(Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), James P. Stobaugh
Description of the Course
Encouraging Thoughtful Christians to be World Changers: Skills for Literary Analysis is a skill-based course, whose primary purpose is to equip the reluctant, or inexperienced writer, with the necessary skills to analyze and to evaluate literature.
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(Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), James P. Stobaugh
In some ways the American Evangelical Christianity’s loss of rhetorical skills–and I think rhetoric is akin to apologetics–has presaged disaster in many arenas. Without rhetoric Christians have no tools to engage modern culture. In some ways we have lost the mainline denominations to neo-orthodoxy and we have lost the university to liberals. Where are the Jonathan Edwards? C. S. Lewis? Good thinking, good talking, may redeem the Church from both the Overzealous and the Skeptic. Rhetorical skills may help us regain the intellectual and spiritual high ground we so grievously surrendered without a fight (Alister McGrath, Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity). George Marsden in The Soul of the American University and Leslie Newbigen in Foolishness to the Greeks both conclude that we Christians have conceded much of American culture to modernism by our inability to merge thought and communication in a cogency and inspiration that persuades the modernist culture. Without the main tool to do battle–rhetoric–evangelicals allow orthodoxy to be sacrificed on the altar of relativism.
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(Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), James P. Stobaugh
The problems of this age demands a kind of thinking that is promoted and encouraged by rhetoric. The problems of this age will “literally” remain unsolved. However, rhetoric, and the power of metaphor, will invite this generation to look for more creative solutions. Immorality, for instance, literally will not be removed unless we look to the written word, that is, the Bible, for answers. Nothing in our experience offers a solution. One will not understand the Bible unless one can employ metaphorical thinking. How else will one apply the ethical teachings of a Savior spoken 2000 years ago? Metaphor, along with other mysteries, have been victims of 20th century pretension, pomposity, and obsequious thinking.
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(Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), James P. Stobaugh
Introduction
The heart of Skills for Literary Analysis is the notion of rhetoric. Rhetoric, simply, is the ability effectively to communicate through the written and spoken word. Written and spoken are the crucial concepts of understanding rhetoric. One can communicate well enough by sending a photograph of a thing or a CD with music describing the thing, or paint a picture of the thing. But that is not rhetoric. Rhetoric is a discipline demanding that the reader dutifully follow laws of grammar, logic, and communication to explain and to describe the thing.
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April 8, 1928
It is Easter Sunday, 1928, the day after Benjy’s narration and two days after Jason’s. Dilsey walks up to the Compson house and manages to prepare breakfast. Quentin has run away. As Dilsey tries to comfort Mrs. Compson, Jason rushes to his strongbox and finds that it has been forced open. His papers are there, but all his money is gone.
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April 6, 1928
Discussion Questions
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April 6, 1928
It is the morning of Good Friday, 1928, Jason Compson is in the Compson house, fighting with his mother and with his niece, Quentin. This one day before the first section (where Benjy is remembered things). Jason’s sister Caddy’s marriage to Herbert Head crumbled in 1911, when it became apparent to Herbert that Caddy’s unborn child was not his. Mrs. Compson refused to let Caddy stay at home, but Mr. Compson and Dilsey saw to it that the family took in Caddy’s child, Quentin. Jason was forced to assume control of the household when Mr. Compson died of alcoholism. Jason, who in another time, might have been a wealthy southern aristocrat, now works in a hardware store. He deeply resents his situation and blames Caddy and her daughter, his niece, Quentin.
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June 2, 1910
Discussion Questions
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June 2, 1910
This section begins with Quentin Compson waking up in his dorm room at Harvard. He realizes that it is between seven and eight o’clock in the morning. He hears a clock ticking. Quentin remembers his father giving him the watch and he thinks about the inevitability of time and remembers that St. Francis called death his “Little Sister.” Quentin gets up briefly, then goes back to bed. He remembers that Caddy, his sister, was married in April, just two months ago.
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April 7, 1928
Discussion Questions
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