It seems that English people are much more playful towards their language that we are toward ours. They have devised all kind of games that twist, bend and modify their language in the most unexpected, and often funny, ways. Reputed linguist David Crystal collects some of them in his book Language Play. He refers, for example, to a popular game on radio, Whose Line Is It Anyway. Here the aim is to construct a dialogue in which each person is limited to one sentence, and each sentence must be a question:
A: Are you ready to go out?
B: Do you doubt it?
A: How was I to know?
B: Haven’t you any imagination?
A: Are you trying to be rude?
B: Why should I be rude?
Or this one, in which two people must construct a dialogue, but this time each sentence should begin with a successive letter of the alphabet:
A: Are you ready?
B: Better believe it.
A: Can we get a taxi?
B: Do you think that’ll be easy?
A: Easy?
B: Finding taxis here is never easy.
A: Gosh!
30 Aug 2008
28 Aug 2008
ZEPHANIAH
Tras estudiar a poetas como Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath o Geoffrey Hill, encontrar a Benjamin Zephaniah fue como unas pequeñas vacaciones. Si alguien no ha visitado su página, vale la pena dedicarle unos minutos: http://www.benjaminzephaniah.com/content/index.php
O para pasar un buen rato garantizado, escucharle en directo recitando ‘Talking Turkeys’:
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=v4AgPSjzXkw
"I used to think nurses
were women
I used to think policemen
were men
I used to think poets
were boring
Until I became one of them."
From Talking Turkeys, Benjamin Zephaniah
O para pasar un buen rato garantizado, escucharle en directo recitando ‘Talking Turkeys’:
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=v4AgPSjzXkw
"I used to think nurses
were women
I used to think policemen
were men
I used to think poets
were boring
Until I became one of them."
From Talking Turkeys, Benjamin Zephaniah
26 Aug 2008
IS 'GENRE LITERATURE' AN OXYMORON?
La escritora Laurell K. Hamilton es la autora de varias novelas de fantasía y ciencia ficción que han alcanzado un gran éxito de ventas en Estados Unidos y han servido de base para varias novelas gráficas, igualmente muy apreciadas en el mundo del cómic. En una entrevista realizada el pasado mes de Abril explicaba cómo había sido expulsada de la escuela de escritura del Marion College (ahora Indiana Wesleyan University) debido a su tendencia a escribir lo que se denomina “literatura de género”. Estoy seguro de que en alguna parte hay alguien que conoce la razón por la que una novela pierde automáticamente todo su valor literario, por el solo hecho de pertenecer a un género definido (romance, misterio, horror, fantasía…). He aquí un fragmento de esa entrevista:
L.K. Hamilton: “I submitted two horror stories to get into the writing program; I made no pretense that I wanted to write anything else. What I didn´t realize until too late was that the president of the writing program accepted me with the idea that she would cure me and make me want to write what she considered proper writing. She told me that all genre was garbage, but I refused to write anything else. And within two to three weeks, half the class was writing genre – romance, science fiction, fantasy and mystery. But one fateful day before she kicked me out, I asked her, ‘What about Shakespeare? A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a fantasy. Macbeth doesn’t work without the ghosts. What about Dickens? A Christmas Carol is a ghost story’. She called me into her office and told me I would never write for publication. She was determined that I wouldn’t go out and do exactly what I have done. I’ve now corrupted millions (laughs).” Writer’s Digest. April 2008.
L.K. Hamilton: “I submitted two horror stories to get into the writing program; I made no pretense that I wanted to write anything else. What I didn´t realize until too late was that the president of the writing program accepted me with the idea that she would cure me and make me want to write what she considered proper writing. She told me that all genre was garbage, but I refused to write anything else. And within two to three weeks, half the class was writing genre – romance, science fiction, fantasy and mystery. But one fateful day before she kicked me out, I asked her, ‘What about Shakespeare? A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a fantasy. Macbeth doesn’t work without the ghosts. What about Dickens? A Christmas Carol is a ghost story’. She called me into her office and told me I would never write for publication. She was determined that I wouldn’t go out and do exactly what I have done. I’ve now corrupted millions (laughs).” Writer’s Digest. April 2008.
