The Importance of Fiction

In this video, excerpts from a television interview, the novelist David Foster Wallace talks about why fiction matters. Please watch and come to class Friday ready to discuss the following: how does television differ as an entertainment or art form from novels and short stories? What might novels and short stories give readers that television cannot? Conversely, what can television provide its audience that novels and short stories cannot?

Instructions for T.S. Eliot and E.E. Cummings poems

Print out and read The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot and the poems by e.e. cummings -- choose one poem and write a response in which you a) give your view in a paragraph of the poem's theme or controlling idea, citing evidence from the poem and b) develop a paragraph in which you show how the poet used two literary devices (metaphor, simile, imagery, irony, etc.) or elements (characterization, setting, etc. -- but not theme).

Due Monday.