LITERATURE: A LOVER AND HIS OBJECT OF DESIRE

JOSÉ ENDOENÇA MARTINS

A writer who also teaches literature usually has two wishes: one is to create his own writing; another is to help others create their own literature. Though, in this essay, I subscribe to both wishes, I still don’t know – after years of writing and teaching – what literature really does to its lovers.
Some say it gives pleasure, some say it causes pain. As for me, I have my doubts. As a matter of fact, I’ve never known whether literature was fate, call, or search. What is funny is that when literature came to me, I was not expecting. It simply happened that I was there, opened myself and it took its place in my life, and no longer left me. Now, when I’m doing literature – my own or others’ – my cheeks, teeth, eyes, my whole face, my whole person, my whole world seem to be doing it along with me. Like a virus, its contagion is inescapable.
“Clearly my aim was to tie the two ends of life together, and bring back youth in old age.(...) But I myself am missing,” said Bento Santiago, the narrator in Machado de Assis’s novel Dom Casmurro. He wished to link these two phases of his life, youth and maturity, but his sense of losing himself in the task is revealing. Why that feeling? We all know well the story of his love – or accusation of – for Capitu in the novel, so I’ll refrain myself from repeating it here again. It suffices to say that in his attempt to tie youth and old age together, Santiago caught himself in the quicksand-like waves of building identity for himself and felt that something was missing, he himself.

Soccer and Literature.
Soccer and literature – or youth and old age – are the quicksand-like waves of my personal experiences. What did I miss in the passage from soccer to literature? Did I gain anything? Let’s see.
In 1960, I was 12 years old and saw my life oscillated between Pelé and Saint Francis. In 1958, Pelé became the best player in the Brazilian Soccer Team that won that World Cup in Sweden. As he had become a national hero, every black boy in the country, who had acquired a good mastery in soccer, wanted to follow his steps. I myself was one of them. Pelé was the most visible mirror in which we could see ourselves reflected.
That year I played for the Vasto Verde junior soccer team. My coach – whose name I miss now – saw in me an extraordinary player. “You’re our Pelé,” he used to say before the games. “Do what you got to do, our goals.” I don’t remember how many times I made him happy, and how often I disappointed him, but the fact is that he trusted me. Due to his supporting attitudes to my skills I ended up having an ambitious dream then: I would be the best soccer player in Brazil. In other words, I really believed I would succeed and could make a promising career for myself in soccer. Pelé was doing, I would do too for sure.
Life often plays strange tricks on us. It also played them on me too.
In the same 1960, I met Brother Gilberto, who became my religious “coach”. He did not steal me from soccer, he stole me from Vasto Verde instead. “I’ll make at least one Franciscan Brother out of you,” was his firm message to us, his students. He taught religious classes at Elementary School Adolpho Konder, and I was one of his students. He repeated his message regularly like a mantra every class. He talked about Saint Francis and when he said that the Saint loved sports and would certainly have enjoyed soccer if he were a Brazilian, Brother Gilberto won me to his cause. I became his best student. The battle between Pelé and Saint Francis was opened, then, but I didn’t know who would be the winner, soccer or priesthood.
In 1961, Saint Francis defeated Pelé, Brother Gilberto took me from soccer, which changed my entire life. In February of that year, I entered the Franciscan Seminary of São Luis de Tolosa in the city of Rio Negro, Paraná. I had decided to be a priest, a Franciscan Brother.
I spent 8 years with the Franciscans. In those years I did not simply make a move from Pelé to Saint Francis, I chose between what they represented: secularity and spirituality. Having chosen spirituality, I was lucky to manage to ally myself to the Franciscan life, but hopefully I could bring soccer and prayers together. Only when I discovered my special interest for languages and literature, soccer and what it represented started to fade in my life and the books took the front.
Now I know what I could not know then. That’s what a man’s experience is good for. I would only be able to develop a special taste for literature in Rio Negro, and in Agudos, São Paulo, the city to which I went two years later to pursue my way to priesthood. I would not do that in Blumenau, having my entire life taken by soccer. The seminary was the right place for that, and I used it for my own literary development. I read and studied all kinds of literature: Brazilian, Portuguese, Latin, French, English and American writers and works were available to me.
“Galia divisa est in partes tres,” was the latin sentence I’ve never forgot. Though I don’t remember any Greek sentence to quote here, I certainly could write many of them here now, in French or English, but that would make this a boring reading. One is enough: “I came to bury Caesar not to praise him.” This is good Shakespeare, in Mark Anthony’s speech in Caesar’s funeral. “Ela me amou durante seis meses e seiscentos contos de réis” comes from somewhere else in Machado de Assis
As a result of my concerns with the texts of others I began writing my own poems, fiction, criticism. It was then that I could finally see the symbolic similarities between soccer and literature – a game of players and a game of texts –, and I made that move towards literature. When I left the seminary in late sixties, I had got a consistent literary basis and a certainty: I would be a professional of the letters. In fact, I did my letters course, took my master degree and became a professor of Anglo-American literature at FURB. I did not stop there, but took my Ph.D degree in African American Literature, and developed a more consistent view of my teaching ability with regard to literature.
In 1990, I started teaching Anglo-American Literature at FURB. I had then two main concerns, which I keep until today: to improve my own literary competence and help students develop their own.

