Cortes Sagitales

COMENTARIO DE TEXTOS LITERARIOS EN LENGUA INGLESA (CTLLI)

2012-2013 ACADEMIC YEAR, FIRST "PRUEBA DE EVALUACIÓN CONTINUA 1"
(PEC 1)

INTRUCTIONS:

Each correct answer is worth 0.5 mark. In the multiple-choice questions YOU WILL GET A PENALISATION OF 0.25 FOR EVERY WRONG OR BLANK ANSWER. Each spelling and grammatical mistake in the answers that require writing paragraphs is penalisedwith 0.10. Possible maximum marks: 10. Total final mark percentage for this PEC: 10%. You have to upload your answers as a Word or PDF file on the "Entrega de Tareas" section on the virtual course on aLF for your local (Centro Asociado) or intercampus tutor to mark. Do not send your PEC via e-mail either to your tutor or the Course Team. Your PEC must be uploaded and saved on the aLF framework sothat its mark is computed as part of the final mark.
In order to save time, it is best to prepare and answer the questions dealing with Unit 1 coinciding with the end of the study period for Unit 1 (end of October). Then start Unit 2, do your reading and self-assessment tasks as indicated in the "Guía de Estudio, Unit 2", and then proceed on to answering the PEC questions dealing with Unit 2.After a final revision, upload the whole document (both answers to Unit 1 and Unit 2 in one single file).
The DEADLINE is 23 November 2012. Once it has expired, you will not be able to upload your answers and you will not get marks for your work. Please, make sure that the file is correct and legible before the deadline. If the file cannot be open or is illegible, you will not get marks for yourwork and you will lose the 10% of your final mark.

The Course Team

UNIT 1

PART ONE: LITERARY TEXT

Read the following fragment from Dylan Thomas’s poem “A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London” and answer the questions below.

[…]

The majesty and burning of the child’s death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blasphemedown the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

1. "Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath" is an example of:A. metaphor B. hyperbole C. assonance D. paradox

2. Reason your choice above in 1. by explaining the meaning of the quoted line in the context of the poem, its particular choice of words and the suggestions they introduce in the text. Make sure that your explanation is brief (4 lines maximum), clear and written in correct English (without any spelling or grammatical mistakes).

3. Themeter or rhythm of the verses is:

A. four-beat verse
B. four-beat verses except the second and fifth verses which are three-beat lines
C. there is no meter at all
D. iambic pentameter

4. Scan two verses to offer examples that back up your choice above (i.e. write them again and identify the stressed syllables by marking them with an accent).

PART 2: INTRODUCTION TO LITERARYCRITICISM (BARRY AND RYAN)

1. Read the quotation below from Barry's Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (3rd edition), page 69 and answer the questions you will find underneath:

So the deconstructionist practises what has been called textual harassment or oppositional reading, reading with the aim of unmasking internal contradictions or inconsistencies inthe text, aiming to show the disunity which underlies its apparent unity. […] In pursuance of its aims, the deconstructive process will often fix on a detail of the text which looks incidental -the presence of a particular metaphor, for instance- and then use it as the key to the whole text, so that everything is read through it.

A. Summarise the main idea of this paragraph in just two of...