Prompts for Our Midterm

Below are the prompts for the take home part of the midterm.  Choose only one prompt.  The essay will be due on Friday, March 27.

1.  A number of our works so far this semester were originally written in English although not every author was a native English speaker.  How does the presence of these works affect your definition of world literature?  (Consider that both Joseph Conrad and Zhang Ailing wrote in English and that Zhang had written a number of novels and short stories in Chinese.)  How does the presence of works NOT originally written in English (Candide, Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of the Stone) change your definition of world literature?  Consider Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiongo's arguments about the language one writes in.  With all this in mind, what role does English-language literature play in world literature after 1650?  What role should it play?  Why?  Why not?  What do works in translation like Candide or The Story of the Stone add to a world literature class? What does a film with subtitles add?  (If you have taken EN 201, feel free to make some comparisons between the classes.)  Consider the concept of World English.


2.   A common focus for a course like EN 202 is Imperialism or Colonialism and Post-Colonialism.  Choose up to three works that we have read so far, and examine how each fits--or doesn't fit into this focus.  Do any works complicate this focus?  Consider that we have also read works about the Ottoman Empire and that The Story of the Stone is set during the last dynasty of the Chinese Empire.  Raise the Red Lantern and "Stale Mates" are set in the aftermath of empire.

3.  Another common focus for a course like ours is geography.  Choose up to three works that are written by someone from a particular part of the world or are written about a particular part of the world.  Examine how each fits--or doesn't fit into the focus.  For example, how does Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart complement or correct Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness?  Then what does Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative add to the mix?  If you have read other works from African, Chinese, or Middle-Eastern literature, feel free to bring them in.


4. Consider the novel as a genre.  What do our novels (Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, Oroonoko, The Story of the Stone, Jane Eyre) have in common?  How are they different?  Feel free to bring in other novels that you have read in the past.  How does the novel change from time period to time period?  How does it change from culture to culture?  Also, how are novels different from satires like Candide or autobiographies like Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl?

5.  Discuss life writing as a genre of literature.  Given your definition of literature, how is lifewriting (not only autobiographies and memoirs but also biographies, letters, and diaries) literature?  How is it NOT literature?  Could life writing be a more personal form of history? Consider The Turkish Embassy Letters, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl as your main examples, but feel free to include other examples from your reading (The Diary of Anne Frank, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Black Elk Speaks, Into the Wild).