1. Literary Competence of my own.
I cannot clearly say when my literary competence began. What I can say for sure is that it took a first step toward existence with a text. However I cannot guarantee that it was a text I read or a text I wrote. Never mind. What really matters is that it started, continued and flourished, despite myself. Presently I got the feeling that literary competence is not something that you develop, it is something that develops you.
What follows is what literature did to me. It used me for its own benefit and I let myself be led.

Between Breasts and Laughters: Poetry.
In 1972, I published a poem in a local newspaper. I’ve lost it in the many moves I had to take. I guess it was a promising beginning. I had written and published two or three poems or stories of my own in the magazines of the seminary in the sixties, but had given little importance to them. I was too young to take myself seriously. Since 1972, I’ve been publishing my poems in local newspapers, which I judge good and innovative works. Just one example:
Seios cobertos de ouro,
ou descobertos,
não é o que queremos.
Seios, cheios do que queremos,
é o que queremos.
The innovative aspects that poems like this brought to local literary tradition are in their rationalized eroticism.
The relation that exists between the new artist and tradition is analyzed by T.S.Elliot. He says that the young author brings innovation to the tradition he is willing to be part of. In the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, he discusses how the new author deals with tradition in order to find his own place among matured writers. He explains his views:
No poet, no artist of any sort, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this is a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall adhere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them (p.2554)

In a similar way, as a young author, I also negotiated with the existing literary tradition in Blumenau, though not consciously. The poet Geraldo Luz, Vilson Nascimento, Lindolf Bell and Ërico Max Mueller made the tradition of the time. Geraldo Luz took my poem to Jornal A Cidade, the same newspaper which brought his poems every Sunday. Years later I managed to have another poem published in Jornal de Santa Catarina. This time was Vilson Nascimento – poet and journalist – who introduced me to the newspaper readers.
By the laws of literary conventions, tradition and the new talent tend to set the rules of their mutual existence. As I was taking part in that game, I promised myself I would never leave it. In the next years, I had my texts – poems, short stories and critical articles – published in most of the literary sections of newspapers in the state: Jornal de Santa Catarina, O Estado, A Notícia e O Diário. Additionally, I participated in anthologies with other poets and short stories writers.
My books only came out years later, in 1986. Me Pagam Pra Kaput was the title of my first book of poems, in that year. It was like the coronation of all those years delivering my texts here and there, and hoping that the right person would take and published them. Now it was different, I could finance my own books. When you finance you own literary achievement the criteria for selection of texts are your own. This is at the same time invigorating and intimidating for the consequences it may bring to your literary reputation. But I decided to take all the risks possible. Despite journalist Fábio Brüggemann’s comment, in O Estado, that “o Me Pagam pra Kaput ainda deixa a desejar”, the book was well received by critics. Lauro Junkes, for exemple, wrote: “assim, surpreendentemente, o realismo rude e agressivo do título Me Pagam Pra Kaput nos envolve e conduz ao reino da poesia.” (43) I had survived my first book.
From 1987 to 1995 I wrote and financed other collections of poems: Me Tomam Pra Doryl (1987), Me Vestem Pra Dujon (1988), Diet Poesia (1990), Traseiro de Brasileiro (1992), and Poelítica (1996). Ten years of poetry. What makes a person to dedicate ten years of his life to the making of poetry is still a mystery to me. Is it lack of alternatives? Is it fate, call or search? I don’t know. Was I looking for myself? Who knows? Maybe the meta-poem – a poem about poem - I quote brings some light to my poetical self:
poema, me olhe
de cima deste versos
de fora e de dentro,
enquanto me vejo
em cada um dos teus movimentos.
I guess a better explanation is in local critic Dennis Lauro Radünz. “Seus poemas,” he writes about my poetical expression, “expandem-se a partir de fragmentos de prosa – da piada ao provérbio – evidenciando um poeta prometéico que se insurge contra a poesia, subjugando o som ao sentido, em obra de batismo e barbárie.” (p. 7)
But I still don’t know.

