The Department of English organized a guest talk on ‘Reading Prose for Life’ for first and second year students of B.A. English Literature on 11th October 2019 at Lecture Hall 5 in KCLAS Campus. The resource person was Dr. David Arputha Raj, Assistant Professor of English, Department of English and Foreign Languages, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore. Ms. Rithika. C of I B.A. English Literature welcomed the gathering and introduced the guest speaker to her fellow students.
The session gave an insight on three areas such as – Literature and Life, Emergence and Evolution of Prose and the ways to approach Prose. Dr. David commenced his talk by introducing the students to the various forms of literary writing such as Poetry, Prose and Drama. He explained about the two broad categories of Prose as Fiction and Non-fiction writings. He also differentiated Prose from other forms of writing like Drama and Poetry. He spoke about the concept of ‘Genius’ and ‘taste’ as creative ideals that are innate and acquired respectively. He introduced the term ‘Borrowed Intelligence’ to the students and elaborated on how taste is acquired with exposure to literary forms.
Dr. David mentioned about the emergence of Prose as a combination of reality and fantasy. He referred some prominent literary works while describing about the features of fiction. The acronym STAR that stands for what a literary character says, thinks, acts and reacts was put forth by the speaker. He quoted that the success of a writer lies in breaking the boundary between fact and fantasy. The theory of ‘mimesis’ was elaborated while talking about Prose writing.
The third perspective of the session dealt with the importance of reading Prose. The resource person listed about some of the ways in which reading Prose transforms the readers both morally and psychologically. The amount of imagination will be wider in Prose than in any other literary piece of work. He cited few examples of prose works like The Suitor and Papa, The Second Crucifixion where the characters are looked upon by the readers based on their individual experiences. Thinking process undergoes a change while reading Prose which is in accordance with reader-response theory. He strengthened this statement by quoting Rudyard Kipling’s work Kim. If one should become a genius, one should be exposed to different forms of literature. He concluded by stating that reading Prose is magical as it has the ability to change one’s way of looking at life.