Blog Assignment #2 – Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America

Blog Assignment #2 – Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America

Due Date: Please post your entry by 8 pm on Monday, October 20.

For this entry you may write on either Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America. Pick one (but, if you like, you may do entries for both). This entry should be the equivalent of two (2) pages, double-spaced. Also, make sure you engage with the actual texts—provide quotes and citations.

For Ginsberg: There are a couple ways you can approach this poem; you can try to tackle the poem in its

entirety, or you can concentrate on a certain section or passage in the poem.

Suggestions:

If you are trying to tackle the whole poem, try to find a way to organize your discussion. This could include the formal aspects of the poem (structure, language, etc.) or thematic aspects (motifs, imagery, politics, etc.). It may help you to organize your thinking on this long and mighty poem if you find an aspect of the poem with which to center your discussion.

Similarly, if going for a certain part of the poem, try to establish a theme or central idea with which to organize your discussion of the specifics.

For Brautigan: There are also a couple ways you can go about this. As in the Ginsberg “prompt,” you can go for a synthetic treatment of the entire text, or you can try to concentrate on a smaller element of the text (chapters, specific themes, language, etc.)

Some suggestions of things to ponder:

-The structure of the text—it doesn’t look like your average novel; what can you say about the way Brautigan organizes the text and how would this connect to other issues, ideas, things going on in the text. Does the weird form of the novel have a meaning?

-Themes: statues, museums, monuments, graves/graveyards… Trout fishing. Others…

-What is “Trout Fishing in America”? As Rob mentioned in lecture, this idea takes on a lot of different forms and functions in the novel. What is Brautigan doing with this phrase/idea???

-The geography of the novel – if you were to map this text, what would it look like? Is there a connection between the physical geography (the various, shifting settings) and the structure and/or content of the text??

The above are some suggestions for getting into the texts, but are not requirements. You can take this entry anywhere you like. Just make sure you stick to the basic assignment: a thoughtful engagement with either Ginsberg or Brautigan’s texts; addressing them either as a whole or by focusing on other elements.

Reminder: post your entry by 8 pm next Monday (Oct. 20).