English Lang/Lit LPs

LP 14 How is the cultural context of a work/text relevant to an interpretation of it? The cultural context of a text is very important for its interpretation. Authors are shaped by the society they live in and by their own culture. Additionally, an author's text says a lot about the author, in the process of creation, an author leaves an imprint of themselves on their work, and by extension their cultural context and society as well. To understand the preconceptions, biases, and insights of a text it's important to understand the cultural context in which it was written. Are established interpretations superior to those created by individual readers? The way we interpret a text establishes what the text means to us personally, I'd argue that there can be interpretations that are more valid, Top Girls is not about the Apollo 11 Space Mission, for instance, but in the realm of reasonable connection, I see no reason why an established interpretation would be superior to an in...

  LP 13 The overlapping dialog took a little getting used to, but I got accustomed to it rather quickly. Due to a slight misunderstanding regarding the lesson plan I ended up reading Act 1 before the first lesson. I found that keeping track of one speaker's lines in my head and mouthing out the other speaker's lines while reading helped me keep track of the dialog, by the end of Act 1 I was able to keep track of it in my head. My guess would be that the audience wasn't keen on the overlapping text initially. I read in my book, which has a preface, that many older folk walk out on the production within the first few minutes and the play was initially panned by critics. Eventually, that changed and I understand that Top Girls is well received these days. This is honestly not that unique of a trend for a piece of literature trying to do something new. I think the main question this authorial choice raises is what this manner of speaking says about the speakers and the discussi...