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This book is devoted exclusively to critical discussions of Afro-American literature and focuses specifically on critical issues that are especially pertinent to designing courses in Afro-American literature.
American Indian Literatures is a thorough guide to the genres and major authors of both oral and written literatures and to scholarship in the field.
An introductory section describes types of oral literatures and life histories, provides a history of Native American literature from 1772 to the present, and reprints many excerpts from the texts under discussion. The second section of the volume evaluates bibliographies and research guides; anthologies, collections, and re-creations; and scholarship and criticism. An extensive selected bibliography, a list of important dates in American Indian history, and an index conclude the book.
To a reader of Joyce’s Ulysses, it makes a difference whether one of Stephen Dedalus’s first thoughts is “No mother” (as in the printed version) or “No, mother!” (as in the manuscript). The scholarship surrounding such textual differences—and why this discipline should concern readers and literary scholars alike—is the focus of William Proctor Williams and Craig S. Abbott’s acclaimed handbook.
This updated, fourth edition outlines the study of texts’ composition, revision, physical embodiments, process of transmission, and manner of reception; describes how new technologies such as digital imaging and electronic tagging have changed the way we produce, read, preserve, and research texts; discusses why these matters are central to a historical understanding of literature; and shows how the insights, methods, and products of bibliographical and textual studies can be applied to other branches of scholarship.
The volume begins with an introduction to the various kinds of bibliographical investigation. The chapters address
A reference bibliography and a glossary of terms are provided.
This unique textbook teaches the Old English language, pairing grammatical instruction with Old English passages from historical and literary documents in chronological order and providing a summary of major events. Fifty lessons present translation passages from the Peterborough manuscript of the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Alfredian translation of the Universal History of Paulus Orosius, and other prose and poetic texts. Supplementary sections in each lesson provide additional lexical, historical, literary, and cultural information relevant to the translation passages, and the lessons are reinforced by brief exercises and advanced translation sentences. A section of twenty-six advanced readings features a generous assortment of poetry, including passages from Beowulf, The Wanderer, The Dream of the Rood, and The Wife’s Lament. The book concludes with a thorough grammatical appendix as well as glossaries of linguistic terms, proper names, and Old English words.
The first section, on the grammar, presents reading selections from Marie de France’s lai “Fresne” and selections in two major literary dialects of Old French—Anglo-Norman and Picard. These are followed by chapters on Old French morphology and syntax; phonology sections are included at the end of each chapter. Contains a glossary, an index, and a select bibliography.
This handbook was produced with the aim of providing students with an introduction to Old Irish literature as well as to the language. One of the notable Old Irish stories is used as the basic text. Examples of poems, and of the glosses, supplement it. All are thoroughly annotated. The grammatical information provided in these annotations is summarized in grammatical sections dealing with specific constructions and forms. The first fifty of these sections are descriptive; many of the same matters are discussed in the second fifty section from a historical point of view. A final glossary includes references to all words occurring in the texts. The apparatus was accordingly designed to permit a relatively easy approach to a very difficult language.
Accompanying lessons, readings, and songs available online for free.
An Introduction to Old Occitan is the only textbook in print for learning the language used by the troubadours in southern France during the Middle Ages. Each of the thirty-two chapters discusses a subject in the study of the language (e.g., stressed vowels, subjunctive mood) and includes an exercise based on a reading of an Occitan text that has been edited afresh for this volume. An essential glossary analyzes every occurrence of every word in the readings and gives cognates in other Romance languages as well as the source of each word in Latin or other languages. The book also contains a list of prefixes, infixes, and suffixes and a dictionary of proper names.
This handbook was written specifically for beginning students. It presents twenty-seven graded readings, each accompanied by a vocabulary and an explanation of grammatical details; the final chapter provides a sample of the Codex Argenteus. Among the readings, the first seven are in effect preliminary exercises. The remaining twenty readings represent the Gothic Bible and the Skeireins. The external history of the language is also outlined, as well as the elements of phonetics, and the essentials of phonologic and analogic change.
Essays describe general research works on Anglo-Irish writers, as well as specific works on nineteenth-century writers, the Irish Literary Revival, and modern drama. Several chapters are devoted to individual authors: James Joyce, George Moore, Sean O’Casey, Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge, Oscar Wilde, and W. B. Yeats.
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, with sales exceeding three million copies, is one of the most widely read works of contemporary fiction. A classic of African literature, it is taught in college courses ranging from graduate seminars in English and comparative literature to undergraduate offerings in English, history, ethnic studies, anthropology, folklore, and political science; it is also studied in high school literature and social studies classes. Yet teaching such a book presents special problems; Things Fall Apart is rooted in African social and historical realities that are often unfamiliar to North American readers. This collection of essays, all written by experienced teachers, aims to help instructors introduce students to the rich cultural background of the novel as well as to its narrative and structural complexities.
Like other books in the MLA’s Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, this volume is divided into two parts. Part 1, “Materials,” surveys biographical sources and interviews, background studies, critical commentaries, films based on Things Fall Apart, and other instructional aids. In part 2, “Approaches,” sixteen contributors describe strategies they have used to teach Achebe’s work. Several essays were solicited from eminent African scholars who, having taught abroad, know firsthand the challenges of conveying cross-cultural understanding through African literature. The volume features an introductory statement by Chinua Achebe, in which he comments on the responses his novel has elicited from readers around the world and offers advice on probing the significance of the story.
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