“What was the interminable law case in Dickens’ Bleak House (1852-53)? Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, a case stemming from a dispute about distribution of an estate.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
“Potboiler: A work written merely to gain a livelihood. The term is at least as old as the 18th c. A classic example of the potboiler that transcends its immediate end is Johnson’s philosophical ‘novel’ or didactic ‘romance’ (qq.v.) Rasselas (1759), which was written in the evenings of a week to defray the expenses of his mother’s funeral and to pay her debts. See KITSCH.
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1998.
“N[avarre] Scott Momaday: (1934-2024) Native American novelist, essayist, and poet, Momaday was born in Lawton, Oklahoma. He studied at the University of New Mexico and received his Ph.D. at Stanford in 1963. His first novel, House Made of Dawn (1969), received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Momaday’s work blends myth and tribal history with family tales and personal recollection: his essay collection, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), examines his own cultural history through the native tradition of living in nature. He has also published The Gourd Dancer (1976), a collection of poems; The Names: A Memoir (1977), a family history and autobiography; The Ancient Child, (1989), a novel. A literature professor for many years, Momaday has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on science fiction. This is a half-page document with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. A concise, symmetrical introduction to this literary genre.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Jorge Amado: (1912-2001) Brazilian novelist. Born and reared on a cacao plantation, he published his first novel at 20. His early works, including The Violent Land (1942), explore the exploitation of suffering of plantation workers. Despite imprisonment and exile for leftist activities, he continued to produce novels, many of which have been banned in Brazil and Portugal. Later works such as Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958), Dona Flor and her Two Husbands (1966), and The War of the Saints (1993) preserve Amado’s political attitude in their more subtle satire.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazabal: (1945-) Colombian writer and political figure. Growing up during La Violencia, the civil strife that took over 300,000 lives between 1946 and 1959, he developed a black sense of humor. His early novel, Condores no entierran todos los dias (1971) is the riveting story of a conservative who becomes a death squad leader. El bazar de los idiotas (1974; tr. Bazaar of the Idiots, 1991), a vicious satire on intolerance and religious gullibility, is one of Colombia’s most read novels. Pepe Botellas (1984) is a hilarious political fable about a Cuban exile who tries to become President of Colombia. Alvarez Gardeazabal’s recent fiction has dealt with the corrosive effects of the drug trade on Colombian society.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Octavio Paz: (1914-1998) Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat. Educated at the University of Mexico, Paz published his first book of poetry, Luna Silvestre (“Savage Moon”) in 1933. He later founded and edited several important literary reviews. Influenced in turn by Marxism, surrealism, existentialism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, his poetry uses rich imagery in dealing with metaphysical questions, and his most prominent theme is the human ability to overcome existential solitude through erotic love and artistic creativity. His prose works include The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950), an influential essay on Mexican history and culture. He was Mexico’s ambassador to India 1962-68. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1990.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Mateo Aleman: (1547-after 1613) Spanish novelist. The son of a prison doctor, Aleman studied in Seville, Salamanca, and Alcala, and spent some twenty years as a government accountant. He was twice imprisoned for debt. In 1608 he went to Mexico in the company of Archbishop Garcia Guerra, whose life he published in 1613.
Aleman is remembered chiefly as the author of Guzman de Alfarache, the second great picaresque novel, after Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). The first part appeared in 1599, and, after Juan Jose Marti, a Valencian lawyer, produced a spurious sequel (1602), Aleman himself wrote a continuation (1604), in which he good-naturedly lampooned Marti. Aleman also wrote a biography of Saint Anthony of Padua (1604) and Ortografia castellana (1609), a treatise on spelling.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
On Monday of this week, Hispanic Heritage Month 2025 began. This observance runs from 15 September to 15 October every year. This year, as with last, I report with considerable chagrin that I have no materials that would rightfully–in the editorial view of this blog–constitute a proper Weekly Text to observe the contributions and achievements of United States citizens of Hispanic descent.
Like last year, I had every intention of preparing a unit on the infamous Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943. I imagine, or imagined, such a unit would become part of a sociology class I taught a few years ago. Alas, I have never been asked to teach that course again. Last year I co-taught four English classes. It happens that I found a copy of Thomas Sanchez’s novel Zoot Suit Murders in one of the local Little Libraries. So, alternatively, I thought I might work up an English Language Arts unit on that book. It appears to be in print, and Luiz Valdez adapted his play on the Zoot Suit trial into a film that would probably complement cogently a reading of Thomas Sanchez’s novel.
But, since I am at the most eighteen months from retirement and little more than a body (I’m co-teaching two biology classes this year, not a subject in which I possess any expertise whatsoever) in the school in which I serve, if I do this work, it will be after I am no longer a full-time classroom teacher.
In any event, this week’s Text is this reading on John Brown with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
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