English 650
Prof. Ramirez
Reading Response 1

Please write in complete sentences. Use literary present tense (5 points extra for whoever identifies the author who said to use present tense).

Points will be deducted for poor grammar or inaccurate readings.
Please be specific; use examples to support your answers. Send this anytime by Thursday.

Late Reading Responses will not be accepted. Please print out a copy for yourself.

1) According to Longinus, what are the 5 elements that give rise to the sublime? Define each element briefly.

2)  In the introduction to The Critical Tradition, David Richter summarizes the categories that M.H. Abrams uses to explain literary theory. These approaches are mimetic, rhetorical, expressive, and formal.

In summarizing Abrams, Richter writes of the rhetorical approach that it:
emphasized the relationship between the work of art and its audience—either how the literary work should be formed to please and instruct its audience, or what the audience should be like in order to appreciate literature correctly. These theories held that to attain its proper effect, the poem must be shaped by both the poet’s innate talent and the rules of art.

Why might we consider Horace a rhetorical writer?

2) In the "Art of Poetry," Horace says to keep the image whole. What example does Horace use to convey that idea? And how does Keats keep an image whole in his ode?
 
3) One of the theorists we have read says that we should imagine Plato as our audience. Who makes this claim and why?

4)  Name one specific way in which can we apply Burke's essay to our reading of Keats.
Pay specific attention to Katharine's post about the definition of a viaticum.

5) To write about theory is to join a critical, literary conversation. Name two ways in which you have seen this dynamic operating in the readings. Be specific. And please use fresh examples that are not included above.