First Post for English 201

Hi all,

I'm using the same blog I began last semester (for an English 120 class; the blog was optional). We didn't get very far, but I'd like to develop it much further this time around. While I occasionally post lit and theory-related stories that aren't connected to the class, much of the content is the posts you'll be doing and my comments on them.

Discussion Post 1

 
Discuss your initial rankings of categories and your thoughts following reading "My Last Duchess". Did your rankings change? Why? Why not? Ultimately, what sort of literary critic do you think you are, here at the beginning of the course? (One interested in intrinsic analysis; one looking forward to extrinsic analysis; one anticipating reader-response theory, etc.) You might also discuss any of the following theoretical schools -- do you anticipate you'll be interested in any of them particularly? Why?

Reader-response criticism -- both intrinsic and extrinsic. Concerned, to varying degrees (some do very close text analysis combined with reader response) with how the reader responds personally to a text and why the reader responds as such -- which life experiences, practices, values, etc. inform the reader's response (some analysis of these elements of the reader's life are important). Also: the ideal reader, the "signals" the text sends that "tell" the reader how to read the text (does the reader's response mirror the ideal reader's response? Contradict it?)

Feminist criticism -- both intrinsic and extrinsic. Concerned with female characters authored by men and by women, female authors and their historical and/or biographical information, cultural context (laws, practices, cultural norms for women at the time a text was written and published), whether there's a specific sort of "female" writing that differs from men's writing; how women's bodies are often used as metaphor in texts, etc.

Marxist criticism -- on the whole, concerned primarily with social class -- as it's represented in literature and with the author's class designation/experience.  Concerned with issues of alienation and fragmentation caused by low-level work, rebellion and revolution, how the upper class creates and influences most ideas and practices that circulate through culture.

***Please title this "Blog Post 1" and make sure your name appears somewhere in the post. Sometimes people use blog handles that don't clarify their name -- we need to know you are.

***Be sure to respond to at least one other posting (and this response needs to go beyond "good job!" or "I agree!" Students often disagree with one another (in my experience) but usually handle things very diplomatically. Ask questions, offer alternative ideas, explain WHY you agree on a personal issue, etc. Response posting is part of the point total for each post.