On 28th February, we had our first Playwriting 402 course class. Among many issues we brought out, the following are the highlights.
- Who is a writer - we discussed different points of view
- Everyone was asked to report her/his reading experience in the past three years.
- I gave anecdotes on what writes' lives can possibly look like - told my encounters with Shamshur Rahman and poet Kawsar Ahmed Chowdhury.
- We discussed what are the different types of writers that is needed in today's world. We came up with two distinctions - professional writer (someone who writes to earn money and whose identity might not always be visible) and the creative artist writer (one whose goal of life is self-expression).
- Our discussion of an Ideal Writer inevitably led us to the realm of poetry and to my pleasant surprise, I found out that Poetry is a major activity among the students. Jibananda Das turns out to be the universal choice among poem-readers. I desperately tried to keep Jabananda Das out of our discussion, a move everyone suspiciously observed.
- One of the MOST important advice that came out is - Volume of writing matters more than quality of writing. At first the listeners were unwilling to accept this as a writing policy but when I explain that "volume" writing means "Practice makes perfect", the logic was finally accepted.
- As part of our introduction to writing I discussed a previous Question Paper where I advised on "How to organize your Playwriting" following some fundamental rules.
- I also provided a 12-page document that discussed the Elements of Playwriting.
- A general task was given to all - to go through the Handouts and mark unknown words and phrases so that we can discuss these in our next class on Tuesday.
- I have also given them a short list of poems
- Discussed the Literary Term - Polyphony and Bakhtin's theory of Novel
- Discussed how a writer can keep the Reader's expectation suspended until the very last word of a sentence. I drew an example from "a red wheelbarrow" poem where we tried to imagine what the last word of the poem could possibly be.
- I was also invited to comment on how to make dramatic dialogues stand out so that it represents the uniqueness of a character. My short answer was to delve deeper into the Character itself and find all the background information and THEN write the dialogue. Written this way, dramatic dialogues will differ from character to character and they will achieve uniqueness.
- I have provided a list of poems that we shall discuss in ONE single class.
- Another major development from this first class is that we all agree that we should start on a classic English Novel so that we will be able to read any books/articles in English.
- The novel we chose is Pride and Prejudice.
- The poems are as follows. I have also added some new titles. সব কবিতার নামেই লিঙ্ক দেয়া রয়েছে।
- W H Auden = Musée des Beaux Arts; Night Mail; The Unknown Citizen (Recitation)
- Dylan Thomas = Fern Hill, Do not go gentle into that good night
- T S Eliot = The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- Robert Browning = My Last Duchess (freshly added)
- Keats = Ode on a Grecian Urn (freshly added)
- W B Yeats = The Second Coming
- Those who were absent yesterday (Dipam Saha, Tonusree Karkun) are requested to read the checklist above and collect a hard copy of Pride and Prejudice from Penguin Books in Nilkhet (Owner's name - Islam Uddin = 01718420563).
