GE2133 THE LIFE & TIMES

OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE

Lecture 1
Dr. Eric Sandberg
 ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

• Course Introduction
• Course Outline
• Course Assessment
• AOB?
 LITERATURE AND YOU…

• How frequently do you read

literature?
• What type or types of literature do
you read?
• What role does literature have in
your life / your family / your social
circle / your society / global society?
WRITE A DEFINITION OF
LITERATURE
ARE THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES
LITERATURE?
 WHAT CONCLUSIONS C AN WE
REACH B ASED ON THESE EXAMPLES?
ARE THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES
OF LITERATURE?
WHAT CONCLUSIONS C AN WE
REACH B ASED ON THESE
EXAMPLES?
LOOK AT YOUR DEFINITION AGAIN –
ARE THERE ANY CHANGES YOU
WOULD MAKE AFTER OUR
DISCUSSION?
 A FEW SIMPLE DEFINITIONS

• Matthew Arnold
• Ezra Pound
• E. D. Hirch

THESE DEFINITIONS OFFER THREE

NEW WAYS OF LOOKING AT
LITERATURE – WHAT ARE THEY?
 “WE ALL ‘KNOW’ WHAT
LITERATURE IS, BUT IT IS
REMARKABLY DIFFICULT TO
DEFINE (1).
 “ L A N G U AG E I S T H E
M AT E R I A L O F L I T E R AT U R E
A S S TO N E O R B RO N Z E I S
OF SCULPTURE [. . .]”
(22).
IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.
"FOR SALE:
BABY
SHOES,
NEVER
WORN.”
Minarets stuck up in the rain out of Adrianople across the
mud flats. The carts were jammed for thirty miles along the
Karagatch road. Water buffalo and cattle were hauling carts
through the mud. There was no end and no beginning. Just
carts loaded with everything they owned. The old men and
women, soaked through, walked along keeping the cattle
moving. The Maritza was running yellow almost up to the
bridge. Carts were jammed solid on the bridge with camels
bobbing along through them. Greek cavalry herded along
the procession. The women and children were in the carts,
crouched with mattresses, mirrors, sewing machines, bun-
dles. There was a woman having a baby with a young girl
holding a blanket over her and crying. Scared sick looking at
it. It rained all through the evacuation.
Words

Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror

Over the rock

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road —

Words dry and riderless,

The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
PA RT I C I PAT I O N Q U I Z 1
 FURTHER READING

Eagleton, Terry. How to Read Literature. Yale University Press,

2013.
Widdowson, Peter. Literature. Routledge, 1999.