Pratt: "Arts of the Contacts Zone"

      In this excerpt, Mary Louise Pratt talks about how language effects how we are. She says that language is a way to help people imagine other people in their lives, even though they will never meet or even hear of most of the people in their culture. She talks about her child learning how to speak, using the surnames of players of the cards she had.
     This reading relates to the idea that language is an inexplicable idea. One word, like tree can give many different people a different picture in their head. However, when words are used together, instead of mystifying it further, the idea is more clearly understood.
     Why did the student from the excerpt answer the questions so oddly?

T.S. Eliot: "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

        In this excerpt, T.S. Eliot writes on the tradition verses talent of English writings. He seems to believe that the tradition is important, however it is not nearly as important as the talent of the writer. He talks about past authors verses current authors (according to when this was written, that is), and compares their writings. The author argues over real emotion verses flat emotion.
        This connects with Shelley's "defence of poetry" very well. It deals with the poetry instead of focusing on the author, and shows that writing is in fact important and worthy of fame.
       What does this man believe about good and bad literature?