“What is a closet drama? It is a play, usually in verse, written for private reading rather than performance. Byron’s Manfred (1817) and Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (1820) are examples.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged drama/theater, professional development, readings/research
“Really the most interesting part is the jacket information that Gangemi was born in Scarsdale, took an engineering degree at R.P.I….”
William Pritchard, Hudson Review
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities, readings/research
“Palindrome: (Greek ‘running back again’): A word or sentence (occasionally a verse) which reads the same both ways. Common words are: civic, level, minim, radar, rotor. Famous examples of such phrase or sentences are: (a) ‘Madam, I’m Adam’, to which the reply was ‘Sir, I’m Iris; (b) ‘Able was I ere I saw Elba’ (attributed apocryphally to Napoleon who, alas, spoke no English); (c) ‘Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus’; (d) ‘A man, a plan, a canal—Panama!’; (e) “’In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni’, said by moths in flight; (f) ‘Straw? No, too stupid a fad; I put soot on warts!’; (g) ‘Deliver desserts’, demanded Nemesis, emended named, stressed, reviled; (h) T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I’d assign it a name: ‘Gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet’ (by W.H. Auden); (i) Stop Syrian! I start at rats in airy spots; (j) Sex at noon taxes; (j) SIROMORIS—this was the telegraphic address on the writing paper of Edward Elgar (1857-1934), who was knighted and appointed OM. There are numerical palindromes. A simple example is: add 132 to 321 for the total 363.
The best known collection of verses was that produced by one Ambrose Pamperis in 1802. It consists of 416 palindromic verses recounting the campaigns of Catherine the Great.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
“Vernacular: (Latin vernaculus “domestic, native, indigenous’) Domestic or native language. Now applied to the language used in one’s native country. It may also be used to distinguish between a ‘literary’ language and a dialect; for instance, William Barnes’s ‘vernacular poems,’ and outstanding example of dialect (q.v.) poetry.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
“Light Sculpture: Sculpture in which light sources (fluorescent and neon bulbs, incandescent bulbs, laser beams, and sunlight) are the primary medium or source of visual interest. Minimalist Dan Flavin, Chryssa, and Robert Whitman are three of the best-known light sculptors.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“Formalism or Russian Formalism: Russian school of literary criticism that flourished 1914-28. Making use of the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, Formalists were concerned with what technical devices make a literary text literary, apart from its psychological, sociological, biographical, and historical elements. Though influenced by the Symbolist movement, they sought to make their analyses more objective and scientific than those of the Symbolists. The movement was condemned by the Soviet authorities in 1929 for its lack of political perspective. Later, it became influential in the West, notably in New Criticism and structuralism.”
Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
This week’s Text is a reading on sound waves along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Over the years, I’ve crossed paths with several students interested in careers as recording engineers or producers. I know that music is played on instruments that have evolved over centuries by persons with enviable talent; that, however, is the extent of my knowledge of music production. I hoped these documents would help students gain some understanding about the actual physics of sound. These materials have been of sufficiently high interest in my classroom that I have tagged them as such.
So this might be thin gruel where the subject is concerned. As with many of the documents I prepared over the years to engage alienated students, these were prepared in haste. So they are very likely, uh, less than perfect. Fortunately, they are both formatted in Microsoft Word, so exporting them to a word processor of your preference and tailoring them to your students’ needs will be relatively effortless.
May is Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I’ve already prepared a batch of posts for the month, so if you need material on topics related to American of Asian and Pacific Island descent, or Asia and the Pacific Islands themselves, trundle on by the site.
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.
“Tin Pan Alley: Genre of U.S. popular music that arose in New York in the late 19th century. The name was coined by the songwriter Monroe Rosenfeld as the byname of the street on which the industry was based—28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway in the early 20th century, around Broadway and 32nd Street in the 1920s, and ultimately on Broadway between 42nd and 50th Streets. ‘Tin Pan’ referred to the sound of pianos furiously pounded by ‘song pluggers‘ demonstrating tunes to publishers. The genre comprised the commercial music of songwriters of ballads, dance music, and vaudeville songs, and its name eventually became synonymous with U.S. popular music. Its demise resulted from the rise of film, audio recording, radio, and TV, which created a demand for more and different kinds of music, and commercial songwriting centers grew up in such cities as Hollywood and Nashville.”
Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a worksheet on the Greek roots phyt/o and –phyte. They mean “plant” and “to grow.” If you teach in the hard sciences, particularly biology, this might be a useful document for you: these roots yield words such as chrysophyte, hydrophyte, and phytochrome among others.
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.
“Metonymy: (Greek ‘name change’) A figure of speech in which the name or an attribute or a thing is substituted for the thing itself. Common examples are The Stage’ for the theatrical profession; ‘The Crown’ for the monarchy; ‘The Bench’ for the judiciary; ‘Dante’ for his works. See also ANTONOMASIA; METALEPSIS; SYNECHDOCHE.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
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