Week 12 WS 17 and 18 Dec 2024

GENRE + INTERTEXTUALITY & ALLUSION

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

A.

·        Write a short summary (no more than 80 words) of Angela Carter’s ‘The Company of Wolves’.

·        How would you classify the piece in terms of genre? Is this question hard to answer in the singular? Look for moments of generic plurality and transformation. Name the genres that you think are being used or implied in those moments.

·       One of the things Carter sets out to do here is to produce an adaptation of a "classical" fairy tale. Why? What could have been her motivations?

·        Write down four adjectives that define the character of Red Riding Hood for you.

·        Write down four adjectives that characterize her male counterpart for you.

B.

·        Think about the possible uses of allusions in literature. Think of two examples from your reading experience in which allusions are a marked (structurally important) feature.

·        Read 'Yarrow' by Paul Muldoon - at least the first 4,5 pages of the poem - and make notes on the following questions:

• How woud you describe the poem's form? Pay attention to its use of rhyme and sound repetition.
  

• Look up some of the allusions. Think about their provenience and character. How does the use of intertextuality influence the overall tone of the long poem? 

• Why do you think Muldoon chose yarrow as one of the leitmotifs in this poem? What is the symbolic implication of the plant in the poem?