LITERATURE, FAITH AND PANDEMICS

Agnes Mueller, Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina, wrote an interesting article introducing the literary works she taught in  her course “Pandemics in Literature” and reflecting on the role of faith and religion in a time of uncertainty such as a pandemic.

Read her article HERE,  then take the reading comprehension test HERE

MARTIN EDEN

Image from the Italian movie Martin Eden (2019)

Martin Eden is a 1909 novel by American author Jack London about a young proletarian autodidact struggling to become a writer. It was first serialized in The Pacific Monthly magazine from September 1908 to September 1909 and published in book form by Macmillan in September 1909. 
The Plot
Martin Eden is an impoverished sailor who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame.
He educates himself feverishly and becomes a writer, hoping to acquire the respectability sought by his society-girl sweetheart. She spurns him, however, when his writing is rejected by several magazines and even more so when he is falsely accused of being a socialist. After he achieves fame, she tries to win him back but Martin realizes her love is false. Financially successful and robbed of connection to his own class, aware that his quest for bourgeois respectability was hollow, Eden travels to the Pacific as a sailor again.

SUMMER READINGS - WORKSHEET

 (2scB, 3scA, 4scA, 4scB)

Here's the worksheet  you should fill in to prepare your oral report about the book you've chosen as your summer reading.

Don't forget to

- complete all the exercises at the end of each chapter

- read the texts about the author, themes, and context you'll find in your book

- listen to the audiobook once you've finished reading or while reading 

Stanford Researchers: Reading Jane Austen “A Truly Valuable Exercise of People's Brains”

Read this interesting article  

Stanford Researchers: Reading Jane Austen “A Truly Valuable Exercise of People's Brains"