Introduction to Literature (12 Parts)

Synopsis

Professor Allan Gedalof and others discuss, analyse, and even perform literary works. The series aims to teach viewers to read critically, stressing the use of language, and provides analytical tools that can be applied to all reading.

Language

English

Country

Canada

Year of production

1993

Availability

for UK availability check with the distributor

Subjects

English language and literature

Keywords

drama in English; gender representation; poetry; Romantic movement; Victorian life; writers

Distribution Formats

Type

VHS

Format

NTSC

Availability

Sale

Duration/Size

30 minutes each

Year

2004

Sections

Title

Language of poets, The

Synopsis

Host Professor Allan Gedalof explores the language of poetry, in the written word and performance, the relationship between sound and meaning, and the importance of metre or rhythm. Terms covered are onomatopoeia, accentual-syllabic metre, rhetorical metre, iambic foot, and iambic pentameter.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Wife of Bath by Geoffrey Chaucer, The

Synopsis

Professor Michael Moore joins host Allan Gedalof to examine the character of Dame Alisoun, the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. As one of the earliest important female characters in English literature, she raises many questions about the nature of men and women and their relations.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Tempest bt William Shakespeare, The

Synopsis

Focusing on Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, co-hosts Allan Gedalof and Michael Moore explore our willingness to suspend disbelief and imagine our way into a drama In The Tempest, Shakespeare draws attention to the power and implication of theatrical deception and illusion, misrepresentation, and manipulation.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Synopsis

Professor Elizabeth Harvey joins Allan Gedalof to discuss the portrayal of women in the seventeenth-century epic poem Paradise Lost. This work reinforces powerful negative myths about women.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Synopsis

Professor Michael Moore discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem "Kubla Khan," romantic literature generally, and the notorious claims Coleridge made about having composed the work during a drug-induced dream.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Synopsis

Professor Maggie Berg and Allan Gedalof use Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte as an example of what can happen when we try to impose order on a complex text. After looking at problems with traditional treatments, they suggest other ways of reading the text.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti

Synopsis

By examining her wonderful but strange poem Goblin Market," host Michael Moore looks at how Christina Rossetti’s work resisted the dominant attitudes of the Victorian era. Paradoxically, this unusual fantasy about sensation and sensuality was embraced by Victorian society.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Synopsis

Allan Gedalof and Professor Gerald Parker take to the stage to explore the many oppositions at work in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. The hosts alternate between performing various scenes and analyzing them.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, The

Synopsis

By examining parts of The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope’s eighteenth-century masterpiece, Allan Gedalof illustrates what a mock epic is and how it works. He shows how the mock epic plays with ideas of proportion, applying the loftiest of literary forms to the most unworthy of subjects.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Synopsis

Allan Gedalof explores Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and reveals the monster that lurks in Lemuel Gulliver. Commonly believed to be a children’s story, this classic is really a stinging attack on human beings beliefs about themselves and their most noble institutions and achievements.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

Synopsis

Allan Gedalof and Professor Catherine Ross examine Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro, and show how Munro’s experiences of the world and literature itself go into shaping her fiction. They also examine some parallels between Munro and the central figure of the book.

Duration

30 mins

Title

Victim must be found by Howard Engel, A

Synopsis

Benny Cooperman, hero of A Victim Must Be Found by Howard Engel, is the focus of Allan Gedalofs study of the historical development of the detective character and the mystery story in literature. He also looks at the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade.

Duration

30 mins

Production Company

Name

TV Ontario

Web

http://www.tvo.org External site opens in new window

Phone

+1 416 484 2886

Fax

+1 416 484 2896

Address

Box 200
Station Q
Toronto
Ontario
M4T 2T1
Canada

Distributor

Name

Visual Education Centre

Email

kriss@visualed.com

Web

http://www.visualed.com External site opens in new window

Phone

+1 416 252 5907

Fax

+1 416 251 3720

Address

41 Horner Avenue
Unit 3
Etobicoke
Toronto
Ontario
M8Z 4XA
Canada