Angels and Bertílias: Fiction
Enough with poetry. Fiction is claiming its place. I wrote my first fictional text in the seminary, and continued doing fiction when I came back to Blumenau in early seventies. Since then I’ve seen my short stories printed on the pages of Jornal de Santa Catarina e O Estado. I guess an interesting piece of fiction I wrote was titled O Anjo de Blumenau. It narrates what happens to an angel and the people when he/she comes to a town unexpectedly. The angel is caught and cut into pieces, which are taken home as souvenirs. The tale ends with a very pessimistic view. “Na praça, apenas o que sobrara do anjo, ali ao sabor de quem chegasse primeiro: os urubus ou o carro do lixo municipal.”
I also took part in anthologies and contests. In one contest I was classified, got the third place and some money. The short story was Praça de Cão e Padre and was published in the anthology Os Contos Premiados da FURB. I write about a child’s abuse by an adult and people’s indifference to violence. The abuser – an old man – later attacks the people, who refuse to protect the child from his abuser. The story ends in mutual reconciliation between the child and the man, and “o menino veio para perto dele, sentou-se ao seu lado.” Professor Demerval Mafra wrote a critical essay on the short story and closes it, commenting on the final harmony of the child and the old man. “A demência ativa e a passiva reunidas numa mesma dor, provenientes de motivos diversos, mas que, por falta de juízo crítico, fazia sofrer as duas personalidades afinadas pelo mesmo diapasão, esperando as mesmas ajudas,” (p.80 ) diz Mafra.
In 1993, I came out with what I consider my greatest work. Enquanto Isso em Dom Casmurro was the result of years of preparation and study. I think it is a post-modern novel, maybe the first one in the state of Santa Catarina. Basically it tells the story of a woman who has a multiple identity. She is at the same time Capitu, Sula Miranda, Zezé Motta e Bertília. The idea behind the story is that in post-modern experience we, as individuals, do not have a fixed and unitary identity, but many. That’s why when Capitu leaves Dom Casmurro – Machado de Assis’s realistic novel – and comes to Blumenau, she develops all those new female identities. I guess part of the success of my novel is due to its association with Assis’s novel. Only part of it. The other part comes from the quality and the novelty of the textual arrangements I was able to construct. I also think my novel was read, analyzed and studied by many different experts on Brazilian Literature. I gave two long interviews and had my ideas published on A Notícia and Diário Catarinense. Despite the anger it provoked in many people, who believed it was a literary blasphemy against Machado de Assis, others critically pointed out its literary qualities. One is Antônio Hohlfeldt, who wrote, in the book A Literatura Catarinense em Busca de Identidade – Poesia, that “no romance de estréia de José Endoença Martins, o aspecto pós-moderno não é um simples modismo, mas a base imprescindível de afirmação do próprio projeto, que se deseja pós-moderno, naquilo de fragmentário e de combinação díspar que o pós-modernismo possui como característica, para poder cumprir com sua função: a crítica de determinada realidade.” (p.147)

