The 1990s saw a climax of adaptations of novels previously accepted into the American literary canon, while television and radio marketed literature through book clubs and literary shows. This book argues that the U.S. mediatized literature of the 1990s constitutes a post-modern re-enactment of the traditional oral literature that initially emerged on U.S. territory with minority pre-literate populations. While existing scholarship acknowledges the impact of the oral tradition on written literature and sporadically discusses fiction to film translations, this study demonstrates the traditional oral features and functions of the mediatized literature and aesthetically validates this type of literature based on theories of the linguistic sign, the Bakhtinian dialogic system, and the Jungian concept of the collective unconsciousness among others. Literature and media scholars will be intrigued to discover that mediatized literature is yet another product of globalization, and avid consumers of literature will find this book a valuable resource for understanding the commercial and political levers that predicate the production, dissemination, and consumption of mediatized literature.

This book aims to present the power of the African American oral folk traditions. It shows how a simple folk song is able to embody past and present, family origins and cultural identity at the same time. In Song of Solomon Morrison calls the attention of the African American community to the fact that if they are unaware of their folk heritage they can never own a self-conscious identity. It has a paramount significance to know the past of the ancestors in the lives of both an individual and a whole community, too. This book follows Milkman's, the protagonist's, quest for self- and cultural identity. Morrison made a folk song adjusted to the plot of the novel that was used as a complement parallel to the development of Milkman's mature identity. The revival of the oral folk traditions makes the protagonist a self-conscious member of his community. In this book the reader can follow the development of Milkman's indentity parallel with the song, and can learn my final conclusion in broaden dimensions.

Not even Joseph Conrad might have thought that his novel, Nostromo, will be so topical at the beginning of the 21st century as it was more than a hundred years ago. It was first published in 1904, but it seems that the fundamental problems of the world have not changed during the last century. The novel's central concern, material interests and its impact on people and politics, is an invariably exciting topic to study. Conrad's masterpiece, however, is so complex that the message can only be understood if the upper layers of the adventurous story are ripped. And this is the aim of this book. It deals with the political aspects of Conrad's novel and tries to dig deep into the main thoughts and concerns of the story to deduce general ideas from the complicated structures. The mission of the work is to prove that material interests have a serious effect on human personality and from a wider perspective, it can even change the social and political matters of a whole country. The last chapter contains some pedagogical ideas on employing authentic literature in TEFL classes.

You hold a book of good intensions in your hand. The problem is that the realization of these intensions, namely, reaching the Ideal determines the destiny of others in some cases. How far can go a scientist in reaching his ambitious strives? Is he allowed to use human beings as objects of his experiments? Can we accept the isolation imposed on innocent victims for the sake of scientific development? Should we agree with the fact that anything can be sacrificed in favour of a higher goal without any painful loss? You can have the chance to decide if you take a closer look into the tragical stories The Birthmark and Rappaccini's Daughter. Whatever conclusion you may come to, do not miss to pay attention to The Artist of the Beautiful and to his harmless handlings through the power of imagination and observation. Maybe it is more noble to admire the creatures of nature as he does. The question sounds like this: Is the artist able to reach his goal or will he remain a hopeless dreamer? Check it

'The Case for Cummings' shows how E.E. Cummings has become fixed in criticism due to a misreading of his work by critics. Many critics in the 1920s were hostile to Cummings, forcing Cummings supporters to either defend or apologise for him. Thus, in the 1920s pro-Cummingsian critics defined and fixed the battleground' - collectively collating Cummings themes - love, spring, satire, individualism, and transcendence yet these areas became the very source of attack from anti-Cummingsian critics. This investigation, utilizing the literary theories of Derrida, Bakhtin, Foucault, Bloom, and Cixous, among others, aims to show how both sides have misread Cummings work and in doing so sees a new Cummings emerge, a Cummings who appears less fixed in criticism, who is more complex and richer in scope than first thought, and whose work demands major re-evaluation.

Why is Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra so much neglected compared to Romeo and Juliet? If one looks at the plot, one can find an abundance of similarities, among which the most important is the climax of both dramas, i.e. the suicides the main characters commit for each other. Yet, the reception of the two works is rather different. While the love of Romeo and Juliet is still a synonym for eternal love, the true story of Antony and Cleopatra did not manage to attract the attention it could have deserved. This book is a comparison of the two tragedies that endeavours to find the reasons for the success of Romeo and Juliet and the controversial welcome of Antony and Cleopatra. The analysis is made through different aspects of the two dramas, like the background of the protagonists, matter of intimacy, conception of love, effect of love, and death. This book is mainly useful to university or college students learning English literature, but it can be an interesting reading to anyone fascinated by Shakespeare's world.

The Lord of the Rings has evoked serious debates among practically all levels of literary society from mere reader to literary critic, tutor to biographer, devoted admirer to simple imitator. J. R. R. Tolkiens masterpiece has been provoking endless disputes about the possible literary origins of its elements, just as well as about the literary category with which it may be characterise, since it was published . In this work, the reader may discover the way and the extent to which certain character-level elements of the literary affiliates of myths, legends and fairy-tales effected the creation of such important characters in Tolkiens classic as Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, and Wizards. Besides, the most prominent features of The Lord of the Rings based on which this book can be characterised as fantasy will also be presented, together with a comprehensive description of this literary mode.

