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How to Read like a Cambridge Graduate

An Introduction to Practical Criticism
Rating: 5.0 out of 55.0 (3 ratings)
9 students
Created by Ryan Donaghue
Last updated 7/2020
English
English [Auto]
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What you'll learn

  • How to read like a Cambridge Graduate
  • A critical vocabulary to apply to every text they encounter for the rest of their lives
  • A definition of Practical Critcism
  • Build an analytical tool-set and apply the tool-set to three forms

Requirements

  • Enthusiasm

Description

This course offers a new way to actively build literary skills. It focuses upon the Cambridge University approach to practical criticism as a form of deep textual reading. This analytic process is the foundation of the study of Literature. A sequence of carefully staged assignments helps you through a worked definition of practical criticism and a critical example using a question and answer approach. This investigative approach is then extended to the three literary forms of fiction, poetry and drama to help you build a technical vocabulary that provides a critical tool-kit you can apply to every text you encounter for the rest of your life.

This course will benefit all people who love books and especially literature students preparing for essays or textual analysis exams.

If you actively participate in this course you will develop a specialised skill-set essential to the formal study of Literature. If you watch for entertainment or general interest you will discover a new way of reading and polish your critical thinking skills.


By the End of this Course you Will be Able to:

• Understand and apply the critical concepts of

• point of view, character, structure, language and imagery

• to analyse the meaning revealed by the artistic relationship between form and content

• in fiction, poetry and drama.


I have selected a poem, novel and play that all share a common theme – W.B. Yeats’s ‘The Second Coming’, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. Yeats, Nabokov and Pinter explore how the power of imagination transforms our relationship to ourselves and to our world. Each artist is concerned with the meaning we create through love and life. Each one of them also confronts the absence of this meaning in their time and culture.

To give you an insight into how their various forms construct imaginative enquiries to help us view meaning differently we will first answer the question 'what is practical criticism?' through a concrete example from another great writer, William Blake. We will see how Blake inverts the Proverb form through one of his infamous Proverbs of Hell. I will then ask you to apply what you have learned from this example to four critical questions on another Blake poem – ‘The Sick Rose’. I will offer my responses in a later video to stimulate a critical dialogue. This questioning process is the key to critical thinking and it guides the structure of the course. The more you can engage the more you will learn. As you progress the questions deepen alongside your critical thinking skills.

In The Second Coming we explore Yeats’s development of specific images throughout the poem to reveal a secret story that contains the poem’s theme. We then build a map of the images in the poem to reveal how Yeats' themes all interconnect to create a deep work of enduring power. Finally, we explore how Yeats uses and breaks the classic sonnet form to express a modern truth the old form cannot hold.

The Lolita assignments explore how and why Nabokov structures his novel around three male points of view - Dr John Ray in the Foreword, Humbert Humbert in the text itself and Nabokov himself in his ironic afterword – to tell the story of a girl. This threefolded male narration raises questions about the status and reality of Lolita as a person, a book and a symbol trapped inside three male perspectives.

The Homecoming assignments explore Pinter’s use of dramatic status, power and staging, we will look at how he employs the silent pauses he is famous for and we will complete a scene analysis together. Character speech patterns are analysed in detail and extended into dramatic character web of the key conflicts in the play. These key conflicts lead into and reveal the themes of every play.

I hope to transform the way you read. If you take this course and understand how form expresses theme I will have succeeded. If you take this course it will be because you are interested in reading – it is a pleasure to meet another person who loves books. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Who this course is for:

  • Readers of fiction, poetry or drama
  • Students - high school, college or undergraduate
  • Anyone facing an unseen criticism exam
  • Those interested in discovering more about the Cambridge reading process

Course content

6 sections • 18 lectures • 2h 53m total length

  • Preview02:12
  • Preview08:48

  • Preview08:48
  • Preview07:43
  • A Critical Example - 'The Sick Rose' - 2 - Syntax and Sound
    08:27

  • The Second Coming - 1 - Imagery - Critical Questions
    06:23
  • The Second Coming - 2 - Imagery - Critical Responses
    05:45
  • The Second Coming - 3 - Image Development
    08:41
  • The Second Coming - 4 - Form and Structure
    07:56

  • Lolita - 1 - Prose Style
    09:47
  • Lolita - 2 - Language and Point of View
    12:37
  • Lolita - 3 - Point of View and Character
    11:53

  • The Homecoming - 1 - Plot and Character
    15:00
  • The Homecoming - 2 - Speech Pattern Analysis
    15:32
  • The Homecoming - 3 - Silence and the Unsaid
    09:28
  • The Homecoming - 4 - Scene Analysis Example Questions
    07:59
  • The Homecoming - 5 - Scene Analysis Critical Responses
    16:31

  • Skill Extension Activities
    10:22

Instructor

Ryan Donaghue
English Tutor, Literary Consultant, Essay Coach
Ryan Donaghue
  • 5.0 Instructor Rating
  • 3 Reviews
  • 9 Students
  • 1 Course

Hello – My name is Ryan Donaghue. I was born a little outside of Glasgow, as the second oldest of five siblings. Growing up my father read me stories of Narnia and Lyra. As my younger siblings were born the house filled with noise. I loved escaping to read in the quiet. This love of reading eventually took me on to Trinity College, Cambridge to study English Literature. There I learned a form of deep reading called practical criticism that changed how I thought about the world – and myself. This process transformed my relationships to reading. I saw the books I loved through new eyes. I would like to offer this same transformational experience, and the skills that go with it, to anyone interested in books. This analytic process will help any English literature students or those preparing for criticism exams or Oxbridge interviews. It will also help book club participants or general readers see books differently.

To expand this skillset I designed and launched a Udemy course and set up a website offering extra contact and support for those who complete the course and wish to extend their skills. I hope to transform imaginations across the world by offering readers a new way to read – if you’re interested in learning more please have a look at one of my courses or contact me through my website.

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