You will notice that the midterm includes no questions about The Love Suicides at Amijima or The Story of the Stone. Those texts are missing, not because they aren't important, but because the midterm evaluates your growing ability to comprehend and interpret Enlightenment-era language. Texts we read in translation are presented in idiomatic C20/21 English. The final exam will cover the full range of non-Anglophone literature we read in this course.
That said, what else is missing from the exam? What knowledge or understanding or insight have you gained thus far this semester that you do not get the opportunity to display on the midterm?
Deadline: Monday (3/7), start of class. (Posts before midnight Saturday count for Week 7; posts after midnight count for Week 8.)
UPDATE: If you are using the PDF of Spectator 11 that's linked to here--rather than the handout from class--you will note that the left-hand margin of the first page is cut off. Here is a version of that first page that includes the complete text.
9 comments:
While attempting to begin the midterm exam I did notice that it didn't include any questions from the previous text that we discussed in class, "The Love Suicides at Amijima" or "The Story of the Stone." I was curious about that but I understand that the midterm should be the opportunity for students to think through the material we learned and how we can relate it to the Enlightenment-era. However, there are no questions relating much about Eliza Haywood, "Fantomina" although there is a bonus question that allows us to interpret some of Eliza Haywood's social norms, or major themes as discussed in Fantomina. Since the beginning, of the semester I have learned about the concept of hierarchy of female, social class, sexual power and the punishments that women and men endured during the Enlightenment era. I would enjoy elborating on my perspective of Immanuel Kant's, "An answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" and how he may percieve Eliza Haywood, Chikamatsu Mon'zaemon, and Cao Xueqin's literature.
I agree with JeTara, there were a lot of other works that we did that I would have enjoyed elaborating more on. I think that it would have been interesting to propose what other authors would think of other texts.
In class and on the blog, we discussed the differences in cultures. The culture that a reader is affiliated with affects his or her interruption of the text. For example, readers that were not familiar with Japanese culture needed to realize that a lover’s suicide was thought of as honorable whereas it would be frowned upon our modern society. The exam does not cover cultural influences. Also, it does not include questions about how the delivery or presentation of a text impacts the story. For example, puppet theater is utilized in The Love Suicides at Amijima which needs to be considered when discussing the text.
I thought that nothing was really missing from the exam. Everyone had the oppertunity to analyze two works we did not go over in class. This was a great oppertunity to see what everyone has learned from the class. If all of the works we went over in class were on the exam it would be ten or fifteen pages long or it would have to be a true/false fill in the black test. We learned how to analzye in class and compare stories and that is what was on the exam. We were able to elaborate on other works in our papers.
Sadly so, I must admit that reading the Spectator essays, Kant's "What is Enlightenment," and Hume's Dialogues resulted in weaker understanding and analysis on my half as opposed to the short stories and plays we read and discussed in class. This is probably due to the fact that I am more used to reading and analyzing actual stories rather than essays about human reasoning.
I do agree with some of those that I wish I saw questions that pertained to those literature we discussed thoroughly in class. I, too, was thinking about the cultural aspects of certain kinds of customs. Then at the same time I also agree with Kim in that these last three pieces of work were the least covered in class, and that this will also give me an opportunity to solidify my understanding of the texts.
But also at the same time, it's kind of pushing down on my confidence to do well on this midterm! But nonetheless, I will do my best.
I know you're asking what is missing from the exam, but I just came to say that I thought this was a very well-written exam. The point of an exam is to test the skills you have learned and this is why it needed to be over *new* texts. Otherwise, you could just be repeating what you heard someone else in class or something that you've already thought about or written about before. Giving us new texts meant actually seeing if we could analyze the way we do in class with thirty people on our own as well. I think this is also particularly important if we take further English classes where the midterms might not be take-home and you might have to read completely new texts and write an essay about them in one class period. That's a pretty common format for a lot of classes -- they want to see how you analyze a text that you haven't come across before in order to see if you're actually learning *how* to analyze rather than simply memorizing.
While this is an enlightement literature class, we are only considering western enlightenment. One thing that we completely ignore is the fact that eastern countries also experienced an era of enlightenment. For example Japan experienced an enlightenment during the Meiji Era(eras are named after the emperor ruling at the time). When they experienced this they turned towards new western science and books to learn new subjects that were foreign to them. Through this they placed more importance on mathematics and science and had difficulty in deciding how to approach this new material and what to do with their old traditions. Before Japan placed more focus on confucianism and religion. Though in some ways it was because of the fact that eastern encountered western, eastern countries experience how much stronger the western countries were. Since it was due to westerners that eastern countries changed, you would think that we would at least discuss some connection between their two types of literature.
The short stories I feel provided a better understanding of the Enlightenment era. The story had so much information in them which would have provided for a stronger comparison of the way that different themes relate to each other. With the assigned readings, I found myself almost connecting two things that were so similar that it was difficult to bring out the contrast between the two. Since reading story that should two different cultural aspects, it would have been good to display the qualities that make them resemble each other. I would say that reading these text we gained the knowledge of understanding break down simple text to show a more complex meaning to them. On the surface some readings might display one thing, but once broken down it opens up a window to something different.
Fantomina is somewhat left out of the exam. There is however an opportunity to talk about Eliza Haywood in the bonus question. In one other part of the exam as well I felt the ability to make a connection to Beauplaisir and Fantomina. They just weren't directly asked about.
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