14 Aug 2008
ONE IDEA, ONE SENTENCE
"A sentence should contain one idea, though that can be a complex or compound idea. The most obscure sentences in academic writing are sentences filled to bursting. If your writing lacks clarity, check to see if a long, bad sentence might make two short, good ones.
This isn't to say that all sentences should be short. Long sentences add variety, and some ideas are too complicated to fit into seven words. But don't turn your simple ideas into monstrous sentences, devouring line after line without mercy. One idea, one sentence."
Guide to Grammar and Style, by Jack Lynch
This isn't to say that all sentences should be short. Long sentences add variety, and some ideas are too complicated to fit into seven words. But don't turn your simple ideas into monstrous sentences, devouring line after line without mercy. One idea, one sentence."
Guide to Grammar and Style, by Jack Lynch
10 Aug 2008
LONDON
I like London and somehow I try not to finish a year without a short visit to that city. The reasons have been different (sightseeing, family, English language, personal interests…) and it each stay has led me to some known places that I’ve seen change through time or just remain but every journey also has taken me to new places.
Depending on the activities that engage my attention at a particular moment, I seem to focus on diverse issues and, in the last five years, literature has been a recurrent attractor.
That’s why I’ll try to build a virtual tour in five stops along some spots in London where writers studied in the last years happened to ‘turn up’ unexpectedly.
1. In June 2005, when the 18th and 19th English writers studied in LITERATURA INGLESA II were still fresh in my mind after the many hours of study devoted to that subject for still recent exams, they lent me a members’ card to enter a temporary exhibition at the Tate Britain Gallery for free and I ended up surrounded by Joshua Reynolds’s paintings without really intending it. Suddenly I started recognising faces I had got acquainted with when, trying to assign images to names and works, I ‘illustrated’ my study notes with pictures from the Internet. Many of those paintings belong to the permanent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and can be seen there, e.g. Laurence Sterne or Samuel Johnson
2. Nex year, a quiet walk around the inside of Southwark Cathedral made me stop at Shakespeare Memorial where there is a lying sculpture of that playwright. Looking up, Hamlet, Falstaff, Caliban… took shape in the light filtered through a stained glass window.
3. It was no surprise to find manuscripts by recognised authors in the showcases at the British Library http://www.bl.uk/ but looking at the exhibits of Magna Carta with the contextual hints attained after taking HISTORIA Y CUTURA DE LOS PAÍSES DE HABLA INGLESA was something new.
4. Many houses around London display plaques informing that they once were home to recognised writers, scientists, statesmen… George Orwell made his appearance in Notting Hill from his name on the façade of this house:
5. Bookshops are the easy way to come across the names and works of well-known writers. Last week, while browsing through the bookcases in a big bookshop, the name of Benjamin Zephaniah drew my attention and, for a while, I read some excerpts from Refugee Boy, something that probably I would not have done without the reference of that poet and novelist studied in the last term of this academic year.
Depending on the activities that engage my attention at a particular moment, I seem to focus on diverse issues and, in the last five years, literature has been a recurrent attractor.
That’s why I’ll try to build a virtual tour in five stops along some spots in London where writers studied in the last years happened to ‘turn up’ unexpectedly.
