16 feb 2011

Master's Exam

On the oral section of the Master's exam, I often ask a very simple question. If I showed you a poem by Lorca, by Guillén, by Salinas, that you had never seen before, how could you tell who wrote it? This tends to throw some students off. The point is not just to know a particular text, but to know how and why it is typical of its author. You could ask a student what the difference between a sentence of Galdós and Ramón Gómez de la Serna.

2 comentarios:

Vance Maverick dijo...

Are you asking them to make the call in a specific case, or to discuss how the call might be made in general? Pretty different. Someone who answered the general question illuminatingly might fail if put on the spot.

Jonathan dijo...

In general. That's what makes it a bit tricky. But if they don't know something general about the poet's style, then they haven't really thought about the poet at all.