Reading Race – Literary Criticism.
“Em maio de 1989, comecei a escrever sobre literatura no JSC.” This was the first sentence I wrote for the preface of a book which has not been published yet. Many factors contributed for the book not to be published. All I can say is that it would be my first book on literary criticism. It resulted from my weekly column on the paper. The column lasted one entire year, from May/89 to May/90. Tudo Pelo Textual was its title in 1989; 90-Letras, in 1990. During that year I analyzed forty books: seventeen by foreign writers, twenty-three by Brazilian authors. Writers who lived in Blumenau or in the State also had their books commented on.
The column concentrated on three genres of literary phenomena: poetry, fiction and ideas. I discussed works by international authors like Gabriel Garcia Marques and Mario Vargas Llosa, along with local names like Rosane Magaly Matins and Vilson Nascimento. I did all that for free and no pay was offered. My case is not as serious as Vilson Nascimento’s, who wrote a column on Art for ten years for the same paper, and was never paid. I wrote a column about his column, which was a criticism to the experience he was having. “Nenhum centavo Vilson cobrou do jornal. Nenhum centavo foi-lhe oferecido. Não é uma queixa. É pura constatação. Vilson não é de reclamar. Fê-lo porque qui-lo. Não buscava recompensa nenhuma. Apenas divulgava nossas pequenas e desinteressantes produções. Apenas um outro detalhe: em qualquer outra atividade Vilson, hoje, estaria rico,” I wrote in recognition to what Vilson Nascimento had done for us local writers.
In 1991, I came out with Poema Minuto: A Poética do Tempo. It includes three aspects of my literary concerns: my personal thoughts on my own poetic writing, critics’ analyses of my poems, and some articles I wrote about Brazilian writers. I think what deserves mention here is the concept Poema Minuto I created to explain my poems. These are my words: “o poema minuto é curto ou não, (...) mas não tem preocupações com a métrica fixa. Métrica e ritmo do poema minuto dependem do autor. Do tema também. Do assunto, igualmente. O poema minuto é curto, ou não. Não porque vivemos num tempo sem tempo. Mas porque quer ocupar um minuto apenas do leitor.” (Poema Minuto: A Poética do Tempo, 1991, p.14). As for its concerns, ‘poema minuto’ includes a number of poetic and non-poetic aspects. A ironia, a irreverência, o humor, o amor, as vezes o ‘hamor’ também, o político, o social, o sexual, o erótico e, até, o herético, co-habitam com harmonia, ou não, e força, a constelação de preocupações do poema minuto,” (Idem, p. 12) I said.
In the nineties, I was responsible for another literary column in a newspaper, this time Jornal da Noite. The column was the basis for a book that is ready, and I hope to see it published this year. For an entire year I wrote the column and discussed books of literature. However, different from my column on Jornal de Santa Catarina, I used a more challenging textual strategy. I created a character, the blond ‘vizinha’ who came to my apartment every Monday morning to teach me about literature. She brought her books, but I guess I was interested in her body. She won me, managed to educate me, and taught me about the poetic qualities of literary book. I wrote:
Eu a beijo e sinto que aquilo é bom. Agradecida, ela me passa um livro de poesias: Sem Rimas e Sem Razão. E antes que eu consiga ver título, autora, ilustração e editora na capa, minha vizinha me avisa. É o livro de estréia da catarinense Maria Odete Olsen, pela Paralelo 27. Quando penso que vai parar para que eu folheie o livro ela continua. Os versos ali de cima são delas. Olha para mim e me beija de novo (p. 77).

The critical articles will be included in a book whose title is Quem Semeia Poesia Colhe.
In 1995, I published Sexualidade e Amor Numa Terra Só de Mulheres: Sexualidade, Gênero e Raça na Ficção Americana. It includes three long critical articles, in which I deal with the interrelations that go between gender, race and sexuality of female characters in three major literary works by American women: Edna Pontellier, in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening; Celie, in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple; and Janie Crawford, in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. My deep belief was placed in the idea that both black and white women, when writing, or functioning as characters, must create the conditions, which will allow for them to perform behaviors which are new, revolutionary, and challenging to a social practice that wants to remain unchanged. Thus they resisted. “A idéia de resistência embutida nos três artigos pretende alertar o leitor que as heroínas dos romances pautaram suas vidas pela decisão de resistir e de não se conformar aos padrões sociais vigentes, marcados pelo sexismo das experiências masculinas,” (p.16) I wrote.
From 1990 to 1999 I worked as the coordinator of Revista de Divulgação Cultural da FURB, and had the opportunity to publish several critical articles on it. They dealt with local and African-American literature. In some of them I discussed various ideas about how literature – Anglo-American – should be taught at FURB. I explained what I mean by A competence Approach to Language Teaching for Letras, in which I have literature in mind:
The consistency of the approach lies in the associated mastery of the competences. And these five ( linguistic, textual, communicative, cultural, and pedagogical) competences are interconnected, they mutually serve and help each other and tend to become tremendously necessary and useful for the students’ mastery of their literary competence. In fact, literary competence requires the students’ control and command of language rules, structure and vocabulary, knowledge of text construction, awareness in teaching and learning quality and, finally, effective and communicative use of language (p.35).

