality of Willy’s quest to sell himself. One can argue that, to a certain extent, Willy Loman is the postwar American equivalent of the medieval crusader, battling desperately for the survival of his own besieged faith.
Charley solemnly observes that a salesman’s life is a constant upward struggle to sell himself—he supports his dreams on the ephemeral power of his own image, on “a smile and a shoeshine.” He suggests that the salesman’s condition is an aggravated enlargement of a discreet facet of the general human condition. Just as Willy is blind to the totality of the American Dream, concentrating on the aspects related to material success, so is the salesman, in general, lacking, blinded to the total human experience by his conflation of the professional and the personal. Like Charley says, “No man only needs a little salary”—no man can sustain himself on money and materiality without an emotional or spiritual life to provide meaning.
When the salesman’s advertising self-image fails to inspire smiles from customers, he is “finished” psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. According to Charley, “a salesman is got to dream.” The curious and lyrical slang substitution of “is” for “has” indicates a destined necessity for the salesman—not only must the salesman follow the imperative of his dreams during his life, but Miller suggests that he is literally begotten with the sole purpose of dreaming.
In many ways, Willy has done everything that the myth of the American Dream outlines as the key path to success. He acquired a home and the range of modern appliances. He raised a family and journeyed forth into the business world full of hope and ambition. Nevertheless, Willy has failed to receive the fruits that the American Dream promises. His primary problem is that he continues to believe in the myth rather than restructuring his conception of his life and his identity to meet more realistic standards. The values that the myth espouses are not designed to assuage human insecurities and doubts; rather, the myth unrealistically ignores the existence of such weaknesses. Willy bought the sales pitch that America uses to advertise itself, and the price of his faith is death.
Linda’s initial feeling that Willy is just “on another trip” suggests that Willy’s hope for Biff to succeed with the insurance money will not be fulfilled. To an extent, Linda’s comparison debases Willy’s death, stripping it of any possibility of the dignity that Willy imagined. It seems inevitable that the trip toward meaningful death that Willy now takes will end just as fruitlessly as the trip from which he has just returned as the play opens. Indeed, the recurrence of the haunting flute music, symbolic of Willy’s futile pursuit of the American Dream, and the final visual imprint of the overwhelming apartment buildings reinforce the fact that Willy dies as deluded as he lived.
-