Hi everyone:
I am a big advocate of charts and lists because they can help mold seemingly unmanageable, disparate pieces of information into a meaningful whole. I suggest creating a GRE notebook, using a large loose-leaf binder where you can put all the pieces together. Make sections, organizing information chronologically. Begin by making a chart of the sweep of literature from its beginnings, focusing on what is likely to be on the GRE subject test. This chart must be the most comprehensive, since it will be the tree upon which other branches of information will be placed. Begin with the Bible and Homer and put down the siginificant works of the imagination--drama, epics, poetry, and so forth, based strictly upon chronology. After the Aeniad, nothing of significance, as far as the GRE is concerned, shows up again until Augustine, and then you can follow the timelines based upon TOC from the Nortons and the Longman anthologies. I particularly like the Longman discussions of periods and perspectives because they are short yet informative pieces that put the literature in historical, intellectual, and stylistic contexts. This can only help when doing quick identifications on the exam, based upon "buzzwords."
After making this first comprehensive chart, make sections that chronologically chart the development of poetry, drama, epic, the novel, and so forth. Also make sections for periods, movements, and important historical events that coincide. I think a historical perspective is vital to fully appreciating literature in a way that makes preparing for and taking what is essentially a Trivial pursuit-type exam not just bearable, but exciting. Bercholt Brecht can write an antiwar play in 1939 about a war in the seventeenth century that occurs during a period that sees the literary maturation of such luminaries as Donne, Milton, and Ben Jonson and the discourse of American exceptionalism, begun in the writings of William Bradford and John Winthrop. For me, the challenge is to see the connections between eras and sensibilities, and not merely to "read through" lots of "Nortonish" stuff. It makes preparing for the subject test an exciting project, not an anxiety-ridden, summer-destroying malevolent presence looming over my future professional prospects in academia. I have more to say, but I have to go shopping. Feedback, please.
Cheers.:D