1. In June 2005, when the 18th and 19th English writers studied in LITERATURA INGLESA II were still fresh in my mind after the many hours of study devoted to that subject for still recent exams, they lent me a members’ card to enter a temporary exhibition at the Tate Britain Gallery for free and I ended up surrounded by Joshua Reynolds’s paintings without really intending it. Suddenly I started recognising faces I had got acquainted with when, trying to assign images to names and works, I ‘illustrated’ my study notes with pictures from the Internet. Many of those paintings belong to the permanent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and can be seen there, e.g. Laurence Sterne or Samuel Johnson
2. Nex year, a quiet walk around the inside of Southwark Cathedral made me stop at Shakespeare Memorial where there is a lying sculpture of that playwright. Looking up, Hamlet, Falstaff, Caliban… took shape in the light filtered through a stained glass window.
from http://flickr.com/photos/13846177@N07/2616796250/
3. It was no surprise to find manuscripts by recognised authors in the showcases at the British Library http://www.bl.uk/ but looking at the exhibits of Magna Carta with the contextual hints attained after taking HISTORIA Y CUTURA DE LOS PAÍSES DE HABLA INGLESA was something new.
4. Many houses around London display plaques informing that they once were home to recognised writers, scientists, statesmen… George Orwell made his appearance in Notting Hill from his name on the façade of this house:
5. Bookshops are the easy way to come across the names and works of well-known writers. Last week, while browsing through the bookcases in a big bookshop, the name of Benjamin Zephaniah drew my attention and, for a while, I read some excerpts from Refugee Boy, something that probably I would not have done without the reference of that poet and novelist studied in the last term of this academic year.
4 Aug 2008
FAVOURITE SUBJECTS (3)
Vuelvo otra vez la vista atrás para hacer un breve comentario sobre asignaturas que me han gustado especialmente en estos años de cursar Filología Inglesa en la UNED y pienso que no es tan fácil separar la materia en sí de la forma en que hubo que estudiarlas. También, seguramente porque una vez pasados los tiempos de estudio y la presión de exámenes inminentes parece que queda sólo lo positivo, me resulta difícil elegir una tercera asignatura y cerrar esta ‘mini serie’ de entradas en el blog.
Miro los estantes donde están los libros de esta carrera y recuerdo con agrado Pragmática, Sociolingüística, Análisis del Discurso, Literatura Francesa, muchos temas de los diferentes cursos de Literatura Inglesa… pero termino quedándome con las cuatrimestrales de Literatura Clásica Griega y Literatura Clásica Latina.
En ambos casos encontré el material base que había que estudiar algo dificultoso (demasiado extenso en el caso de Grecia y demasiado fragmentado en el de Latina). Sin embargo las dos materias me resultaron agradables en diversos sentidos: las lecturas eran entretenidas o sugerentes; muchos comentarios sobre autores, obras o teorías invitaban a la reflexión; y el tema me transportaba de alguna forma a los años de instituto en los que, por la razón que fuera, disfruté con las asignaturas de Griego y Latín.
Hay muchas citas o referencias que podrían ilustrar esta entrada pero quiero limitarme a dos. En Literatura Griega recurro a la Antígona de Sófocles con el canto en el que el Coro ensalza la naturaleza humana. Este fragmento siempre me ha reconfortado un poco para compensar el horror de la otra cara de la moneda, la negativa, la que aparece en imágenes de guerra, en palizas grabadas en móvil, en otras formas de estupidez más cotidianas…
Numerosas son las maravillas del mundo; pero, de todas, la más sorprendente es el hombre. El es quien cruza los mares espumosos…
Se puede leer el texto completo en la página 10 de esta dirección.
De Literatura Latina he elegido a Catulo por la fuerza y la frescura de algunos de sus poemas. Se pueden encontrar grabaciones de algunos programas de Radio UNED donde el profesor Antonio Moreno compara su poesía con la de Horacio (La poesía lírica de Catulo y Horacio, 12/10/2005; Catulo y Horacio: claves para su lectura, 26/03/2007...) Esta página recoge textos originales y traducciones a diversos idiomas de la obra de este poeta latino.
Vivamos, Lesbia mía, y amémonos
y las habladurías de los viejos más severos
nos importen todas un bledo...
