Week Thirteen
12 Nov S: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 82-104
Note: this assignment was hard to find on the site. My apologies!
(If you didn't make it to the right page number,
let me know and we'll work it out.)
13/14 Nov L: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 104-127
15/16 Nov L: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 127-153
(Very) short (creative) writing assignment due on Canvas
Note: Block E is required to do the reading for Thursday, but can hand in the writing assignment on Friday.
Strictly optional reading:
The Hottest Trend in American Literature Isn't From the U.S.
On the current literary trend towards non-American books that have been translated. Credits this trend in large part to Elena Ferrante.
There are many other interesting articles about Ferrante and her Neapolitan novels out there, but be careful: many of them give away the plot.
Week Fourteen
Block D:Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 127-198
Block E: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 153-216
Due by Weds, Nov 21st, Blocks D and E: (Very) short (creative) writing assignment due on Canvas
Note: Block E is required to do the reading for Thursday, but can hand in the writing assignment on Friday.
Strictly optional reading:
The Hottest Trend in American Literature Isn't From the U.S.
On the current literary trend towards non-American books that have been translated. Credits this trend in large part to Elena Ferrante.
There are many other interesting articles about Ferrante and her Neapolitan novels out there, but be careful: many of them give away the plot.
Thanksgiving -- no homework weekend
Week Fifteen
26 L--Block D: No homework but read in class: My Brilliant Friend, pp. 198-216
27/28 L: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 216-240
How does Ferrante describe setting? Please note setting techniques and interesting setting details.
NOTE: pages 232-233 involves a scene with unconsensual sex. Feel free to skip this part if you wish.
29/30 L: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 240-262
(Very) short (creative) writing assignment due on Canvas posted here.
Week Sixteen
3 Dec S: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 262-283
Please look for passages as you read that might represent what Ferrante means by "density."
Ferrante's definition of density:
But none of this bothered Ferrante, who, Costanzo tells me, mainly insisted on one thing: that he and the girls convey the unknowability of her characters’ minds through a technique she called acquiring “density.” He illustrates the concept with a metaphor he has borrowed from Ferrante. Imagine that the lines an actress reads are a river that runs calmly along the surface of the earth. Then imagine that the actresses are the earth, and that under the earth is another river, a wilder one whose current leaps in the opposite direction, whose roar is muted. Every time the actress speaks her lines, she must offer a glimpse of the river that runs beneath: the mysterious churn of her consciousness, the lawlessness of a person’s doubts or desires. “What decides the success of a character,” Ferrante wrote to me when I asked about density, “is often half a sentence, a noun, an adjective that jams the psychological machine like a wrench thrown into the works and produces an effect that is no longer that of a well-regulated device but of flesh and blood, of genuine life, and therefore incoherent and unpredictable.”
4 Dec S: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 283-303
5/6 L: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 303-323
7 S: Read and take notes on My Brilliant Friend, pp. 323-331 (end)
Week Seventeen -- no major assignments
Personal Essay due on the day you selected
10 Dec S:
No extra homework--just work on your revision
Study guide here
11/12 L: Review:
Homework on Canvas is posted here
13/14 L: Review Day
Homework on Canvas Discussion is posted here
If you wish (no pressure), bring food. Hard to believe, but it's our last class.
Attached is a sheet with the common errors students make in their analytical essay writing.
Click here
21 finals