DIDLS- diction, imagery, details, language, syntax. This is a recurring word that we see every single day in AP lit. One where we just walk in the room and get asked very first thing of the day, in the early morning, and we all know it. This short acronym helps pull all literature together in AP lit, and so far after just being in school for a month, it has helped me to recognize things in writing and analyze things way better.
How do we make something really funny? What elements need to be included? In literature, it is really hard to make people actually LOL. A total of 6 different elements have to be included. Not only do a lot of different elements need to be included, but there are also different theories that have to be taken into account when we try to be funny. For example, in the past I'm sure we have all tried to be funny in some writing, but did it really work? I know it didn't for me! Of course, I thought my writing was funny, but it takes a lot to get the reader to see exactly what you are seeing and think the same things are funny. After learning about all the different theories of being funny and learning the elements (appeal to intellect, be mechanical, be inherently human, go against societal norms, and painless or harmless to the participants), I have now noticed why things on tv, and in books and plays such as The American Dream, are so funny. They use the elements well.
We not only learned about how to be funny, but we learned about different literary time periods as well. Last year in American lit, we learned most of these (romatiscm, po-mo, modernism, realism, colonialism) but this year a couple new ones were thrown in. Classical and midevalism were both new material to me, and I can see why. They seem to primarily be relevant to British literature and the things that they study. Coming from different backgrounds of study fields is kind of hard because both groups know so many different things, so I think it would be cool if, on certain things such as literary areas, we could help teach each other what we know best so that there is a general knowledge of what is going on.
We also learned about critical points of view. there are many different ways to analyze literature. The one that I would say I do most is the New Critic, point. I just read things and take them how they are written on the page, and I don't immediately try to connect it to something that has already happened in literature and stuff like that. The psychoanalytic view point is one that intrigues me. Being able to read that deeply into literature is really a good skill to be able to have. Who would have thought people could think of such weird and twisted ways to convey their every day lives onto paper? All of these things make literature what it is today, and without it there wouldn't be much to study about literature, would there?
Hey Julia!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your first post. I had very similar ideas to what we learned as of our latest course material. If I could help in any way, I would encourage you to maybe go beyond the era and lens notes we took. I feel like you can reflect better to past work if you also wrote about the quizzes we took, and what you learned from that as well. in addition to that,specifying the 6 elements would be helpful for the readers and to you, too. Your post is well opinionated and informal, and I really like your voice in your writing!
I agree this post was enjoyable to read because it isn't just a bland description of what we did in class. I'm kind of unsure about what I think of the whole theory of comedy thing that you talked about. On the one hand I definitely think it helps to analyze literature and explain in essays exactly why something is funny. But on the other hand I kind of disagree with the whole premise of it. I think its difficult to make humor objective, and usually the funniest things are quick witted remarks. I think things tend to be less funny if they are making a clear effort to be funny, which would probably how it would come off it you went in the other direction and used the theory of comedy trying to make jokes.
ReplyDeleteI like how you made this article very personal, relating it to your own experiences from American Lit. I took Brit Lit last year and I agree with the fact that medieval lit is heavily studied there. Classical lit is mostly important from the standpoint that it influences many other literary movements. Personally, I don't think you really need to expand the number of topics you address in this type of post, as long as you are detailed about how one thing affected you. I think the humor techniques are generally good guidelines to follow, especially in writing since writing is scripted by its very nature.
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