Texto completo
Miro los estantes donde están los libros de esta carrera y recuerdo con agrado Pragmática, Sociolingüística, Análisis del Discurso, Literatura Francesa, muchos temas de los diferentes cursos de Literatura Inglesa… pero termino quedándome con las cuatrimestrales de Literatura Clásica Griega y Literatura Clásica Latina.
En ambos casos encontré el material base que había que estudiar algo dificultoso (demasiado extenso en el caso de Grecia y demasiado fragmentado en el de Latina). Sin embargo las dos materias me resultaron agradables en diversos sentidos: las lecturas eran entretenidas o sugerentes; muchos comentarios sobre autores, obras o teorías invitaban a la reflexión; y el tema me transportaba de alguna forma a los años de instituto en los que, por la razón que fuera, disfruté con las asignaturas de Griego y Latín.
Hay muchas citas o referencias que podrían ilustrar esta entrada pero quiero limitarme a dos. En Literatura Griega recurro a la Antígona de Sófocles con el canto en el que el Coro ensalza la naturaleza humana. Este fragmento siempre me ha reconfortado un poco para compensar el horror de la otra cara de la moneda, la negativa, la que aparece en imágenes de guerra, en palizas grabadas en móvil, en otras formas de estupidez más cotidianas…
Numerosas son las maravillas del mundo; pero, de todas, la más sorprendente es el hombre. El es quien cruza los mares espumosos…
Se puede leer el texto completo en la página 10 de esta dirección.
De Literatura Latina he elegido a Catulo por la fuerza y la frescura de algunos de sus poemas. Se pueden encontrar grabaciones de algunos programas de Radio UNED donde el profesor Antonio Moreno compara su poesía con la de Horacio (La poesía lírica de Catulo y Horacio, 12/10/2005; Catulo y Horacio: claves para su lectura, 26/03/2007...) Esta página recoge textos originales y traducciones a diversos idiomas de la obra de este poeta latino.
Vivamos, Lesbia mía, y amémonos
y las habladurías de los viejos más severos
nos importen todas un bledo...
Texto completo
3 Aug 2008
GRAMMAR FOR FUN!
After five courses studying Linguistic subjects, which some of them could have been used as therapeutic remedy against insomnia (in the best of cases), I got the idea that Grammar was necessarily boring. But I was wrong, and these sites are the proof of how wrong I was:
www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/
They make good the old ideal goal of ‘teach and entertain’ at the same time. Visit and enjoy them!
www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/
They make good the old ideal goal of ‘teach and entertain’ at the same time. Visit and enjoy them!
2 Aug 2008
MACBETH REVISITED
Now that I am out of academic constrains (at least for some time) I would like to expose my own point of view of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. During the course we learned many erudite interpretations, all of them very well exposed and documented. My view is not so elaborated, however I think it could be interesting.
Several times I was tempted to write about it in the foro but we all know how this works… You are all the time wondering “what if THEY think that my ‘theory’ is just a piece of crap?” And what is even worst: “What if THEY remember my name when they are correcting the exams?” So, finally I did nothing. However, the idea is still there, so I´ve decided to expose it for the benefit of the humanity.
Well, the thing goes like this. Macbeth, the character, has a problem. He has decided to give a shift to his life. Stop being a supporting character! It´s time to be the main character of the history! All right, some murders are going to be needed, but Macbeth says to himself that he is well acquainted with the business of taking lives. He has just take part in a battle and he still has, as if to say, blood in his hands. But wait, there is a difference. It is not the same to kill the enemies of your king and to kill your king. This is a little but substantial difference. There is a moral question involved, here.
