unit 2: short fiction

Joyce (Copy)

Baldwin (Copy)

O'Connor (Copy)

Tolstoy (Copy)

MEETING 14: prose test

MCQ (Prose), FRQ2

Homework:

(1) Prep for vocabulary and sentence composition quiz.

(2a) Read Chapter I of Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. The slim volume was provided to you in your textbook delivery. If for some reason you do not have it, you can find one in the study room of the library.

(2b) After reading Chapter I, consider the following quote from Vladimir Nabokov from his lectures on Tolstoy: “One peculiar feature of Tolstoy’s style is what I shall term the ‘groping purist.’ In describing a meditation, emotion, or tangible object, Tolstoy follows the contours of the thought, the emotion, or the object until he is perfectly satisfied with his re-creation, his rendering. This involves what we might call creative repetitions, a compact series of repetitive statements, coming one immediately after the other, each more expressive, each closer to Tolstoy’s meaning. He gropes, he unwraps the verbal parcel for its inner sense, he peels the apple of the phrase, he tries to say it one way, then a better way, he gropes, he stalls, he toys, he Tolstoys with words.”

(2c) Read Chapter I again, more slowly and lovingly this time, with Nabokov’s quote in mind: Can you find an emblematic passage of Tolstoy “unwrapping the verbal parcel” or “peeling the apple of the phrase”? Enjoy the gift, guys, of being able to read this amazing novella in small sections slowly; Tolstoy has much to show us.

meeting 15: Ivan ilyich, chapter 1

Vocabulary Quiz

(1) How did each reading go? How long did it take you? What are your impressions of reading Tolstoy? Share your passage that’s emblematic of Tolstoy’s style, according to Nabokov.

(2) Let’s make a list together of the various responses to Ivan Ilyich’s death. What is Tolstoy showing us at the outset? Are there structural advantages to beginning his novella after Ivan has already died? What do we learn about Ivan?

(3) Let’s perform a close reading of the two paragraphs on pages 3-4 as a group. How does Tolstoy’s play with perspective?

(4) Silently re-read from the middle of page 5 (“Come while it hasn’t started yet…”) to the bottom of page 7. Here Praskovya Fedorovna asks Pyotr Ivanovich to accompany her into a private room so she can question him about pension details. Treat the passage like a prose analysis, in which you analyze the narrator’s use of techniques such as point of view, detail, tone, word choice, and syntax in order to characterize the complex interaction between Pyotr and Praskovya.

Homework: (1) Read Chapters 2 and 3 of The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Cabrera, Wang (J), Omanga, Ballew, and Winzerling will help me teach those chapters.

meeting 16: Ivan ilyich, chapters 2 and 3

The Anatomy of 50 Great Sentences: [B], [C], [D]

Your FRQ2 openers

Sentence 1 of chapter 2 outlines the thesis of the latest section: “The past history of Ivan Ilyich’s life was most simple and ordinary and (therefore) most terrible.” How does Tolstoy prove it? What details pulse to help him make his case?

MCQ Writing

Homework: Read chapters 4-7.