Among the articles I wrote for the Revista was one that is important. Black femininity and it Construction in Toni Morrison’s Novels is the analysis of crucial aspects in the author’s fiction: nihilism and love. The focus was placed on the way these features become determinant forces in black women’s construction of feminine identities. My conclusion for the article is that “sometimes self-love becomes supremacist, other times nihilism is hegemonic, and other times there exists a certain kind of indeterminacy and ambiguity between the two, insinuated in Morrison’s idea that ‘with the best intentions in the world we can do enormous harm’” (28).
In 1995, I took a step forward and my literary production was addressed to writing and developing literary projects. They were the beginning of a partnership with some of my students of literature. In 2000, together with professors Maria José Ribeiro, Ângela Maria Leven, and others, I created Grupo de Pesquisa Estudos Lingüísticos e Literários (ELLIT), which has been responsible for many research projects on language and literature. So far the group has developed 27 projects on literature, language, and discourse analysis. Its latest project is Lirio Astral: Revista Virtual de Literatura Catarinense.
Other critical articles were especially written for congresses, books and newspapers. Three of the them deserve mention. Upike’s Religions: Making His God the Host of All Beings, published in the journal Estudos Anglo-Americanos (Rio de Janeiro/2000), discusses how religion became John Updike’s major concern, as the essays by many experts show. I introduced the article with these ideas: “if for Updike there is no doubt that we cannot reach God, then at least there is the hope that, after reading this collection of essays dealing with his uncountable encounters with religion and religions, God will reach us (309). Blumenalva e Naemblu: Metáforas de Uma Historiografia Literária de Blumenau, published in Nosso Passado (In)comum: Contribuição para o Debate sobre a História e a Historiografia de Blumenau (Blumenau/2000), is my attempt to give a methodological aparatus for the analysis of our local literature. I argue, in the article, that any analysis of the literature done in Blumenau since the 1960s, which wishes to be taken seriously, must consider these two elements: Blumenalva and Naemblu. “Fica enfatizado, no início deste estudo, que, enquanto metáforas para análise da literatura e historiografia literária de Blumenau, Blumenalva e Nauemblu não são apenas antagônicas e excludentes, mas que, especialmente, Naemblu representa a superação de Blumenalva,” (294) I said. Finally, Cruz e Souza e a Invenção do Leitor Afro-Brasileiro, published on the newspapers Santa e A Notícia, put together two of my deepest concerns: the symbolist African-Brazilian Poet Cruz e Souza and the invention of a reader who is typically African-Brazilian. I explain that such a reader must develop a special identification with the works of art produced by African-Brazilian writers. “Uma leitura afro-brasileira pode oferecer a alternativa, ao leitor e ao poeta, de uma inclusão cultural eminentemente marcada por valores e experiências afro-brasileiras,” I wrote.

Fluid Identities – Drama.
I had to go beyond poetry, fiction, criticism. So I tried a play. I came out this year with the comedy O Olho da Cor, which thematically is an expansion of black women’s identity crisis displayed in the novel Enquanto Isso em Dom Casmurro(1993). In a humorous way, I deal with a woman who is black in the first act, white in the second, and in the third she makes her option. I close the play with a postmodern view of feminine identity. The female character asks herself:
Será que vou saber conviver comigo mesma? Com meu olho azul sem furá-lo, quando for negra? Com meu olho negro sem desprezá-lo, quando for branca? Com os dois, quando as duas cores me cobrirem? Será que vou conseguir? Será que vou conseguir aceitar outras pessoas em iguais, ambíguas e múltiplas situações?

Professor Dilvo Ristoff was the first reader of the play and his words summarize the feeling that comes to me when I read O Olho da Cor. He wrote:
A julgar pelas suas inúmeras alusões, repetições e revisões, e pela sua riqueza de linguagem, pelo seu mistério, pelo prazer que proporciona e pela capacidade de falar às angústias humanas do mundo pós-colonial, podemos ter a certeza de que estamos diante de uma obra que será lida por muitos durante muito tempo.

