Prompt 1: 

What do you think about as differences between FICTION vs. DRAMA or POETRY?  Yes, of course, fiction includes short stories and novels while drama refers to plays and poetry obviously has to do with poems.  But beyond the obvious, tell me why you PREFER fiction over other genres (if you do, that is)?  What does it offer you that you don’t get with others?  Do you just find it “easier”?  If so, why?

There are no right or wrong “answers” to this particular prompt.  Instead, you are being asked to delve into your own responses to these various genres and engage with the issue of genres.

Prompt 2:

For this prompt, let’s do some research so that we can find out a bit more about this genre we are studying.  Choose ONE of the following questions and present the information that you discover, using the above criteria for research and presenting NON-Wikipedia citation to receive full points for this post.

Romance: Some European countries use a derivative of the word “roman” to refer to “novels.”  The suggestion is that it’s because what we call “NOVELS” today are closely related to the earlier “ROMANCES” (no, we’re not talking about love stories but rather a more technical literary term).  What are these literary “romances”?  When were they popular?  What are some elements of “romances”?

18th Century “Rise” of the Novel?: While some scholars argue that novels are much older, many literary critics (foremost among them Ian Watt) places the rise of the novel in the early 18th century.  Who are considered some of the first novelists (and what are their most famous works)?  What were some interesting elements of the novel in the early stages?

Prompt 3:

Conduct some research on “the gothic” tradition.  Yes, some of this will go WAY back, and then some just a few hundred years back, etc.  In fact, it would be interesting to see the various different periods and styles of gothic that many of you discover in your research. 

Please make sure that you are including the TIME PERIOD that your research was pointing to for the gothic, MAJOR WRITERS and their gothic WORKS, as well as some COMMON ELEMENTS that these gothic novels included. 

Everything should be cited, placed in quotes when words are directly taken from your source, and you should be presenting non-Wikipedia research.

Requirements for answering each discussion:

Word counts: at least 150+ words before citations.