Response to Brittney Week 10

Before reading Brittany's post for week 10 I had never heard of Joyce Carol Oates besides the really short piece I read in the week 1 homework. The enthusiasm that Brittany shows in writing how excited she is in using this author for her Multi-Genre Study resulted in my doing a little research to see if Joyce Carol Oates would be someone I might be interested in reading at some point in time. I read quick summaries on some of her books and while the book Zombie looks like something I could be interested in reading I'll take You there doesn't look like something I would read at all. However based on those two summaries it certainly seem like Brittany is right on the mark with her describing her books uncovering information as you continue to read.

Response to Jade Week 10

Although I have read some of Emily Dickenson's poems in the past I don't remember much about them. However, one interesting thing that I remembered about Emily Dickenson was that many of her poems were written in free verse. Having enjoyed realism like Jade did I think she is making a good choice to select an author from this ism.

Week 10

The Author I was thinking of doing for my Author study is Jack London. He falls under the Naturalism of the isms and is therefore under the category of realism, which I found to be my favorite of the isms. In the past, I have read Call of the Wild in class and enjoyed the book. I looked up Jack London to see what some of his other books are about I have come to find that I will enjoy doing my multi-genre study on this author. His book the Iron Heel looks like an interesting book that I might enjoy simply because I like futuristic novels that probe what could have happened.

Response to Jenn Week 9

I can honestly say that I did not enjoy romanticism as much as Jenn however, I, like her, did enjoy Naturalism. The comparison of nature to humans and human characteristics was also a reason that I too found Naturalism to be interesting. Jenn's comment, "It's easy to identify with the calm eye of the storm, when you are comparing it to someone's mood, rather than taking a whole long paragraph with so many adjectives that you cannot keep track." I can not only hear her saying but I also can see her point of how much easier it is to relate abstract things such as emotions to things like storms that are much more easily and readily understood. I did not read anything from the Puritan era and based on Jenn's thoughts on it I am inclined to keep it that way for the time being.

Response to Carla Week 9

I, like Carla, read Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. I completely agree with her in how you can hear someone actually reciting the poem as it is being read. I too noticed the slight possible connection that could occur between this particular poem and Romeo and Juliet. Personally, my favorite part of this poem though personally is why he perceives that his Annabel Lee was lost to him. Although he realizes that she was killed by the cold I find it interesting that he blames the envy of the angels for sending the cold in the first place. I have to admit though in Carla's favorite verse I am curious to know exactly why the parentheses are included unless it is simply to continue the rhythm of the poem and make it rhyme.

Week 9

My favorite "ism" was Realism and more specifically under the category of realism, regionalism. I enjoy how realism shows things how they really are simply put. Although I enjoyed some of the thought-provoking parts of other isms regionalism was cool in order to see how people from other places and times are similar and different from New England today. One example of this is from the Wonderful Tar Baby Story in which the word Larn' is used. I do not know if I have ever heard someone replace teach and learn for each other while living in New England this then leads me to question whether it is a difference of time or of region. The other category under Realism I also enjoyed was naturalism in how the descriptions in the poems I read by Carl Sandburg are written so, for lack of a better word, poetically. In one poem, Dream Girl, after comparing his dream girl to things present in nature he comes back to reality in that she is only a dream and she may never truly ever be with him.

My favorite writing was The Wonderful Tar Baby Story by Joel Chandler Harris. I remember reading this story in middle school but enjoy seeing realistically how people really are. In this case, the southern dialect of the time is extraordinarily easy to see. Although in places it is difficult to comprehend exactly what is being said I find it to be a fun challenge to figure out what certain things are being said. The hard to read dialect reminds me of the way the character Joseph spoke in Wuthering Heights and how one almost needs to say it aloud to understand what is truly being said by the given character. A rather interesting part of this piece of writing is that there is only a brief insight into what is happening in the life of the storyteller. However that brief insight can show a lot in that storytelling took place in passing stories from one generation to another and that on a more humorous note yams were cooked on the fire to I assume be eaten later.