Experimentation
In order to become familiar with a material object or literary form, one must first experiment, play, or otherwise engage the unknown. This is not "any thing goes," but a careful process of imagining possible outcomes through a comparison of certain categories. Students will first begin by experimenting with categorization and literary short forms. These categories will help you shape your approach to your final paper as well as open new avenues to defining literary short forms.
Students should pay attention to possible questions of categorization:
Do you focus on a comparing particular authors? forms? time periods? locations?
Do you focus on comparing genres (short and short, long and short)? Where do these categories overlap or contradict each other?
Do you focus on the material of literature? Book, stone, metal, plastic, etc.?
Do you focus on the medium of literature (language, sound, writing, or other signs)?
IMPORTANT NOTE: Your experimentation should be related to your final paper in some way, to help you think through possible modes of analysis and comparison. You might also find problems; the comparison is too difficult, requires too much research, too much time, no overlapping categories, lack expertise, etc.. This is all good knowledge to gain. Think about your own abilities and limitations (e.g. don't compare that which is too far outside your domain of expertise).
Examples: Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Assignment: Choose 2 examples of different short forms from the definitions list, one traditionally in an anthology or book and one “in the field.” If the book is a collection or anthology, look at the classification in the book: what categories are used (Author, Date, Genre, Topic, other?, etc.).
How: Look at the syllabus and reader, or go to the library's website and search for "anthologies" in the catalog (or go to the library!). You can find lots of anthologies of any topic, but try to limit it to one of the forms from the definitions list. You can also find them in the street, movies, books (novels, plays, short stories, etc.). They even come from our mouths (people say short forms all the time).
Due:
Submission: Submit on Moodle; Put both in a single document (one page each, total two pages)
Format (Basic categories for each style)
Anthology Format
Anthology Classifications (Prose, in the form of annotation):
Example short form:
Form: What is the form of your short text? What are similar forms and why do you classify yours the way you do?
Important figures: What figures of speech/thought feature prominently?
Prose/Poetry: Is it in verse or prose?
Author: Is there a known author?
Audience: Was it created for a particular audience?
Time period: When was it created and does this affect our understanding?
Theme/Meaning: Are their major or repeated ideas? Does it have a discernable meaning?
Source: Cite source or provide documentation of the short form.
Field Guide Format
Field Guide Classifications (Bold Points):
Example short form:
Definition: What is the short form? (literary category)
Location: Where is this short form found?
Documentation Method: Audio, Video, Visual (Give specs), notetaking, etc.
Material: what is the short form made of?
Media: how does this short form enhance communication, obsolesce older media, return old media assumptions, or reverse media expectations (McLuhan)?
Function: what purpose might this short form have?
Access: who has access to this short form? what technologies are required?
Source: Cite source or provide documentation of the short form.
Final Submission format (Submit on Moodle)
Annotated Entry Example:
Short Form:
Adi olmayan cinsten bir ruhum
(I am a spirit of no common rate)
(Ich bin ein Geist nicht von gemeinem Stande)
Emine Sevgi Özdamar, "The Bridge of the Golden Horn." 4.
This is a quote from the beginning of Emine Sevgi Özdamar, "The Bridge of the Golden Horn." However, the words come from William Shakespeare's drama A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595), where the spirit Titania falls in love with Nick Bottom through a magic potion put on her eyes. What's more, the narrator is Turkish, yet the entire book is written in German except a few quotes here and there. This quote is in Turkish, yet translated into English in the version we are reading. It is in a prose novel, yet the line itself is iambic pentameter (10 syllables). As a genre or form, it has many possible layers: a quote (from Shakespeare), a motto (of the narrator), declaration of intent, a pun or joke (for the reader), a mockery (for the mother). It was written in the 1980s to describe the Turkish migrant experience in Berlin, Germany, yet it quotes a sixteenth century dramatic work. Multiple thematic layers appear because in the novel, the lines are spoken by the young narrator to her angry mother. The mother wants the girl to give up theater, yet because the girl played Titania in a play, she speaks these and other lines in ironic mockery of the mother's wishes. The character Titania, who is "blind with love" because of punishment, is a useful parallel to the narrators own blind desire to travel to Germany to become a famous theater actor. This motto helps the narrator through difficult times, yet the polylingual presentation also reveals a fragmentation among different nations, geographies, and personalities (Turkish, German). Emine Sevgi Özdamar, "The Bridge of the Golden Horn, " London: Profile Books, 2007.
Field Guide Entry Example:
Title: "Inanin: güzel günler göreceğız çocuklar-güneşli günler göreceğiz," Nazim Hikmet Ran. Location: Moda Coast, Ferit Tek Sokak, Kadikoy, Istanbul (40.9792, 29.02257). Media: "Inanin: güzel günler göreceğız çocuklar-güneşli günler göreceğiz" is a Turkish quote from Nazim Hikmet (Believe: we will see beautiful days children-we will see sunny days). Genre: It is a quote from a poem in his "Bütün Şiirleri". In addition, it uses direct second person speech ("Believe children"), or a type of invocation. Because it is now stone, it is also and "epigram." Topics(categories): The topics could be "love-relationships (children)," "politics" (better days), and "nature" (sun). Because it is stone, one also sees space, urbanity as topics. Documentation method: Samsung S23 smart phone camera. Material: Stone. Date/Time: photographed 17.07.2022. Research shows they were created in 2018. Author: Nazim Hikmet Ran; Kadıköy Municipality. Description: This is a series of sidewalk bricks created by using quotes from Nazim Hikmet Ran's poetry. It appeared in Moda, Kadikoy in 2018 but was photographed in 2022. Sources: Anonymous. (2018, January 15). Nazım Hikmet’in şiirleri Kadıköy sokaklarında. Kadıköy Municipality.
https://www.kadikoy.bel.tr/Haberler/siir-sokakta-nazim-hikmet-her-yerde
