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Post by Lotus Eater on Oct 16, 2006 13:40:58 GMT 7
The dean has told me to create a couple of courses I would like to teach - yippee!! One I have thought would be interesting is "Allusions in literature; the world behind the words". For 2nd language post/grad lit students, many many of the allusions in books etc are just so many words to them. So ... to fill this gap in their education, I want to create this course of 'stuff' we all grew up knowing, partly from our own reading, partly from stories told by family, education institutions etc, partly from just from being alive in a world and hearing comments often enough to gather their meaning. So - from your own reading - what do you figure would be useful? And we are talking wide-ranging here - from Mickey Mouse to .... I figure some of the main mythologies we grew up with - really well known and used Greek/Roman ones Medusa, Promethesus, etc (plus stuff like Caligula fiddling while Rome burned), main Bible stories, Valhalla, the Valkyries, Bifrost, Odin and Thor, some nursery rhyme stuff, film allusions "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine" etc, musical stuff - Sergeant Pepper - etc etc etc. Got any ideas - stuff you've come across you've had to explain to your students?? All suggestions gratefully accepted and considered - if not all used!
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Post by AMonk on Oct 16, 2006 15:42:48 GMT 7
Puck; Rudyard Kipling; Moby Dick; Alice in Winderland; The Beatles; Elvis Presley; Old Blue Eyes; girding your loins; Shakespeare; pardon my French; tying the knot; off your rocker, up the wall; Indian giver; count coup; David and Goliath; Samson and Delilah; Ring A Rosie; droit de seigneur.
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Post by AMonk on Oct 16, 2006 18:13:40 GMT 7
Doctor Spooner; Mrs Malaprop; 3 Stooges; Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch; Aesop's fables; Gone With the Wind; rat race; Rat Pack; Xmas tree and Santa Claus; Hallowe'en; Mother's Day, Father's Day; Guy Fawkes; Inquisition and witch hunts; Ichabod Crane; Auschwitz, Dachau, holocaust; eavesdrop; Brahms; Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus; Rome; Cleopatra; Marc Anthony; Gengis Khan; Attila the Hun; Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear; She'll be coming round the mountain; This little piggy; Itsy, bitsy spider; Walk the walk, Talk the talk; Lead a horse to water; stop on a dime.
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Ruth
SuperDuperMegaBarfly
God's provisions are strategically placed along the path of your obedience.
Posts: 3,915
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Post by Ruth on Oct 17, 2006 6:54:28 GMT 7
The other night we were joking with a student and I accused my honey of lying (he was claiming perfection, or something ) He made the comment, "Is my nose getting longer?" as proof he wasn't lying. The student had no clue what he was talking about. So, my 2 jiaos worth is throw in a little Pinochio.
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Post by AMonk on Oct 17, 2006 20:46:41 GMT 7
Goldilocks; 3 Little Pigs; Cinderella; Sleeping Beauty; Ugly Duckling; Little Red Ridinghood; Beauty and the Beast; Hansel and Gretel; Little Mermaid; Snow White; Hickory Dickory Dock; 3 Blind Mice; Farmer in the Dell; Old MacDonald; Mary had a Little Lamb; Twinkle, twinkle Little Star; Baa Baa Black Sheep; Old Mother Hubbard; Mother Goose; Old Woman in a Shoe; Winken, Blinken and Nod; 'Twas the Night before Christmas; Rudolf the red-nosed Reindeer; Dashing through the Snow (Jingle Bells); Santa Claus is Coming to Town
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Post by Pashley on Oct 17, 2006 23:20:25 GMT 7
www.gutenberg.org has many thousand free books, mostly in English More-or-less anything that's out of copyright. Alice, Peter pan, Dickens, Shakespeare, Homer, ... I think you have to do some Homer. Sirens, trojan horse, Achilles heel, choice of Paris, ...
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Post by Mr Nobody on Oct 18, 2006 6:23:38 GMT 7
I think it's a great idea. The problem, though, would be to choose a lot of easy stuff to cover a range, or reduce it to a small number of effective ones, or to reduce it to an in depth look at a small related group. Eg, Greek myths, or shakespeare, or something.
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Miss Maggles
Barfly
I am good for the Chinese econony!
Posts: 34
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Post by Miss Maggles on Nov 2, 2006 22:26:20 GMT 7
A suggestion, if you are going to do some of the fairy tales, it may be interesting to look at Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes. He updates the tales with the funniest results.
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Post by Lotus Eater on Nov 3, 2006 5:26:42 GMT 7
Thanks all. I think it has to be pretty broad to cover the most common allusions. Proverbs they seem to know and understand pretty well already, but it is the subtler things that lose them - the ones we grow up with without realising.
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Post by Vegemite on Nov 15, 2006 19:29:20 GMT 7
Sounds like a brilliant course LE, something I attempt to do a bit of in my Culture Classes. There are many one-liners and allusions that they just don't understand because they haven't grown up with them.
I think I would go with Greek myths and Biblical allusions. Alluding to these big two, I think, is really common in daily language. For example, a businessperson saying we have to find someone's Achille's tendon, or someone descibing a woman as an Amazonian...or people saying we have to run to the ark.
But good luck with the course, I'd enjoy knowing how it goes...
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