The literary theory Literature as Cultural Ecology implies the notion that literature, in imaginatively bringing together various discourses, may release new potential for the extra-textual, cultural world. Why and in what way do the postmodern American novels E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel and T.C. Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain act like ecological forces within their culture? They serve as metaphorical cultural ecosystems. The cultural ecology of each of the two novels is revealed in a combination of the three discourses cultural-critical metadiscourse, imaginative counter-discourse, and reintegrative inter-discourse. The Book of Daniel and The Tortilla Curtain gain a unique status in that they have the power to interact with their readers and may serve as a source of cultural self-exploration, self-preservation, and self-renewal. This book addresses students of literature and literary scholars as well as everybody else interested in an evolutionary, reflective process of reading.

The main interest of many readers is in the gradual emergence of Stephen's conviction that in order to survive as an artist he must shake himself free from the fetters of Church, Country and Family. I am going to show how Joyce deals with this theme of estrangement in his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and I shall explain the Role of Women and Sexuality in Stephen Dedalus' Creative Process. In conclusion, I shall present the Daedalus Myth and its role in the book.

Through a balance of pedagogy and practice, Ellis gives teachers the skills and confidence they need to become better storytellers. The book includes dozens of great stories and classroom-tested lesson plans to help students improve reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. With better reading skills, students' ability to learn content will also improve. By telling their own stories students will also learn creative writing strategies.

The preface and introduction recount current research, while providing inspiration for teachers to learn and tell stories. Each subsequent chapter explores one content area, Reading, Math, Science, etc. There is also a series of interdisciplinary units. What makes this project unique is that each chapter offers several exciting, easy-to-learn stories and reproducible pages for a ready-to-use handouts. Lesson plans include detailed strategies for their application, as well as links to national learning standards. Grades K-6

Join Piggy Rae and her silly friends Bernie Bear, Tommy Turtle, Alistair McMoose and others in these engaging and interactive puppet skits that encourage both laughter and learning. This guide gives you everything you need for lively storytimes. In addition to ten complete scripts, you'll find literacy tips, preparatory checklists of materials and props needed, patterns, lists of books for literacy building displays, activities that relate to the story and promote early literacy, and take-home reproducibles for caregivers that help them reinforce the six early literacy skills. Designed for PreK-Grade 3, the puppet plays are perfect for in-house storytime settings and for community outreach projects. Grades PreK-3.

This book aims at investigating whether teaching literature and teaching grammar can be integrated in second language teaching. In the literature review part of the work the first aim is to provide a summary of the studies that have dealt with the questions of why literature and grammar should be taught in the language classroom and especially how teachers should teach them. Since there is hardly any literature on how these two areas can be integrated, the aim is to find those points where the two language teaching areas can be combined. In the second part of the book four activities are introduced to show possible ways how theory can be put into practice in the language classroom. They are also implemented and, as the results show, they are regarded by the students as effective and motivating ways of teaching grammar through literature. The work should help shed some light on this new and exciting teaching area, and should be specially useful to teachers of English who may consider utilizing teaching grammar for teaching literature.

Thomas More finished writing his Utopia originally in Latin in 1516. This scholarly masterpiece describes an imaginary society in two separate books, together with its various social-political institutions and everyday customs. Through the words of the experienced and over-intelligent sailor, Raphael Hythloday, we have the opportunity to get a profound insight into the mechanisms of the lives of the Utopians in a way that, even from the remoteness of almost five hundred years, it tells us something immensely fundamental about the constantly changing nature of human affairs. In the present book we endeavor to have a closer look upon the characteristics of political freedom in the Utopian society, besides continually being aware of the fact that this very concept has undergone the most influential and diverse interpretations ever since More's own time. Bearing this in mind, our ultimate aim with the book is to continue More's own belief to go on with the neverending struggle to find the optimal condition of man.

This book concentrates on the main question regarding the picaresque novel: What is a picaresque novel? Since generations of scholars have come to no agreement the author uses a working definition. The (Spanish) forefathers of the genre provide the basis for the real point of interest, viz. the neglected, partly even forgotten early European picaresque works. These books are discussed with regard to similarities and differences, the working definition of the picaresque novel being the main point of reference at all times. The analysis of these works focuses on the following questions: Can the distinctive features of the picaresque be applied and how has the picaresque novel changed throughout the years? This book aims at those people who show a profound interest in the picaresque phenomenon, from its very beginnings to the eighteenth century. The author, of course, is very well aware of the fact that the phenomenon does not end in the eighteenth century but the classics of Defoe, Fielding and Smollett seemed to be the perfect works to round off this very personal picture of the picaresque novel.

Scientific Discourse examines the nature of scientific inquiry in the primary school classroom to show how this interacts with early literacy. Through an examination of the texts used and produced by pupils studying science the author shows how what is at work in this context of scientific discourse is actually multiliteracy. The teacher aids the pupils' learning using different forms of literacy spread across the spoken word, written text, visual text and physical action. The result of this diverse approach is a growth not only in scientific knowledge, but basic literacy. The book provides a theoretical introduction to developmental literacy theory, current positions of science education and advanced theories of multiliteracy and genre theory. The new theory of scientific discourse presented in this book will be of interest to researchers of applied linguistics, discourse analysis and education.

This work examines the reconstruction of cultural and historical myths by selected postcolonial writers of fiction from Indigenous Australia and South Africa. It explores summarily how these myths were used to define the colonial space, define the indigenes and how they in turn have chosen to define and represent themselves in a post-colonial world. This work also brings the postcolonialism debate back to the table by exploring its implications in using the theory to examine indigenous works of literature. The prodominant concerns of this work are Representation and Historiography situated within the context of postcolonialism. The achievement of this work is one of the canonical expansions recommended by postcolonial criticism which stresses the need for and the appreciation of differences that exist in postcolnial fictions even when they seek to achieve the same goals.