COURSE INTRODUCTION.
Prose is one of the ways for writers to communicate directly with readers. It is usually written in paragraph form, it doesn’t have the stanzaic pattern of the poem, which can be fictional (story and nonfictional (essay). This course has four blocks that deal with the different forms of prose both fictional and nonfictional.
| Block 01 | VARIETIES OF PROSE |
| Block 02 | FORMS OF PROSE: SHORTS STORIES AND ESSAYS |
| Block 03 | BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY |
| Block 04 | DIARY, SPEECH, LETTER, AND TRAVELOGUE |
BLOCK 01 VARIETIES OF PROSE.
Block number one deals with three varieties of prose: descriptive, narrative, and expository. Each of these three varieties has its own features, but the majority of the writers use them together. In the same prose work, writers have to describe a person or a thing, narrate incidents, and explain or expose information and data. Therefore the writers always incorporate these three verities together.
BLOCK 02 FORMS OF PROSE: SHORT STORIES AND ESSAYS.
Block number two deals with two prominent forms of prose short stories and essays.
UNIT 02 deals with a short story ‘Misery’ by Anton Chekhov, who is a master in the art of storytelling. UNIT 02 has chosen another interesting story by Judah Waten entitled ‘Mother’. UNIT 03 deals with an essay by George Orwell entitled ‘Shooting an Elephant’. UNIT 04 deals with an interesting essay ‘On Seeing England for the First Time’ by Jamaica Kincaid.
BLOCK 03 BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
Block number three discusses two more forms of prose works biography and autobiography.
Biography is a literary form that describes the life of an individual. It is written in the form of prose and it can be defined as a truthful account of the life of an individual. Biography is an old form of literature. It attempts to recreate the life of an individual by another person using different sources. