English 11B Glossary - Technical Words
English 11B Vocab List - Vocabulary Words
Reminder!
These notes are to help you study and remind you what will be covered by the Post-Test! You still need to re-read the Reading Selections (and go back to take a second look at the "Analysis" Sections in Edmentum)!
Certain themes, such as discovery, love, life, and death, have captivated writers and readers across generations and cultures. These themes remain relevant to humans, no matter the time period. How these themes are portrayed, however, often depends on the genre or the historical era. To truly understand a literary work, it is important to understand different themes and genres of literature.
In short, genre is a classification of literature characterized by specific content and form.
Nonfiction
Nonfiction is a major literary genre that includes works of factual information and events. Some subgenres of nonfiction are:
Biography: A biography is the story of a person’s life written by another person. The books Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History by Fawn Brodie are examples of biographies.
Autobiography: An autobiography is the story of a person’s life written by that person. Autobiographies are usually written by prominent, public figures that people want to know more about. For example, A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela and The Story of My Life by Helen Keller are autobiographies.
Persuasive Writing: Persuasive writing has the aim of trying to influence or convince readers to accept the writer’s viewpoint. Essays that students write for college applications are an example of persuasive writing.
Informational or Technical Writing: This type of writing intends to provide readers with relevant information about a specific topic. An example is a home appliance or electronics manual.
Fiction
Fiction is the other major literary genre, which includes imaginative works that are usually not factual but can be inspired by factual or historical events. Here are some subgenres of fiction:
Historical Fiction: Historical fiction is about fictitious characters in a historical setting. Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind are examples of historical fiction.
Realistic Fiction: Realistic fiction is about what could have happened and involves fictitious characters. Examples are Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.
Science Fiction: Science fiction is based on the imaginative depiction of aliens, advanced technology, and futuristic concepts. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is one example.
Fantasy: The fantasy genre involves fictional settings, supernatural occurrences, and characters that are often supernatural creatures. Some examples are J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Horror: Horror involves fictional writing that aims to evoke terror and shock in readers. Some examples are Bram Stoker’s Dracula and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist.
Folklore: Folklore includes stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, including fables such as Aesop’s Fables and fairytales such as Cinderella.
A literary work may or may not be bound by a specific genre. Often a single work can be a blend of genres. For example, William Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair is a blend of historical fiction and satire, and William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is both a romance and a tragedy.
While fiction can be categorized into subgenres by the subject of the work, such as romance, horror, or science fiction, it can also be categorized by the type of literary work. Here are some additional subgenres of fiction:
Prose: Prose includes literary works written in ordinary form, without using metrical (meaning organized) structures. Some examples of prose include novels such as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Most nonfiction is also written in prose.
Poetry: Poetry includes literary works with a distinctive poetic form, such as a specific meter or rhyme structure. Some types of poetry are sonnets, haikus, and blank verse. Some examples include “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou.
Drama: Drama is a type of literary work characterized by dialogue and stage lines that depict emotions and actions, which may be written in prose or verse. The two main genres of drama include tragedy and comedy, with subgenres such as farce, musicals, opera, and melodrama. For example, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy written in verse, while The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a comedy written in prose.
Unlike prose and poetry, drama is written to be acted on stage, which is why scripts involve the use of stage lines and directions. These techniques are the writers’ way of expressing their vision. Stage directions are notes that usually appear in italics and in brackets along with the dialogue. The effectiveness of the dialogue is heightened by employing stage directions. Look at this example of dialogue:
SHEILA: Why don’t you come with me?
Now read the same dialogue with a stage direction.
SHEILA [Excitedly, while jumping up and down]: Why don’t you come with me?
Note how the stage direction in the second example gives readers a better feel for the character’s emotions and provides the actor an idea of how to act out the specific dialogue to fulfill the scriptwriter’s vision.
For more detail about drama and drama terms, head back to the last Unit!
The following video examines how different writers tackle the same themes (universal, relatable ideas) at different points in history. Even though writing styles are different between these times, some themes are experienced by people so often that they're written about over and over, to re-express them in current time.
Tim O'Brien, born in 1946, began writing at an early age and went on to study at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Opposed to the Vietnam War, O'Brien considered fleeing to escape enlistment. But he couldn't bring himself to run away and was eventually drafted into the army. He served as an infantryman in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970, receiving a Purple Heart after being wounded in battle.
Following the war, O'Brien entered Harvard University for a graduate degree in government studies. During this time he also worked as a reporter for the Washington Post and began writing novels. O'Brien eventually left Harvard without a degree so he could focus on his writing. He has since published nine books, all related to the Vietnam War. His novel Going after Cacciato won the National Book Award in 1979. However, many consider O’Brien’s collection of short stories about the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried, to be the most influential of his works.
A frame story is a literary technique in which an introductory narrative is presented for the purpose of setting the stage for a more emphasized second narrative or a set of shorter stories. Another way to think of a frame story is that it is a story within a story.
The title "Ambush" has multiple meanings in this story. The frame story depicts the author’s daughter, Kathleen, asking whether her father had ever killed someone in war. The fact that the author struggles to answer this question, and even lies to his daughter, shows that this issue still weighs heavily on him. Thus, this frame story adds depth and weight to the central story about the battle in My Khe and the killing of a young Vietnamese soldier. The frame story illustrates that incidents from the war have resonated throughout the author’s life.
John Steinbeck thought that literature was an important tool in sustaining people through difficult times in their lives. His writing reflected his belief in the human ability to learn from struggles and rise above suffering. Steinbeck wrote about the hardships of working-class Americans. He focused on the effect of difficult times, namely the Great Depression and dust storms of the 1930s, in the lives of average Americans. For example, one of his most famous works, The Grapes of Wrath, tells the story of Oklahoma farmers forced to migrate to California because severe drought and dust storms destroyed their crops.
When World War II broke out, Steinbeck was determined to participate in the war effort. He began by writing patriotic works such as The Moon Is Down, a play-novelette about an invaded European country, and Bombs Away, a work of nonfiction about bomber trainees, both published in 1942. Steinbeck then went to Europe to work as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, often covering overlooked aspects of the soldiers' experiences. His newspaper columns were later assembled into a collection called Once There Was a War, published in 1958.
John Steinbeck's essay "Symptoms" is an example of a process analysis, a type of essay that aims to explain how to do something or how something works through a step-by-step explanation. He begins by discussing the reluctance of soldiers to speak about their war experiences. The author illustrates his curiosity about this behavior before he examines the reasons behind it.
Once you have chosen a topic for a presentation, your first step is to determine your audience and your purpose. Both will affect the tone and word choice (diction) of the presentation. Different language is used with various groups of people. You would likely use a different tone when speaking to your friends than when speaking to your school principal or your teachers. That is also true when giving presentations.
For example, imagine that you are giving a presentation to make a case for a journalism program at your school. The tone and word choice would vary depending on your audience. If you were addressing your classmates, the word choice and tone would be relatively informal and you would explain the benefits of the program from a student's perspective. If you were addressing parents or the school administration, however, you would likely use more formal language, focusing on how the program would benefit the school as a whole and how it would add credibility to students’ college applications.
Identifying your audience correctly and asking the right questions can help you set the right tone for your presentation. Ask yourself What general audience am I targeting? and Who is most likely to be interested in my presentation? For example, if you are giving a presentation about adding music classes to the curriculum, your target audience will be school administrators. Conduct some research to better understand your target audience.
Before beginning this section, you should be familiar with the following concepts:
genre—a classification of literature characterized by particular content and form
narrative—a story; narratives can be true or fictional
paradox—a seemingly contradictory phrase or statement that, upon closer study, is actually true, for example: I'm in a lot of pain, but I feel great!
For more information about paradoxes, click here for a refresh from ENG 11B!
The postmodern movement emerged and developed during an era of extreme and often volatile change in the United States. Like modernism, postmodernism began in reaction to a world war. And, like modernism, postmodern literature broke with traditional forms and techniques.
The devastation of World War II was the focal point in the first wave of postmodern literature, film, and art. The style and content of the movement echoed the confusion, skepticism, and moral relativism of postwar America with literature that defied not only convention but also fundamental concepts such as truth, reason, objectivity, and understanding. Reacting to the utter chaos of the war, postmodernists rejected ideas of order and authority.
This rejection is apparent in many characteristics of postmodern literature. The modernists, rejecting the tradition of the time, worked with experimental forms, such as the fragmented narrative. The postmodernists went further and rejected boundaries between genres, modes, and even types of art. For example, the postmodernist novel The Unfortunates by B. S. Johnson rejects order. The novel sells as 27 unbound sheets in a box, with one sheet labeled "first" and another "last." Outside those two designations, readers are free to work through the novel in any order they choose.
President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." On that day, Japanese forces attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. This event brought the United States into World War II and marks a severe and lasting change to the country and to the world.
Several key events led to the social upheaval of post-World War II America, with the attack on Pearl Harbor being the first. It had been nearly 130 years since the last foreign attack on American soil, and the fear and distrust caused by that home-front attack had harsh results, including the creation of internment camps for Japanese-American citizens.
Through radio, television, and film, Americans on the home front learned of Adolf Hitler’s genocidal campaign against the Jewish population, bombings that destroyed cities, and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the deadliest war on record, with an estimated 60 million deaths. These horrifying events deeply affected the nation and shaped its future.
The United States emerged from the war with a booming economy and an expanding middle class. It was also the only country with the atomic bomb, which brought a sense of security. It wasn't long, however, before the Soviet Union acquired nuclear capabilities. Anxiety settled in across America as the Cold War brought fears of nuclear devastation and the spread of Communism.
The rapid change in American society in the mid-twentieth century was cause for awe and wonder, but it also created a sense of fear among people. The extent of the devastation caused by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki scared people and made them wary of the power of science and developments in warfare. At the same time, people marveled at other advancements, particularly those related to space exploration. Both the favorable and adverse effects of the developments in science and technology had a major influence on the literature of this era.
One such example is the genre of science fiction, which gained momentum during this time period. Science fiction reflected the contradiction of amazement and paranoia at technological advancement in the mid-twentieth century.
The science fiction genre covers a wide range of subjects, styles, and perspectives. Its one defining characteristic is the incorporation of speculative science or technology. This genre began taking shape in the 1800s and coincided with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, a time when the invention of power-driven machinery began to change people's lives and work.
Over time, the science fiction canon (general rules on how to fit into a category) came to include a breadth of literature that is as radically different in premise as it is in execution. Like other genres, science fiction branched off into subgenres. Here are some notable science fiction subgenres:
cyberpunk—typically features futuristic settings where powerful computers influence society
steampunk—infuses classical steam-power technologies with futuristic settings and equipment
dystopian—focuses on a society that is imperfect, one in which people are generally unhappy and afraid; the opposite of a utopian, or perfect, society
alternate history—describes a society in which events have occurred differently than they have in reality
Two of the most common subgenres of science fiction are hard science fiction, or hard sci-fi, and social science fiction, or social sci-fi. Hard sci-fi earned its title during a period of publishing known as the "golden age" of science fiction. It began in the late 1930s when John W. Campbell became the lead editor of the magazine Astounding Stories of Super-Science.
Hard sci-fi emphasizes the use of plausible science and technology within a story. This science and technology typically operates as a crucial component of the story, and the author vividly describes and outlines its purpose and function. Hard sci-fi can also be thought of as “gadget” or “adventure” sci-fi, where the technology used plays an integral part in the plot.
Although science and technology also play a key role in social sci-fi, the stories don't focus as much on the function and use of advanced technologies. Instead they emphasize the effect of science and technology on humans and society. Social sci-fi often presents a world that is similar to reality, but contains key differences that highlight and explore societal questions and issues.
Kurt Vonnegut’s writing reflects the two major influences in his life: science and war. Vonnegut studied biochemistry at Cornell University in New York, but when the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the army. German forces captured Vonnegut during the war and imprisoned him in Dresden, Germany, where he witnessed the infamous Allied bombing raids on the city. This brutal attack killed thousands of people and destroyed much of Dresden.
Vonnegut's experiences in the war formed the basis of his best-known novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, and colored the general mood and philosophy of his entire body of work. His experience with the technology of war, such as the Dresden bombings and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, resulted in a distinctly dystopian reaction to scientific advancement, which is evident in the reading selection. To Vonnegut, human impulse, desire, and misguided attempts for advancement, both as a species and scientifically, are the source of most sociopolitical problems in the world.
Literature is influenced by the time in which it is written. Understanding the context for a work deepens our overall comprehension of that work, which is notably true for postmodern literature. There are several ways to find context for a piece of literature:
Publishing date: Finding the year a work was written and published helps identify contextual information, such as cultural and political movements and major world events. For example, if a piece was written in 1930, it was likely influenced by World War I and the Great Depression, making it part of the modernist movement.
Origin: Knowing the location where a piece was written can help identify contextual influence. If a piece was written in 1930 in New England, for example, it could be about the dispossessed Lost Generation or in the imagist style.
Author's background: Learning about an author's influences, styles, subjects, and themes can provide contextual information. For example, if a piece was written in 1930 in New England by Ernest Hemingway, a reader who has studied his background would know to look for his characteristic minimalist style or common themes he used, such as war or the inevitability of death.
"The Report on the Barnhouse Effect" is science fiction that includes speculative science. The story also uses the "what if?" element of social sci-fi by asking What would happen if a man could disarm the entire world? The story also deals with the conditions in society that drive people to conflict, so much so that they seek to build nuclear weapons and go to war.
As you read Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Report on the Barnhouse Effect," consider this information:
Publishing date: 1950
Origin: Indiana, United States
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
The United States grew and advanced after World War II. Wartime industrial production helped end the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the war, US soldiers came home to a society filled with new opportunities and innovative technologies. American society became a center for progress and opportunity.
At the start of the 1950s, Americans had more expendable income, which fueled mass consumerism and conspicuous consumption. Television and other new media boosted advertising and information-sharing. The 1950s also saw Americans relocate to the suburbs. Modern shopping malls popped up across the country.
The devastation of World War II and US economic and technological developments inspired Americans to seek a new role as a global leader. The Cold War—a battle of political and economic ideologies between the United States and the Soviet Union—led to a nuclear arms race and a space race. Although the space race was a peaceful scientific competition, the nuclear arms race was a struggle for power. Both nations stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons, enough to destroy the planet many times over. The prospect of a nuclear war led to a creeping, pervasive paranoia in American society.
As noted, postmodern literature developed against the backdrop of abundant material wealth, innovative technological advancement, and fear of nuclear war. Postmodern literature is marked by several thematic elements, including the following:
a resistance to grand- or meta-narratives, such as religion or nationalism, that intend to define humanity and society
an uneasiness about the effects of modern capitalism on society and the individual.
Postmodernist writers pushed literature’s traditions and limits with these types of features:
playfulness with language, including an emphasis on parody, irony, and satire
chronological timeframe; literary works that often play out across various times and not necessarily in sequence
an emphasis on self-reflexivity; the writer turning the narrative lens back on the writing process, allowing the writer to reflect on the process of creating art
Postmodernist literature also explores nontraditional literary forms:
greater experimentation with the form of the novel, story, or poem
less reliance on traditional narrative form and character development
more experimentation with the point of view and passage of time
a mixture of "high art" and popular culture within a single text
an interest in meta-fiction, in which the characters are aware they are just characters within a larger universe
White Noise
White Noise by Don DeLillo is a postmodernist novel that won the US National Book Award for Fiction. This novel portrays the fear of death and the harmful effects of technology, which was characteristic of postmodernist literature. Through the lives of the central character Jack Gladney and his wife, Babette, the story unfolds in a satirical way.
The Mezzanine
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker is an experimental novel about the musings of a man as he takes the escalator up to his office after buying shoelaces during his lunch break. The novel is about mundane things and activities, such as milk cartons, shoelaces, and deodorant. It throws light on the value of everyday human experiences. Baker is considered a maximalist because he stresses every elapsed moment and event, no matter how seemingly trivial.
Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is a lengthy work set in a future America. The United States has merged with Canada and Mexico, while New England has become a toxic waste dump. Wallace uses postmodern elements such as extreme irony and satire and unorthodox structure to explore issues including drug addiction, psychology, and disoriented American society.
Catch-22
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is a satirical novel set in twentieth-century Italy during World War II. It is the story of a bombardier, Yossarian, who tries to save himself from war. The title refers to an ironic rule that any man who flies a bomber must be insane, yet any man who tries to avoid a bomber mission because he feels insane must actually be sane because he realizes the danger. Thus any man who refuses is forced to fly more missions.
The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon is a novella (short novel) tracing the struggles of its central character, Oedipa Maas, as she discovers a very old conflict between two mail companies. The novel uses postmodernist characteristics to discuss absurd plot events such as a mail-carrier conspiracy theory.
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is the story of a soldier, Billy Pilgrim. The focus of the story is the bombing of Dresden during World War II. In the story, Pilgrim was being held prisoner in the city. The novel features postmodern techniques such as non-chronological timeframe, self-reflexivity, and satire, as the events in Billy Pilgrim’s life are mentioned in the story in no particular order.
Carson McCullers’s works often incorporated themes of loneliness and isolation. Her difficult life served as an inspiration for her work. McCullers was an accomplished pianist until she developed rheumatic fever. As she recovered, McCullers read and wrote prolifically. She studied creative writing at Columbia University and wrote her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, at age 22.
McCullers married, divorced, and remarried James Reeves McCullers, but she seemed unable to shake the theme of loneliness that pervaded her life. She died in 1967 after a series of strokes. Her essay “Loneliness . . . an American Malady,” which illustrates feelings of isolation common in her work, comes from The Mortgaged Heart. This collection of essays was published posthumously in 1971.
The essay experiments with varying points of view, a characteristic of the postmodernist style. Within the analytical essay form, McCullers primarily uses second-person point of view to address the audience directly, but she also blends this style with third- person narrative. This unusual blending of points of view is representative of postmodern exploration of unorthodox forms and styles.
McCullers suggests that the loneliness Americans feel is a malady without any cure. The root of this malady can be traced to a search for identity. The essay focuses on the theme of uncertainty and the yearning for meaning in post-war US society. Questioning the purpose and direction of US society is a common theme in postmodern literature.
When reading, consider the context of the work. Historical events, biographical facts, and contemporary perspectives are just a few contexts shaping a literary piece. Modernist literature, for example, was a reaction to World War I. After the war, many writers turned to nontraditional literary forms and themes of disillusionment. Examining that period in US history can help readers understand connections between the war and modernist literature.
Similarly, consider the expansive growth in technology during the postmodern period. Some writers have held critical perspectives toward these advancements. Considering and researching a work’s historical context can help you predict how the subject of information and technology will be treated and explored.
When you consider the context of a work of literature, you may find deeper meaning in the form, purpose, themes, and other elements of a work. For instance, F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel Tender Is the Night explores a tumultuous romance between a married couple, Dick and Nicole. Fitzgerald modeled the mentally unstable Nicole after his own wife, Zelda. When you consider this novel in the context of Fitzgerald’s own marriage, you can more effectively analyze Nicole's character.
Understanding context can also help you make better predictions about the characters and the text. Predictions allow you to stay engaged and exercise critical reading skills.
John Updike grew up on a farm in Shillington, Pennsylvania, a rural town known for farming and Amish communities. As an only child, Updike entertained himself by writing and drawing. He graduated from Harvard University and studied art for a year in England. Upon returning to the United States, he worked as a staff writer at The New Yorker, which published many of his poems, stories, and literary criticisms. Although Updike created works in various genres, he was best known for his fiction. Two of his novels, Rabbit Is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990), both won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His novel The Witches of Eastwick (1984) was adapted into a movie.
Updike's work includes a range of narrative styles. Many of his stories show the special qualities of the ordinary. Others display the more experimental characteristics of postmodernism. Despite the wide assortment of literary characteristics in his texts, Updike preferred to set his stories in suburban America, which he intended to be a symbol of detachment from worldly distress.
When authors deliberately repeat a particular feature or element in their texts, they are building motifs. A motif is a recurring element that usually contributes to an important idea or theme in the text. Motifs can include a particular word, phrase, image, object, or even an action by a character. Broader concepts, such as a pattern of imagery, a conventional situation, or a plot arc can also be considered as a motif.
When a motif gathers more significance than accentuating a mood or an image, that motif serves as a symbol or allows an associated element to become a symbol. For example, in Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," the stones are a motif that emphasizes the story's ominous mood. As the stones recur throughout the story, they become a symbol of the violent aspects of society.
For a refresher on symbols, click here to take a look at notes from ENG 11A!
As the title suggests, the brown chest is a motif that gathers meaning throughout the story and eventually becomes a major symbol. The chest is a part of the main character’s life from boyhood to adulthood. The main character’s attitude toward the chest shows readers how he feels at different times in his life.
Postmodernism began as a reactionary movement to World War II. One significant and lasting effect of the postmodern movement was the increased presence of the media. Rapid advances in technology brought previously inaccessible information directly to American living rooms. Television news broadcasts changed the way Americans viewed their nation and current events. The intense coverage of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 marked a turning point from the "idyllic" 1950s for many Americans.
The Vietnam War—the major conflict of the postmodern era—marked the emerging concept of the media narrative. For the first time in US history, war was broadcast on television and pictured daily in major newspapers. The American public’s view of the Vietnam War emphasized the growing importance of the modern media as Americans lost faith in the government to inform them about the reality of events and its strategy in Vietnam.
Intense media coverage of the Vietnam War helped bring about a change in US society. Such in-depth media footage was rare in previous US wars. The military typically provided war footage to the public, and most Americans didn’t question government actions between World War II and the Vietnam War. But as the Vietnam War dragged on and casualties mounted, Americans began to wonder if the war was justified.
Over time, concerns about the war’s horrific violence and destruction led Americans to question the objectives of their country, the greatest economic and military superpower in the world. This questioning spawned a new counterculture that promoted freethinking and personal exploration. "Hippie" became the common term for people in this movement. Many historians recognize the development of the Beat Generation in the 1950s as the precursor and inspiration for the hippie movement of the 1960s.
Many Beat poets drew influence from the transcendentalists, particularly from Walt Whitman's sense of individualism and Henry David Thoreau's belief in civil disobedience.
Beat writers Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr, and Allen Ginsberg met while attending Columbia University in New York City. They also became acquainted with writer William Burroughs. The first years of these "Greenwich Beats" were tumultuous and violent. The transcendentalist concepts of individualism and civil disobedience these poets admired were twisted by rampant drug and alcohol abuse.
Keroac originated the term beat. He claimed a number of meanings and origins, including "beaten down," "beatific," and "upbeat." The term’s paradoxical definition follows the pattern of the development of the Beat movement. The first chaotic and sometimes violent phase defined the "beaten down" aspect. The Beats attempted personal, societal, and cultural understanding within the turmoil of a post-nuclear and post-Holocaust society.
The Beats were defined by the content and social significance of their literature, rather than by a particular style or one specific artistic perspective. They took modernist poet Ezra Pound's heralding call of imagism, "make it new," to a different level. The Beats aimed to make both a literary and social impact.
Their works included frank descriptions and discussions of taboo social subjects, profanity not seen previously in serious literature, and extreme experiments with form. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, two forerunners of the Beat movement, were best known for their controversial subject matter and approaches.
Jazz music and the emerging hipster counterculture had a great impact on Beat poetry. The term hipster comes from the 1950s slang term hip or hep, meaning "in the know."
Before and during the Beat movement, hipster described jazz musicians and their fans, people who assumed an air of aloofness toward the hustle of normal life. Hipsters opposed what they viewed as the puritanical nature of American society.
Bebop, a style of jazz that featured a fast tempo and improvisation, particularly reflected the hipster attitude and influenced the style of many Beat poets.
Bob Kaufman received a widely varied cultural upbringing. His father was a German Orthodox Jew, and his mother was from the Caribbean island of Martinique. After serving in the merchant marines for 20 years, Kaufman enrolled in the New School for Social Research in New York City. There he met Burroughs and Ginsberg. He later traveled with them to San Francisco, where he met Kerouac and Ferlinghetti.
Kaufman's poetry reflects the influence of improvisation and rhythms of bebop. He regaled coffeehouse audiences and street-corner crowds with his spontaneously improvised poetry, earning him the name "The Original Be-Bop Man." The spontaneous aspect was of such importance to Kaufman that he never wrote down the majority of his poems. His friends transcribed his improvisations, including this lesson's reading, "Unanimity Has Been Achieved, Not a Dot Less for Its Accidentalness," and submitted them to publishers.
In 1959, Kaufman started the literary magazine Beatitude. After returning to the East Coast to perform at Harvard University, Kaufman's life deteriorated. Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Kaufman took a vow of silence and did not speak for 12 years. In 1975, he broke his silence with a dramatic poem about the official withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. A few years later, however, Kaufman retreated again into solitude saying, "I want to be forgotten . . . my ambition is to be completely forgotten."
Beat poetry can be difficult to understand because of its experimental forms and techniques, as well as the influence of jazz.
When reading a complicated poem—especially one with unfamiliar techniques or form—rewriting the lines as prosaic, or straightforward, sentences will help you understand the poem’s meaning and purpose. Consider the sample translation of a line below from Kaufman's "Unanimity Has Been Achieved, Not a Dot Less for Its Accidentalness."
Poetic Line
Raga of the drum, the drum the drum the drum the drum, the heartbeat
Prosaic Re-Write
The heart beats like a drum playing music.
Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of each line of a poem, speech, or sermon.
As a spoken-word and jazz poet, Kaufman experimented with sound. The use of anaphora, a type of repetition, in "Unanimity Has Been Achieved, Not a Dot Less for Its Accidentalness" is part of that experimentation. The word raga, which is a musical form, is emphatically repeated when introducing each idea or thought.
Kaufman also addresses social inequality. In "Unanimity Has Been Achieved, Not a Dot Less for Its Accidentalness," he discusses several issues, most prominently poverty.
Born in Yonkers, New York, Lawrence Ferlinghetti grew up as an orphan. He spent the first five years of his life in France with his aunt. When the two returned stateside, he spent a short time in an orphanage until his aunt found work as a governess to a wealthy family.
He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a journalism degree and later joined the navy during World War II. After the war, he visited the ruined city of Nagasaki, where the devastation caused by the atomic bomb convinced him to become a life-long pacifist. A few months later, Ferlinghetti enrolled in Columbia University’s graduate program and became fascinated with poetry. He then earned a doctorate degree at the University of Paris in France.
Ferlinghetti married and settled in San Francisco, California. In 1953, he co-founded the City Lights Bookstore near North Beach. His love of poetry led him to attend regular poetry readings around town. One night, he went to a reading at the Six Club and heard the reading of Allen Ginsberg, a young Beat poet. Impressed by what he heard, Ferlinghetti and the City Lights Bookstore published Ginsberg’s poetry and became central to the rise of the Beat movement, which gave voice to disenchantment about various aspects of American society at the time.
Ferlinghetti eventually successfully defended himself against charges related to the offensive nature of the works he published and continued his work as a writer and publisher.
In "To the Oracle at Delphi," Ferlinghetti alludes to Greek mythology for depth and figurative style. By calling on the Oracle of Delphi, or Sybil, he is both asking for insight into the future and acknowledging the impossibility of gaining such insight.
As an oracle, the Sybil had the ability to see the future. As the Oracle of Delphi, however, she is unlikely or unable to give anything but a murky glimpse. By presenting these ideas in reverse order, however, Ferlinghetti implies that there is the possibility for hope in the future.
African Americans faced discrimination every day in the United States until the mid-1900s. Although the Civil War had abolished slavery, many states, particularly in the South, began passing laws that persecuted African Americans and other minorities. In the South, the Jim Crow system of laws and traditions relegated African Americans to second-class status. For a time, after the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, the government permitted racial segregation as long as states provided public and private establishments of equal quality for each race. But the quality of white and Black establishments was far from equal.
This level of discrimination in the United States prompted African Americans and others to push for civil rights and equality, thus beginning the civil rights movement. After World War II, African Americans began to speak out against their treatment as second-class citizens. Their new impetus came from returning war veterans, the movement of African Americans from the rural South to Northern cities, and a rising Black middle class.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was the main political organization pushing for change early on. In a series of court cases from 1946 to 1950, the NAACP's special counsel Thurgood Marshall won rulings to desegregate public schools and universities. In 1954, with Brown v. Board of Education, segregation in education was outlawed.
The years 1954 through 1957 saw a flurry of activity to advance equal rights for African Americans: the Montgomery bus boycott, the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Convention (SCLC), and the integration of Little Rock Central High School. These gains were well fought and hard-won. In legal terms, African Americans advanced their civil rights immensely during these years. But social change did not follow quickly, and many schools remained segregated for decades.
1938 - Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada: The NAACP won the first of three important desegregation cases. The court ruled that Missouri had to provide equal education for African Americans, even if that meant creating a whole new institution.
1944 - An American Dilemma Published: Gunnar Myrdal's report on the social, economic, and political conditions of Black US citizens was published. The study, An American Dilemma, brought attention to the stark contrast between American ideals and the unequal treatment of African Americans.
1948 - Federal Job Discrimination Ends: In July 1948, President Truman issued an executive order barring racial discrimination in federal employment.
1950 - McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents and Sweatt v. Painter: The NAACP won two more victories on the road to school desegregation. The US Supreme Court ruled that the University of Oklahoma could not force Black students to eat and work separately from whites. The court also stated that the School of Law at the University of Texas could not bar Black students from its main campus.
1954 - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas: School segregation was outlawed. In this momentous case, the US Supreme Court struck down Plessy v. Ferguson and its "separate but equal doctrine" in public education, from kindergarten through university.
Click here to watch a video on "The Little Rock Nine" and the integration of a school in Arkansas.
1956 - Rosa Parks Arrested: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man when the bus driver asked her to. Her stand triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama.
1957 - The Montgomery Bus Boycott: African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, rallied to end Jim Crow segregation by refusing to ride the city buses. Martin Luther King Jr. became a leading voice in the movement.
1957 - The Little Rock Confrontation: Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus defied the US Supreme Court and prevented the Little Rock Nine, a group of African American students, from starting high school.
1957 - The SCLC Established: Martin Luther King Jr. and other Black leaders form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) continued the popular movement to end legal segregation and gain full civil rights.
The tumultuous era of the civil rights movement caused notable tension in the United States, but it also allowed certain individuals to rise to the occasion and lead the country into a more just, more equitable society. These leaders often used persuasive speeches or essays to address their audience. Martin Luther King Jr. epitomizes this description. In his many speeches and persuasive texts, King used rhetorical features and figurative language to convince his audience of the need for equality in US society.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
In 1957, Martin Luther King Jr., along with some colleagues, formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to coordinate protests, raise funds, and train Black leaders in nonviolent direct action. The SCLC worked closely with other civil rights groups, including the NAACP, which helped to bring civil rights cases to court.
The Greensboro Sit-In
On February 1, 1960, four Black college students sat down at the whites-only Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to move until they had been served. Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond returned each day and sat at the counter until closing. Slowly, others joined them, until protesters occupied all the seats at the counter and also at a nearby Kress store, while more protesters picketed out front. Soon, the sit-ins spread to other parts of the South—at parks, libraries, and other segregated locations. Five months after the Greensboro Four started the sit-in, Woolworth agreed to desegregate their lunch counters nationwide.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
The 1956 Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregating schools energized Black students. In 1960, they formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to organize nonviolent direct action protests, such as sit-ins, freedom rides, and voter registration drives. The SNCC worked closely with the SCLC. The SNCC developed the "jail, no bail" strategy to highlight its cause and put the burden of the costs on their oppressors.
Freedom Riders
In the summer of 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an organization co-founded by James Farmer, sent a mixed group of Black and white nonviolent "freedom riders" to travel by bus through the South, testing federal bans on segregated transportation. All went well until the group reached Alabama. There, segregationists bombed a bus carrying freedom riders, and the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham attacked riders as they left the bus. In Montgomery, riders were attacked again, prompting US Attorney General Robert Kennedy to call in federal troops to protect them. In Mississippi, over the course of the summer, more than 300 riders were arrested and jailed. The riders triumphed when the Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation in interstate travel.
Robert Kennedy
As attorney general in John F. Kennedy's administration, Robert Kennedy pressed for federal enforcement of civil rights laws. The president's brother as well as a member of his cabinet, Robert Kennedy also fought for new laws to ensure civil rights. He was instrumental in providing federal protection for civil rights activists in the South. He sent troops to protect the freedom riders, as well as Black students who wanted to attend schools and universities.
James Meredith
When James Meredith applied to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in 1961, he was denied admission. With the help of the NAACP, Meredith sued, and the court ruled in his favor. In September 1962, the Supreme Court ordered the university to let Meredith attend. Two weeks later, when Meredith went to enroll, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett refused to let him. Robert Kennedy sent 500 US marshals, supported by the military, to enforce the ruling of the Supreme Court. On October 1, amidst riots that left two dead, James Meredith became the first African American student at Ole Miss.
Birmingham Campaign
In April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC helped local organizations in Birmingham, Alabama, launch a massive campaign against segregation. Throughout the series of nonviolent protests, Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, a staunch segregationist, met the protesters with cattle prods, fire hoses, tear gas, and attack dogs. The images of the peaceful protesters, some of them children, not striking back against these police attacks outraged the nation. President Kennedy stated, "The civil rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He has helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln."
George Wallace
In his January 1963 inauguration speech, Alabama Governor George Wallace declared, "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" That summer, Wallace tried to uphold his promise by physically blocking the door to keep the University of Alabama from being integrated. But President Kennedy forced the governor to back down. Wallace's racist attitude made such an impression that Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned him in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
President John F. Kennedy
On June 11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a televised speech advocating for civil rights reform. Martin Luther King Jr. called Kennedy's speech "one of the most eloquent, profound, and unequivocal pleas for justice and freedom of all men ever made by any president." Soon after his speech, Kennedy proposed a civil rights bill to Congress that would ban segregation in public places and withhold federal funds from discriminating programs. The bill remained stuck in Congress until after Kennedy's death, but in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through an even stronger version of the bill.