The table below gives an approximate idea of my contribution to literature in the various genres I have been involved with.
Genre Works
Poem Six Books
Novel One Book
Play One Book
Essay Four Books
Critical Articles 100 Articles
Newspaper Articles 250 Articles
Short-Stories 70
Interviews 20

2. Literary Competence of their own.
“Invoqué algunos episodios de las novelas de la radio, letras de rancheras y otros ingredientes de mi invención, y me largué de inmediato con la historia de una doncella enamorada de un bandolero, un verdadero chacal que resolvía a balazos hasta los menores contratiempos, sembrando la región de viudas y huerfanos.” (p.66) This is how Eva Luna, the narrator of Isabel Allende’s novel Eva Luna, creates her own stories. She mixes a little of everything available, outside and inside herself. The result of this mingling of multiple ingredients is her literary competence.
As we can see in Eva Luna’s move to the world of literature, literary competence involves individual decision. However, this is not all. Brumfit (1986) suggests that competence in literature includes “the interplay of event with event, relationships between characters, exploitation of ideas and value systems, formal structure in terms of a genre or other literary convention, and relationships between any of these and the world outside literature itself” (p.185). The student of literature learns how to manage all these aspects and phenomena inside and outside texts.
Having Brumfit’s characterization of what awareness in literature requires, I have developed a methodological apparatus leading to the building of my students´ literary competence. Why? Not simply because of anger and despair. Elsewhere I made my personal reasons explicit:
The search for an approach to language teaching founded upon the concept of competence is associated with my angst and despair against the lifeless routine in our language course and strong will for change. My personal and professional dissatisfaction with the situation has led me to possible alternatives, the most relevant one being the proposal of a Competence Approach to Language Teaching, behind which lies my belief that more than enlarging the students´ both formal linguistic and traditional literary knowledge, the course would become more effective if the students were led to master these eight competences: pedagogical, classroom, linguistic, textual, communicative, cultural, literary, and professional (34).

The approaches involve individual decisions and requirements generated by literary conventions. Its three phases are literary theory, English and American Literature.

Literary Theory: Literary Competence-in-preparation.
When you acquire literary theory you learn about what literature is, what it does to you, and what you do it. Awareness of literary theory prepares you to deal properly with literary conventions. In a very practical way it helps you manipulate literary texts by reading, speaking, discussing, writing, and listening to them. I call them literary tasks. Nunan (1992) defines a task as “a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or increasing in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather on form.” (p.10)
Reading Tasks: Reading is crucial for your literary competence. Reading tasks are planned in such a way that you have the chance to read a list of texts – books and articles. They include the four genres: poetry, fiction, play and criticism. Two books on the history of English and American Literatures are important here. Thornley/Roberts´s (1986) An Outline of English Literature introduces you into life, works and ideas of British authors. You find in it relevant information and discover important aspects in the contribution to literature of writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Woolf and many others. Likewise, High’s (1986) An Outline of American Literature calls your attention to the kind of literature the American writers have been able to create. For instance, you are informed that people like Hemingway and Fitzgerald belonged to the lost generation and how they, along with others, gave new directions to literature in the country. You also learn that there exists a very promising Black literature, done by names like Wright, Ellison and Morrison.
Besides, you are also introduced to theory. Here Tyson’s (2001) Learning for a Diverse World is the key work. It intends to help you read and write about literature. Have you ever heard of Gay and Lesbian theory? Never mind. Tyson teaches you how you can deal with it. Plus, she introduces you to other theories: reader-response, pyschoanalytic, marxist, feminist, African American and post-colonial.
When it comes to the four literary genres, your reading is addressed to Klarer’s (1999) An Introductory to Literary Studies. He makes a clear and simplified discussion of poetry, drama, fiction and film. Examining it you’ll find out why poems, novels, plays and movies expose different aspects of text production. Now, is the moment to put the knowledge about the genres provided by Klarer’s text together with a critical reading of two or three poems, one short story and play. Through the reading you’re encouraged to express yourself based on what you read.
Writing Tasks: After reading, writing is equally important to your literary competence. Writing tasks are designed in such away that you can see the ties between reading and writing. The cycle is clear: your reading leads to your writing, which calls for more reading. Three types of writing tasks are useful here: essay, paper, and project. For methodological reasons, the essay is designed in a way that makes it a preparation for the paper. Thus, you deal with the paper after you have acquired the competence to deal with the essay. The project is the organization of your course on both English and American literatures.
You’ll write two essays, one paper, and one test. The first essay involves the two or three poems you read. The second covers your reading of a short story. The paper is an analysis of the play you read. Finally, the test is a second analysis of the paper, this time done in class.
Discussing tasks: Not only reading or writing, but also discussing plays an important role in the building of your literary competence. Discussing tasks can contribute to your literary competence for its interactive aspects. The most important one is Pedagogical Triangle. It functions as an instrument, through which you can share knowledge, ideas, and information with your partners about your readings. As it is a triangle it has three moments and involves reading, writing, speaking and listening. With regard to its structure, you first select ideas, information and concepts from a given text, you share them with a partner and, then, present the partner’s ideas to the whole class.

