Feminine Voices

7/27/2019 Feminine Voices

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FEMININE VOICES IN

WOMENNOVELISTS WRITING

Autor:

Prof. MIHAELA-SORINA DOAMNAcoala:

COALA DIACONU CORESILocalitatea:FIENI

Conductor tiinific:

Conf. univ. dr. IRINA TOMA


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ARGUMENTWhy literature?Any literary work comes into existence only through the interaction

between the reader and the text.

Why teaching literature?There are at least three main reasons for the teaching of

literature: the cultural model, the language model and the personal growth model.Why Victorian literature?This period represents a transition between the writers of

the Romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century. The 19thcentury

is often regarded as a high point in British literature (as well as in other European

countries).

Why Victorian writers? (More particularly women novelists?)These writers areconsidered the most significant of the period and they had something to say about a

number of important issues such as: the relations between men and women, parents and

children, the treatment of women and children, the realization of selfhood, love and

marriage, the nature of true love, the power of love.

Why Feminine Voices?Victorians were concerned with four controversial issues:

evolution, industrialism, Great Britains identity as an imperial power and The WomanQuestion. In the debates about the Woman Question, voices came into print that had not

been heard before. Not only did women novelists play a major role in shaping the terms of

the debates but also women from working classes found opportunities to describe the

conditions of their lives.


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1. INTRODUCTION: REASONS FOR ENJOYING LITERATUREWITHIN THE CLASSROOMS

2.VIEW ON PRE-VICTORIAN AND VICTORIAN AGE

GENERALBACKGROUND AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT WITH STRESSUPON WOMEN NOVELISTS OF THE AGE

Social hierarchy and rights, employment, clothing, moral values,education, religion

Womans condition

3. THE TRADITION OF WOMEN NOVELISTS:Jane Austen, CharlotteBronte, Emily Bronte life, source and work


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4. FEMININE VOICES ELIZABETH BENNET(PRIDE AND

PREJUDICE1813) discovered

herself in her loss of pride and

prejudice

JANE EYRE(JANE EYRE1847) -The independent and successful womanof the 19th century

CATHERINE EARNSHAW(WUTHERING HEIGHTS1847)- Two faces of love


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5. METHODOLOGICAL APPLICATION(ON DIFFERENT LEVELS OF STUDY)

Literature (n.) = 1. written works, esp. those whose value lies inbeauty of language or in emotional effect; 2. the realm of letters; 3.the writings of a country or period; 4. literary production; 5. colloq.printed matter, leaflets, etc; 6. the material in print on a particularsubject (from Latinlitteratura)

Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press 2004, p 473

Literature is a very versatile subject and is generally consideredone of the most difficult subjects to teach. There is no right orwrong way to teach a Literature class; the job of the professor isnot to teach the student, it is to lead the student.


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Teaching literature not only improves reading fluency through theexpansion of vocabulary, but also increases students' reading comprehensionskills. Comprehension skills not only include retelling main events, but alsoinclude the ability to identify the author's choice or words, central themes,

character development, symbolism, irony, etc.

Literary texts can provide rich linguistic input, effective stimuli forstudents to express themselves in other languages and a potential source oflearner motivation.

There is no point in the idea of a separation of literature from languagesince literature is language and language can indeed be literary.

Why use literature in class? authentic material

it encourages interaction it expands language awareness

it educates the whole person

motivating


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There are at least four main reasons which lead a language teacher to useliterature in the classroom:

1. Valuable Authentic Material -in a classroom context, learners are exposed to

actual language samples of real life / real life-like settings. They become familiarwith many different linguistic forms, communicative functions and meanings.

2. Cultural Enrichment -literary works, such as novels, plays, short stories, etcfacilitate understanding how communication takes place in that country. A readercan discover the way of the characters, the way literary works see the world

outside (i.e. their thoughts, feelings, customs, traditions, possessions; what theybuy, believe in, fear, enjoy; how they speak and behave in different settings).

3. Language Enrichment - Literature provides learners with a wide range ofindividual lexical or syntactic items. Students become familiar with manyfeatures of the written language. Thus, they improve their communicative andcultural competence in the authentic richness, naturalness of the authentictexts.

4. Personal Involvement -Once the student reads a literary text, s/he begins toinhabit the text. S/He is drawn into the text. The student becomes enthusiastic

to find out what happens, s/he feels close to certain characters and shares theiremotional responses.


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Teaching Literature in an optional course:The purpose ofthis optional course is to provide readers with a guide to understanding,enjoying and studying women novelists and some of their works by giving themeasy access to information about the work. The following elements arecontained in each part: Introduction / PlotSummary / Characters / Themes/Style / Historical Context / Critical Overview / Topics for Further Study /Compare and Contrast

Evaluation : group/individual projects / oral presentation / essay writingscene/portrait/setting sketching / script writing / PPT

Lesson plans 1- 4

Characters in Pride and Prejudice; Introducing Jane Eyre An Unlikely Victorian Heroine; Whos Who? Whos Where? and Whos in Charge? Wuthering Heights; The Status of Women in Pride and Prejudice.


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CONCLUSIONS

Although women novelists wrote in the way that society expectedthem to, their work, which was admired for its wit and intelligence, greatlyimproved the reputation of female authoresses.

Their realistic characters and social commentary also helped lay thefoundations for the modern novel. And although they are far fromfeminists, the heroines point towards the future by being lively andindependent.

The issue of what women achieved through the mediation of writing isnot at all ambiguous, but extremely clear and simple as it was obtained onlyby presenting experience as a whole becausethemiddle class woman begantowrite.

Literary texts offer a rich source of linguistic input and can helplearners to practise the four skills - speaking, listening, reading and writing- in addition to exemplifying grammatical structures and presenting newvocabulary. Literature can help learners to develop their understanding ofother cultures, awareness of difference' and to develop tolerance andunderstanding. Literature can open horizons of possibility, allowingstudents to question, interpret, connect, and explore. To sum up, literatureprovides students with an incomparably rich source of authentic material

over a wide range of registers.


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SOURCES

SECONDARY SOURCES Auerbach, Emily, Searching for Jane Austen, Univ. of Wisconsin, 2006

Blain, Virginia, Isobel Grundy and Patricia Clements, The Feminist Companion to

Literature in English. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. viii-ix

Daiches, David, A Critical History Of English Literature, volumes I-IV, Secker& Warburg, London 1965

Lewes, George Henry, The Novels of Jane Austen, Blackwoods Edinburgh

Magazine 1859

Samson, George, The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, London,

1993

Toma, Irina, Victorian Contrasts, Ed UPG Ploiesti 2006

Zirra, Ioana, Contributions of the British 19th Century the Victorian Age

to the History of Literature and Ideas, Ed Univ. Bucuresti 2003

Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class1963

Vizental, Adriana, Strategies of Teaching and Testing English as a Foreign

Language, Polirom 2007

PRIMARY SOURCES1. Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice, Longman Penguin Readers 19982. Bronte, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, Longman Penguin Readers 1999

3. Bronte, Emily, Wuthering Heights, Longman Penguin Readers 2003

Documents

Feminine Voices