Literature Discussion Group: March 2014

15 March 2014

Literature. It can be a snooty word.

Especially when it's pronounced LIT-tra-chuh (check out the first pronunciation here).

But what is literature? And does our next book, Homeland by R.A. Salvatore, fit the bill?

That's what we'll be discussing (that, and the plot, characters, themes, and symbolism of Homeland—as well as its relationship to King Lear), at our next meeting on April 1st.

Yes, really. It's April Fool's Day, but this is not a prank. We will be meeting. For reals.

To make sure you're prepared for the discussion, you'll need to do two things.

Okay, three, if you count reading the book, but that's a given.

ONE: COME TO GROUP WITH YOUR OWN DEFINITION OF "LITERATURE"

Feel free to research it and see what other people think on the subject before you pen your description, but ultimately, try to come up with your own solid explanation of what is, and what isn't, literature—including whether or not our current title qualifies.

Here are some points you might want to consider:

Are there particular genres of writing that cannot be considered literature?
Can works of non-fiction be literature? What about poetry or biographies?
Can a title be classified as literature immediately upon publication, or does it have to be around for a while to earn the distinction?

TWO: ENGAGE IN A BIT OF ANALYSIS

Come to group with two* of the following ready to go:

a theme from Homeland, and what the author seems to be saying about that theme
a symbol you noticed and how it is used
a motif from the book and what purpose you think it serves
a discussion question to ask the group
a quote you found particularly interesting, meaningful, or puzzling

*You can use two different items (a theme and a symbol, a discussion question and a quote), or two of any one item (two themes, two symbols, two questions) to satisfy this requirement.

All right. Happy reading! See you on April 1st. Really.

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Looking For Hamlet Scholar Talk

This is another event at the PPL in March in honor of the First Folio Exhibit, and it's on Wednesday, March 9th from 12-1:30pm in the Rines Auditorium.

"Focusing on Hamlet, University of Southern Maine Professor Ben Bertram will examine the way editors, directors, actors, teachers, and scholars choose among folio, quarto, or conflated versions of the plays. He will also be accompanied by actors who will perform Hamlet’s soliloquies and join in a discussion of how Shakespeare’s words make it from the page to the stage."

Get the full description here.

Definitions and Clarifications

pneumatic, adj. - literally, full of air. This term is often used to describe women in BNW, and seems to suggest that a woman like Lenina, who's "wonderfully pneumatic," is buxom, curvy, shapely, and yes, even bouncy. But pneumatic could also have a second meaning here, and that is to indicate that someone is a bit of an air-head, light on the intellectual matter, or not bogged down by weighty matters or considerations.

viviparous, adj. - a creature that is viviparous gives birth to live young that develop inside the body, as in the way mammals reproduce. Humans are viviparous (at least, they were until A.F. 632).

Malthusian, adj. - based on the beliefs of Robert Thomas Malthus, a British economist who argued that "population tends to increase faster than food supply, with inevitably disastrous results unless the increase in population is checked by moral restraints or by war, famine, and disease." - The Free Dictionary

Pavlovian Conditioning, n. - also called Classic Conditioning, it's a way of getting a subject to make certain associations between two previously unrelated things; Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was the psychologist who discovered that if he always rang a bell right before feeding his dogs, they came to associate the sound of the bell with getting fed, and therefore would start to drool upon hearing the bell. Here's a great comic related to that experiment.