Speaking Tasks: Along with reading, writing, and discussing, speaking is also crucial for your literary competence. Speaking tasks help you present your paper to your partners, in class. You perform two types of speaking tasks. Individual Oral Presentation is performed in front of the whole class. Pair Oral Presentation is done between two students.
Listening Tasks. Finally, listening brings valid contributions to your literary competence. Listening tasks are designed for you to evaluate the quality of the oral production of your partners. You’ll be involved in two types of listening tasks: individual and pair Evaluation Sheets. The idea behind Evaluation Sheets is that literarily competent student must know how to evaluate critically the literary production of a partner.

English Literature: Literary Competence in-action.
You have acquired basic concepts of literary theory, and have performed the five types of tasks leading to the literary competence you wish. This phase may be called literary competence-in-preparation.
So far so good.
Now it is time for you to make your basic knowledge and experience more consistent and advanced. This phase may be called literary competence-in-action. You will do that through the study of English Literature. Here, again, reading, writing, discussing, speaking, and listening tasks are the activities that will make your literary competence concrete and visible.
Reading Tasks: You’ll go back to Thornley/Roberts’ (1986) An Outline of English Literature and read it again. In it you’ll find information for your project on English Literature. Besides, your other readings will be related to the four literary genres; poetry, drama, fiction, and cinema. As you were already taught, Klarer’s (1999) book An Introduction to Literary Studies introduces the topic very clearly. You will choose and read one collection of poem, a play, and a novel. You will also watch a film. Besides you’ll read other important books. For your knowledge of theory the reading of Lois Tyson’s (2001) Learning for a Diverse World is crucial, and for your discussion of tasks and the language skills – reading, writing, discussing, speaking, and listening – you’ll not forget David Nunan’s (1992) Designing Communicative Tasks for Second Language Classrooms. Finally, you’ll find information about literary competence in my articles Reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby at FURB: Developing Students’ Literary Competence in the Classroom, Language Teacher’s Seven Competences, and Elementary Notes on Understanding Literature Classroom.
Writing Tasks: Your first writing task will be your project. As you know you started it in the Literary Theory phase and will be finished during this section. Through the project you’ll plan your course on English Literature. Besides it, you’ll write other texts. You’ll write four papers, one for each book you will read and the film watch. You’ll also do a written test on each book and film. Finally, you’ll write you final collection, which is the portfolio of your tasks.
Discussing Tasks: They are not different from those already performed in the previous Literary Theory phase. As a matter of fact, you’ll perform four Pedagogical Triangles for the three books read and the film watched.
Speaking Tasks: You’ll perform four Oral presentations, both individual and pair. You’ll perform them in relation to each book read and film watched. During the oral presentation a partner will critically evaluate the quality of you oral performance
Listening Tasks: The natural relations between speaking and listening suggests that when a person speaks there’ll always be somebody who listens to him/her. Thus, four listening tasks will also be performed. You’ll perform both individual and pair listening, under the title Evaluation Sheet. Film watching will also be part of your listening tasks.

American Literature: Literary Competence-in-action.

