I IS ANOTHER: AUTOBIOGRAPHY ACROSS GENRES
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR EXAMS
(both written and oral)
(this list will be updated as we go long)
1. Consider the positive and the negative values inherent in the process of
language acquisition.
o how do you understand Eva Hoffman’s title: Lost in Translation?
o how does the genre of autobiography participate in the constitution of
the self through metaphorical translation?
2. Discuss modes of narration and self-framing in Codrescu’s autobiography.
o discuss the implication of such candid statements: “it’s hard knowing
exactly who we are and to what degree we depend on each other’s lies”
(119), and in the preface “I am not all that interested in ‘myself’ – I am
only curious to see what kind of person is going to emerge from a
certain arrangement of personal stories – which are in themselves not
‘facts’ but earlier arrangements – for certain practical uses.” (14)
3. Discuss memoir writing in Charles Simic’s A Fly in the Soup.
o what are the implications of writing from a position of a detached
observer for the formation of a unified or fragmented subject?
o what are the consequences of being an outsider standing between two
cultures?
o your analysis may draw on criticism on memory, history, and the rewriting of personal narratives.
4. Allen Ginsberg: “Howl” (1956)
o Describe the speaker of the poem. How is the speaker’s position in
relation to the people, states of mind and places he speaks about? In
relation to the reader?
o What is the effect of Ginsberg’s lyric style?
o [Words to characterize it: enthusiastic, declamatory, Whitmanesque,
Blakean, Biblical/Old Testament/rabbinical, celebratory, long lined,
filled with unusual compounds and predicates, f. ex.: “the negro streets
at dawn”; “angelheaded hipsters”, “hydrogen jukebox” etc.]
o Find and analyse more unusual examples of micro-level stylistics.
o Consider Ginsberg’s sense of flow and direct address.
o Consider the poem's use of location and its techniques of depicting
motion.
o Consider the themes of madness and youth and their linkage with
(sub)cultural activity in the poem.
5. Jack Kerouac: On the Road (1957)
o Describe Sal Paradise as a narrator. How is Sal's position in relation to
the other characters? In relation to the reader?
o What is the effect of Kerouac's narrative style?
o [Words to characterize it: involved, enthusiastic, hip, a spontaneous bop
prosody, circular motion around a jewel center, unusual compounds and
predicates, f. ex.: "the raw road night", p. 16; "the dawn of Jazz
America", p. 192] Find and analyse more unusual examples of microlevel stylistics.
o Consider Kerouac's sense of beginning and flow.
o Consider Dean Moriarty as a hero figure, as a prophet, as a saviour...
o What role in the narrative is played by the landscape, by the vehicles, by
the road, by motion itself?
o Consider the themes of madness and youth and their linkage with
(sub)cultural activity in the novel.