The March on Washington
On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people of all races, more than double the expected number, marched in Washington, DC, in support of Kennedy's civil rights bill. In one of the most enduring speeches of the day, Martin Luther King Jr. shared his dream for racial equality with the crowd. March organizer A. Philip Randolph characterized the gathered crowd: "We are not a pressure group, we are not an organization or a group of organizations, we are not a mob. We are the advance guard of a massive moral revolution for jobs and freedom."
Before beginning this section, you should be familiar with the following concepts:
expository writing—nonfictional works such as articles in newspapers and magazines; a mode of writing in which the author's purpose is to inform, describe, or explain a subject to readers
persuasive essay—an essay that uses appeals to effect an audience's opinion
Explicit—fully revealed or expressed without vagueness, implication, or ambiguity; directly
Implicit—understood though not put clearly into words; indirectly
When someone is told to "read the room," they are being asked to understand something (mood or vibe) that hasn't been directly stated or explained to them. This is the same when reading a text, the phrase used is "read between the lines," instead. In these situations you must try to pick on clues and context to figure out what is being implied; the words implied and implicit are related and mean similar things.
By contrast, the word explicit refers to being told something directly and receiving an explanation as well as having connections pointed out. This can be done out loud or within text.
Authors don't always explicitly state their opinions in expository and persuasive essays; instead, an author may express a point of view implicitly, requiring readers to deduce the author's opinion based on the context. By varying the method of presenting opinions, authors add variety to their writing style and connect better with the reader.
As a student, you are often asked to respond to authors and pieces of writing by discussing their impact on your personal ideas and beliefs. In the same way, authors often expand on and respond to each other's ideas, and thus influence each other's viewpoints, style, and tone. Authors may respond to an earlier work by alluding to the text or its author in their own work. For a modern example, think of how it's easy to find video essays online responding to stories, games, mythology, and even other videos made in the past.
Nonfiction authors are not the only writers to respond to one another in their works. Fiction writers and poets are also influenced or inspired by other writers within the same genre. In addition, these authors may respond to the speeches, writings, and opinions of prominent public personalities.
Authors don't write their texts in a vacuum. When reading two pieces that may be related, be aware of how one may influence the other. Consider some questions to ask to understand the influences behind one text written in response to another:
What themes do the two works have in common?
What similarities or differences exist in the diction and tone of each piece?
In what time period and environment was each piece written?
How are the authors of the two pieces similar and different?
Which work influenced the other? How can you tell?
For a refresher on allusions, click here for notes from English 11A!
Born in 1817, Henry David Thoreau became one of the most notable writers of the transcendental era. Thoreau rarely conformed to society's norms during his lifetime. In 1846 he was jailed for a night after refusing to pay a poll tax as an act of protest against the Mexican-American War. Following this experience, Thoreau wrote the essay "Civil Disobedience."
The term civil disobedience refers to the refusal to obey certain laws in order to influence governmental policy through nonviolent methods of protest. Boycotts, sit-ins, picketing, and refusal to pay taxes are all forms of civil disobedience. Thoreau coined the term in his essay, and the idea influenced countless political activists around the world, including Mahatma Gandhi, President John F. Kennedy, and leaders of the US civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.
Henry David Thoreau states his opinions both explicitly and implicitly in "Civil Disobedience." He directly expresses his views and opinions about government. For example, he begins one sentence with the phrase "I believe," indicating that he is explicitly stating his belief. However, when musing on human nature, he does not directly say what his views are. Instead, through his analysis of how and why people act as they do, he conveys his opinions implicitly to his readers.
John Lewis, a founding member of the civil rights organization Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), became a prominent leader of the civil rights movement at a young age. As a boy, Lewis was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s radio broadcasts. He began participating in and organizing sit-in demonstrations in Nashville, Tennessee. He also took part in civil rights protests in other cities. In 1963, he was named chairman of the SNCC just as planning for the March on Washington began.
Published in 1998, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement is Lewis's recollection of the civil rights movement and the March on Washington. This lesson's reading selection, from the chapter entitled "We March Today," describes the months leading up to the March on Washington, including meetings with President John F. Kennedy and other influential leaders.
Visual components in presentations can help to elaborate on or support an argument or deepen an audience's understanding of what is being presented. Such visual aids can be used to expand on a definition, illustrate a process, or present additional information to an audience. Charts, graphs, photographs, illustrations, timelines, and tables are common visual aids that presenters use to better convey an idea or experience.
Visual aids do not need to be static images. Depending on the content of the presentation, a video or slideshow may also be an effective way of conveying additional information to an audience.
Examples:
An evaluation works best when listing pros and cons.
An explanation of a complex football play works best when drawn on a board.
When comparing two authors, a Venn diagram is useful.
When describing the architectural details of a building, having a blueprint is useful.
An explanation of managing money works well with a pie chart.
When describing an animal’s natural habitat, a map is useful.
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And don't forget that you can go back and look at notes from the other Units!