Unit 10.01.07 | Yale National Initiative®

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 10.01.07

Guide Entry to 10.01.07

The titular character from Lewis Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland asks: "What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?" In this unit, students will not so much ponder Alice's question as they will ponder its "looking glass" image: "What is the use of pictures without literature and conversations?" Teachers and their classes will delve into this question, but also and more specifically, delve into the literary approach to writing about pictures known as ekphrasis. Ranging from the blazing scarlet letter pinned to Hester Prynne to the ghostly eyes of T.J. Eckleburg to Longfellow's burden of a "Cross of Snow" to Ahab's nailing his crew's fate to the Pequod's mast, students will explore during a school year through American literature the relationship of text and pictures and of text's power over its optical cousin, which is the written word's ability to manipulate the visual arts' meaning.

(Developed for English II American Literature, grade 11, and AP English Language and Composition, grades 11-12; recommended for English, especially those that use American Literature heavily, High School grades 11-12)

Comments:

James Anthony Foltz

September 23, 2010 at 11:48 pm

Elizabeth Pain Gravestone Photo Credit:

Regrettably, Sean P. Aune - who so graciously gave permission to use his work - was not given a photo credit for the Elizabeth Pain gravestone. My sincerest apologies for this oversight.

Teacher Resources

A&A Studios, Inc. "The Museum of Mourning Photography & Memorial practice." http://antviz.tripod.com/mourningphoto (accessed July 31, 2010).

Hollander, John. The Gazer's Spirit: Poems Speaking to Silent Works of Art. 1 ed. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1995.

Maine Historical Society. "Maine Memory Network – Frances Appleton Longfellow by Rowse, 1859." http://www.mainememory.net/bin/Detail?ln=15474 (accessed July 31, 2010).

"Moby Dick's Coin." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Dick_Coin.

Resheph, Philip. "The Iliad of Homer." http://www.philipresheph.com/demodokos/book1/pic60.htm (accessed July 31, 2010).

Smithsonian National Museum of Amiercan History. "NMAH Mountain of the Holy Cross." http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=259 (accessed July 31, 2010).

Walters Art Museum. "The Scarlet Letter by Hugues Merle (French, 1823–1881)." http://art.thewalters.org/viewwoa.aspx?id=25737 (accessed July 31, 2010).

Notes

Kane, Bob, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," Detective Comics. May, 1939.

Hollander, John. The Gazer's Spirit: Poems Speaking to Silent Works of Art. (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1995).

Cox, James. "Longfellow and His Cross of Snow." JSTOR 75, no. 1 (1960): 97–100. http://www.jstor.org/stable/460431?seq=1 (accessed July 10, 2010).

Mcfarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. (New York: Grove Press, 2005).

Ryskamp, Charles. "The New England Sources of The Scarlet Letter." American Literature 31, no. 3 (1959): 257–272.

Shackleton, Robert. The Book of Boston. Philadephia: (The Penn Publishing Company, 1916).

Rozakis, Laurie. "Another Possible Source of Hawthorne's Hester Prynne." American Transcendental Quarterly 59, March (1986): 63–71.

"Scarlet Letter Inspiration," http://www.celebrateboston.com/strange/scarlet–letter.htm (accessed July 10, 2010).

Garrison, Daniel. "Melville's Doubloon and the Shield of Achilles." Nineteenth–Century Fiction 26, no. 2 (1971): 171–184.

Connecting the Visual to the Verbal in the Classroom

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 10.01.07

Writing about the Big Picture: American Ekphrasis

Guide Entry to 10.01.07

Comments:

James Anthony Foltz

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