Least Tern > English Classroom

Journeys

Guide for an Upper School English Course on the topic of The Literature of Journey
John McIlvain

Overview | Links

 

Ever since Homer writers have been fascinated with journeys. Fictional and non-fictional accounts of journeys will provide the readings for the text. Novels will include such works as Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, Hesse’s Journey to the East, and Kerouac’s On the Road. After discussion of the summer reading novels (I was Amelia Earhart and All the Pretty Horses), we will compare Odysseus’ and Aeneas’ trips to the underworld before following Sal Paradise across America. Non-Fiction readings will include John Krackauer’s Into the Wild. Poetry will include "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", Selections from "Howl", and "Sailing to Byzantium." Students will finish the year writing a final paper on an author and a work of their own choosing. Last year’s final essays focused on writings by Hesse, Nabokov, Lewis Carrol, John Krakauer and Dante. Students made use of the C.W. Post Library as well as the Internet for finding secondary material.

Links - On the Road - Independent Research

On the Road:  There are numerous valuable links to Kerouac and the other writers of the Beat Generation on the Internet. These will get you started. Locate others through browsing links on these pages, or through a search for "Jack Kerouac" at LookSmart or Dogpile (includes LookSmart and many other engines).

Independent Research Project:

The following are links to sites for authors who are being studied independently in the course.

Literary Resources| Tolkien | Hesse | Carroll | Nabokov | Junger

Literary Resources

Tolkien

Hesse

Carroll

Nabokov

Junger

 

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John McIlvain