Discussion
Your reading of literature throughout this course will focus on reading to learn rather than learning to read. In fact, you might even slow down some on your speed as you give attention to every aspect of the writer's skill, the choice of words, revelation of character, play of ideas, and methods of narration.
Literature is an expression of what people are and have been and of how they see their environment. Through literature, then, a young person can come to know excellence, because literature portrays human beings of varying degrees of greatness. Biography defines the human vision of greatness more explicitly than other forms of writing. Madame Curie, as indicated in her biography, dedicated her life to a vision of scientific and human achievements. The biography of Michelangelo emphasizes the great sacrifice and devotion of an artist to his work.
Biography is life as human beings have lived it. It is concerned with real people, products of heredity and environment, moving in time. In biography the writer does not create facts but collects them and strives to be impersonal and objective.
You can find biography in nearly every type of media, including magazines and newspapers. The Bible has some of the finest biography. Book-length biographies have always been popular among young readers.
"A Little Mudhole in the Road," in your reading anthology Insights, is a cutting from Jesse Stuart's autobiography, The Thread That Runs So True. Jesse Stuart is a contemporary author of both prose and poetry. His writings are especially interesting because he tells about the rugged life of the recent past.
It is interesting to observe the author's habit of supplying specific details and names to persons, places, animals, and even a specific barn and river. His sentences are not elaborate and involved, and his vocabulary is easily understood. Read pages 165-169 in the literature text, Insights.
Facebook
Twitter