When you’re ready with your study of English Literature it is time to concentrate your energies on American Literature. Besides being younger than the English one for historical reasons, American Literature will attract you for its geographical and cultural proximity to us. Names like those of Hemingway, Faulkner cannot parallel those of Shakespeare, Milton and Joyce, but they created their way to many Brazilians’ imagination on certain period of time.
Methodologically, you will be exposed to the study of American Literature the same way you were to both Literary Theory and English Literature. That is, you’ll perform once and again reading, writing, discussing, speaking and listening tasks.
Reading Tasks: The quality of your literary competence will deeply depend on your mastery of reading of literary issues. Thus, as you did for English Literature, you’ll read a number of texts in association with American Literature. You’ll start with High’s (1986) An Outline of American Literature, which will introduce you to the world of literary life in America. Later, you’ll return to Klarer’s (1999) An Introduction to Literary Studies and will reorganize your ideas about the four genres involved in your study of American Literature: poetry, drama, fiction and film. For literary theory manipulation you’ll read Lois Tyson’s (2001) Learning for a Diverse World. From it you’ll take useful concepts of different theoretical orientations. Reader response, psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, gay and lesbian, African-American, and postcolonial theories are at your disposal in Tyson’s work. Robert Eagletone’s (2000) Doing English: A Guide for Literature Students will help you enlarge your introductory knowledge to literature and its phenomena. David Nunan’s (1992) book Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom will allow you to develop a better understanding of how language skills – reading, writing, discussing speaking and listening – can be tremendously useful for your literary competence. Finally, three articles of my own will introduce you in the complex interconnectedness of literature and literary competence. You’ll start with Language Teachers’ Seven Competence, go to Elementary Notes on Understanding Literature Classroom, and close with Reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby at FURB: Developing Students’ Literary Competence in the Classroom. Finally, you’ll select a play, a novel, a collection of poems, and will read them. You’ll watch a film too.
Writing Tasks. Here, writing tasks tend to become more effective if they’re associated with reading. That is, reading will provide you with the necessary information for you to produce the texts with the literary quality they need. Thus, the first writing task you’ll develop is your project on American Literature. The project is crucial because it will tell you the way you want to improve literary competence. The project will tell you what writing tasks you’ll do and how you’ll do them. For instance, it will tell you that you’ll will write four papers, and four tests – one for each book read and film watched –, and a final collection, the activity that is your portfolio, which contains the texts you produced.
Discussing Tasks. In the discussion of literary texts – critical articles, play, novel, poem, film – you’ll follow the same patterns you had for English Literature. Pedagogical Triangle, with its three aspects involving the four language skills, is the major task. Different from the reading tasks and the writing ones – papers – which are performed at home and individually, discussing assignments are always done in class, and can be individual, paired, or requires the whole group.
Speaking Tasks. Here, the study of English and American Literatures requires the same type of exercise. Oral presentation – individual and pair – aims at enlarging your literary competence that was triggered by reading, continued with writing, and went on with discussing. Four Oral Presentations – one for each book read and movie watched – will allow you to show you partners how consistently you’re able to deal with literary phenomena.
Listening Tasks. Your literary competence associated with American Literature is completed through your ability to deal with listening exercises. Evaluation Sheet aims at giving you the chance to develop personal understanding of literary conventions while dealing with language. Like speaking tasks, listening ones – individual and pair – are done in class. There’s another aspect here: speaking and listening always go together. Reciprocity is their mark. That is, when you’re doing speaking there is someone listening to you. And when someone is doing speaking you will be listening to him/her.
So far so good.
If we can take a conclusion from what was said here, it certainly is a simple one: that in my life writing and teaching are inseparable activities. So inseparable that one leads inevitably to the other. In other words, writing creates teaching, which calls for more writing.
A second conclusion derives from the first and tells us that writing is a personal experience and cannot be transferred to anybody else. You certainly can teach a person to write, but you cannot write for him/her. Besides, writing literature is a multiple activity and requires your dealing with the various literary genres: poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and film.
Teaching literature follows the same view. When it comes to teaching, the genres are expected to be there too. But that’s not all. There’s more. Teaching literature requires an approach. A post-modern approach to literature teaching as my own assumes that literature and language go along together. And while literary competence is being developed linguistic competence is also being mastered. That’s why reading, writing, discussing, speaking, and listening tasks are present. They become the visible aspects in the learners’ activation of both literary and linguistic competences. I’m deeply convinced that interdependence between literature and language in my classes of Anglo-American literature works satisfactorily. Learners’ personal reports say that too.
A final conclusion refers to the idea that literature has a lot to do with life. How much do we steal from texts and take to life, and how much do we take from life and bring to literature? It is much. Take, for instance, the experiences of the characters you get involved with when reading a novel or a play. Their conflicts, feelings, success, defeat, despair and happiness become yours. If they go to work you go with them. If they fall in love you envy them and wish you had a lover like hers/his. This is identification. When I read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye I identified with Pecola Breedlove in such a way that I made her a character in my play O Olho da Cor.
In short, life has shown to me that writing literature is magic and teaching is the magic of magic. You’re about to enter this magic world through English, a language that is becoming yours. This makes your decision even more exciting, and rewarding, though also intimidating. Relax and enjoy.