ΕΝΩΣΗ ΠΤΥΧΙΟΥΧΩΝ ΑΓΓΛΙΚΗΣ ΦΙΛΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ ΝΟΜΟΥ ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΟΥ

ΕΝΩΣΗ ΠΤΥΧΙΟΥΧΩΝ ΑΓΓΛΙΚΗΣ ΦΙΛΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ ΝΟΜΟΥ  ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΟΥ

ΕΝΩΣΗ ΠΤΥΧΙΟΥΧΩΝ ΑΓΓΛΙΚΗΣ ΦΙΛΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ ΝΟΜΟΥ ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΟΥ

EPAFI is a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement and expansion of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at all levels of instruction (primary, secondary and university level).
We are a newly founded scientific association of EFL teachers in Heraklion, Crete and we aim at enhancing our EFL teaching profile and practices.Feel free to add your comments to the site as well as to give us feedback on issues that might be of interest to EFL teachers.Contact one of us and we will make sure your message will be posted as soon as possible.
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Monday 12 May 2008

BOOK Review:TITUS GROAN-by Mervyn Peake


It appeared in 1946, receiving ecstatic critical response, though it never reached a wide public.The book- part of an unfinished series of novels- takes place in Gormenghast Castle, “a vast and ancient landscape of crumbling towers and ivy-filled quadrangles. It is the hereditary residence of the Groan family, a world predetermined by complex and immemorial ritual and peopled by dark characters” who inhabit a labyrinth of half-lit corridors, great dreamlike halls and cobwebbed attics. It’s a world parallel to our own, neither better nor worse, but stale as if frozen forever in a bizarre pose. However there are echoes of turbulence even in those murky waters as a season of violence, murder and crawling madness is approaching..Titus groan has been a described as the only true instance of gothic expressionism in English literature. I find it’s something more, a brilliant and macabre farce. It’s a work of the private imagination. Self-mockery is evident in the characters’ farcical names: The melancholy Lord Selpuchrave, Prunesqualor, castle physician, professor Deadyawn… This strange story really moved me and left me too-like musician Robert Smith-“breathing like the drowning man”.

By Michalis Gialitakis English Teacher
26 March 2008 03:18

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