Linguistics
103
Language
structure and verbal art
fall
2009
prospectus
— topics — course info
— course materials — resources
The purpose of this
course is to explore the relationship between the largely unconscious knowledge
that humans have about language and the use of language for artistic purposes.
The first half of
the course is concerned primarily with how the sounds of language are manipulated artistically
through meter and rhyme in English and elsewhere.
The second half of
the course focuses on various other aspects of language, including the meaning and structure of sentences, conversations, and narratives.
This course fulfills
Arts & Letters general requirement.
¥ Form vs. content in language: what does it
mean for something to be English?
¥ What is translation?
¥ Is iambic pentameter more than
da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM?
¥ What did Chaucer's Middle English really
sound like?
¥ What is a syllable really?
¥ What is rhyme really? where did it come
from? how is it used now?
¥ How was 'literature' in pre-literate
societies different from that of today?
¥ What rules do people unconsciously obey in
conversation?
¥ What do these rules, and breaking them,
tell us about why jokes are funny?
¥ What is a "story"?
¥ How do we use language to talk about
time?
¥ What rules do people unconsciously obey
when constructing narratives about their own personal experiences?
professor: Rolf
Noyer
email: rnoyer
AT babel.ling.upenn.edu
office:
Williams 603
mailbox:
Williams 619
office
hours: M 12:30-2:00 and Th
11:00-12:30
teaching
assistant: Jon Stevens
email:
jonsteve AT babel.ling.upenn.edu
office
hours: Tu 1:00-3:00 in Williams Hall 401
class meeting
time & place: MW 3:30-5:00 Meyerson Hall B4
All course reading
materials will be provided electronically.
lecture
materials and discussion problems
Modern and Early
Modern English
Search engine for words in Shakespeare
Middle English
Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales (with word search engine)
Manuscripts of the
Canterbury Tales (scroll down to "Chaucer")
Images
of the corpus Christi ms.
Beowulf
Old
English text of Beowulf (Perseus Project)
Old English text of Beowulf
(Project Gutenberg)
Glossary of
words occurring in Beowulf (Project Gutenberg)
Modern English
text of Beowulf (tr. Hall, Project Gutenberg)
Modern
English text of Beowulf (tr. Garnett, Perseus Project)
Homer
The
Iliad of Homer (Perseus Project)
Dante
The Divine Comedy (Princeton
Dante Project: trans. by Robert and Jean Hollander)
The Divine Comedy (trans. H F
Cary)
The Divine Comedy
(comparison of translations by H F Cary, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Allen Mandelbaum)
Manuscript of the
Divine Comedy (Biblioteca del Centro Dantesco)
La Chanson de
Roland
The Song of Roland (Project
Gutenberg, trans. C Moncrieff)
The Song of Roland (e-text of MoncrieffÕs
translation)
La
Chanson de Roland (unedited Old French text)
La
Chanson de Roland (images of the Oxford manuscript)
Gormont et
Isembart
photocopy
of the 1906 edition of A Bayot
On the Sonnet
If by dull rhymes
our English must be chainÕd,
And, like Andromeda,
the Sonnet sweet
FetterÕd, in spite
of pained loveliness,
Let us find, if we
must be constrain'd,
Sandals more
interwoven and complete
To fit the naked
foot of Poesy:
Let us inspect the
Lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and
see what may be gainÕd
By ear industrious,
and attention meet;
Misers of sound and
syllable, no less
Than Midas of his
coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead
leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not
let the Muse be free,
She will be bound
with garlands of her own.
— John
Keats