In essence, Macbeth is trying to be another person. A bad one, a very bad one. Just the opposite to what he has been being all his life. According to what we read in the play, Macbeth has been up to this moment a loyal, valiant, honest knight, on the service of his sovereign. And suddenly, from one day to the next one, he wants to become the incarnation of evil. This is simply not possible. It is impossible to change one’s nature so complete and suddenly. You can act evil, but you can’t be evil just wishing it. (Go and try it, if you don’t believe me!) If the nature of a man (or woman) is to be a good man (or woman), then he (or she) can’t change it, at least so abruptly. It needs a training to become a Real Bad Guy. So, in my opinion, this is a play that can be read as a stoic play (don’t panic, here comes the explanation). We must remember that stoic philosophy claimed that one must follow one’s nature. Seneca, one of the main stoic writers, says it so in his work De Tranquilitate Animi (On Tranquility of the Soul) and we have learned that Shakespeare knew well the works of this stoic philosopher and dramatist. If I am right, this play can even be regarded as didactic, to exemplify what happens when a man parts from his own nature. The message of it would be that we must conform to our own inner drives. If we are honest people, there is no case in trying to act as a villain, it won’t work. See what happens to Macbeth, his remorses make him to see hallucinations, and, besides, as he has no experience in being a Bad Guy he overuses violence, murdering everything that moves and taking wrong decisions. Being objective, what he has done is not that terrible (and I said ‘terrible’, not ‘horrible’). Monarchs have been doing it all the time and it doesn´t seem they have any problem to eat well and to sleep peacefully. Remember that the original Macbeth murdered his ancestor and lived happily for ten years after it.
To me the relation between the play and the stoic philosophy is clear, although I admit that I tend to find classic influences everywhere. It will be a pleasure to read other opinions on this subject.
Several times I was tempted to write about it in the foro but we all know how this works… You are all the time wondering “what if THEY think that my ‘theory’ is just a piece of crap?” And what is even worst: “What if THEY remember my name when they are correcting the exams?” So, finally I did nothing. However, the idea is still there, so I´ve decided to expose it for the benefit of the humanity.
Well, the thing goes like this. Macbeth, the character, has a problem. He has decided to give a shift to his life. Stop being a supporting character! It´s time to be the main character of the history! All right, some murders are going to be needed, but Macbeth says to himself that he is well acquainted with the business of taking lives. He has just take part in a battle and he still has, as if to say, blood in his hands. But wait, there is a difference. It is not the same to kill the enemies of your king and to kill your king. This is a little but substantial difference. There is a moral question involved, here.
In essence, Macbeth is trying to be another person. A bad one, a very bad one. Just the opposite to what he has been being all his life. According to what we read in the play, Macbeth has been up to this moment a loyal, valiant, honest knight, on the service of his sovereign. And suddenly, from one day to the next one, he wants to become the incarnation of evil. This is simply not possible. It is impossible to change one’s nature so complete and suddenly. You can act evil, but you can’t be evil just wishing it. (Go and try it, if you don’t believe me!) If the nature of a man (or woman) is to be a good man (or woman), then he (or she) can’t change it, at least so abruptly. It needs a training to become a Real Bad Guy. So, in my opinion, this is a play that can be read as a stoic play (don’t panic, here comes the explanation). We must remember that stoic philosophy claimed that one must follow one’s nature. Seneca, one of the main stoic writers, says it so in his work De Tranquilitate Animi (On Tranquility of the Soul) and we have learned that Shakespeare knew well the works of this stoic philosopher and dramatist. If I am right, this play can even be regarded as didactic, to exemplify what happens when a man parts from his own nature. The message of it would be that we must conform to our own inner drives. If we are honest people, there is no case in trying to act as a villain, it won’t work. See what happens to Macbeth, his remorses make him to see hallucinations, and, besides, as he has no experience in being a Bad Guy he overuses violence, murdering everything that moves and taking wrong decisions. Being objective, what he has done is not that terrible (and I said ‘terrible’, not ‘horrible’). Monarchs have been doing it all the time and it doesn´t seem they have any problem to eat well and to sleep peacefully. Remember that the original Macbeth murdered his ancestor and lived happily for ten years after it.
To me the relation between the play and the stoic philosophy is clear, although I admit that I tend to find classic influences everywhere. It will be a pleasure to read other opinions on this subject.
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