What is the difference between story and plot? What is the difference between plot summary and plot interpretation? How do you analyze the relationship between the main plot and a subplot? What are the purposes of literary elements and literary techniques? What are the writer’s literary devices and reader’s literary devices? How do you recognize and appreciate ways in which writer use language, structure and style to achieve his intended effects on the reader? How do you shift from mere appreciation of a literary text to critical literary appreciation? How do you engage in literary analysis & what is the purpose? What is the difference between topic and theme and how do you arrive at the theme? How do you compare the theme and the moral message? How do you develop an interpretation of a work of literature (drama, poetry and prose) and what is the purpose? How do you present critical appreciations or your individual responses to literary texts composed in different forms and in different periods and cultures? How do you know your individual response is valid? What are the differences between Critical Literary Appreciation, Literary Criticism, and Literary Theory? Why should there be a Literary theory at all?
CITY & GUILDS ENGLISH, England ON YOUR ACCENT Which of these opinions about good pronunciation is closest to yours? (a) Good pronunciation must be free of any local or regional accent. (b) A slight regional accent is acceptable but a foreign accent is not. (c) An accent, regional or foreign, doesn’t matter as long as the speaker’s pronunciation is easy to […]
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21 DECEMBER 2012. Being written by bunpeiris Call it Armageddon, Apocalypse Now, The End of the World, The Day After, The Heart of Darkness, Mad Max Clockwork Orange Bushido Days or even 21 December 2012 or whatever term you dare to name the ultimate natural, man-made or alien-inflicted (once upon a time in the future, they would wage war against us for our water […]
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CHINA’S ELDER BROTHER: INDIA Marginal Comments by bunpeiris are followed up with gleanings Once upon a time India was a great land that made timeless contributions to the Heritage of the World that no other land, since then has ever matched up, far from exceeding: India was the birth place, cradle and home of sages, philosophers and scholars since time […]
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BUDDHA’S LIGHT TEA On this Vesākha (Pali; Sanskrit: Vaiśākha, Sinhala: Wesak or Vesak) day (another anniversary of birth, enlightenment and the final extinction of Gautama Buddha, it brings me, living in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, a Theravada Buddhist (though not a good one at it), immense joy to present you all guys and dolls with one of those accessible and appealing […]
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BLACK TEA: HEALING POWERS The tea plantations in the salubrious Central Highlands of Sri Lanka [High Grown Tea] produces the finest Black Tea in the world that still goes by the British Colonial brand name of Ceylon Tea, in spite of the ancient tropical island has now been called Sri Lanka, i.e. the Sanskrit prefix of “Sri” meaning resplendent being […]
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Mojo and Suzanne A Novel Written by bunpeiris “For never was a story of more woe than this of Suzanne and her Mojo.” An absolutely stunning angel in a swaying short skirt and a Cashmere sweater floated into the lobby just as a butterfly would. She seemed incredibly light on her feet. I couldn’t take my eyes off. Our eyes […]
Read moreHow the British Exploited Sri Lanka By J.B. Müller The Sri Lankan Diaspora overseas (mainly in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the USA) eagerly and indiscriminately absorbs everything appearing about their Motherland in the international print and electronic media. All what is done is done in the naïve belief that there isn’t a spin on the news and that it […]
Read moreWhy Do We Study Literature Banquet Speech John Steinbeck’s speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962 Listen to an Audio Recording of John Steinbeck’s Speech at the Nobel Banquet Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches – nor is it a game for […]
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B.A. in English from University of London B. A. in English from University of London External Programmes Are you a voracious reader of works of literature? Do you have a “Sense of English Language” coupled with a “Bent on Literarture”? Would you love to become a teacher of literature? Would you love to engage your learners in discussions instead of one man […]
Read moreReading & Enjoying Shakespeare, the supreme center of the Western Canon Compiled by bunpeiris Of all the images of Shakespeare, I like this most: the image with a ring in the ear. Of course, Shakespeare had no pretensions. An interesting idea by some punk [eh!] painter. I love that ring, a glorious diamond in the ear like that of […]
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William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet Marginal Comments by bunpeiris It all catches fire with insanely wagging tongues of a couple of slapstick cowards, minions: not at all by steel of the masters. A brawl among the bawdy & rowdy from the houses of Montague and Capulet equal in dignity, succeeds in setting ablaze an unknown ancient feud between the […]
Read moreFigurative Language [ Part 1] Figurative language The use of words to express meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words themselves: metaphor, simile, hyperbole, oxymoron, personification Figurative language is the opposite of literal language Literal language means exactly what it says. Figurative language makes the reader or listener use his imagination & understand much more than plain words. He […]
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The Iliad. His mind fluttered; his fingers almost trembled. He was only eight years old & the epic narration of a war that had lasted no less than a decade held him,gripping tightly, at once with a pain and a pleasure in an unbearable state of being. Unbearable, for the reason, now it praises the gallantry of a hero; then it weeps at […]
Read moreTHE GOD OF POEMS: RABINDRANATH TAGORE by bunpeiris Rabindranath Tagore http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22217/22217-h/22217-h.htm No single modern literary work has ever revealed to the West the beauty of Indian culture as Gitanjali has done. Gitanjali is a work of literature like none other: it is timeless and priceless. All the poems under the stars are fickle drops of glistening dew on the cusps of petals of […]
Read moreAnthony Burgess Following article is republished herein by the kind courtesy of International Anthony Burgess Foundation. Anthony Burgess was a late starter in the art of fiction. He spent many years as a school teacher in England and Malaya before his first novel, Time for a Tiger, was published in 1956, by which time he was 39 years old. He had […]
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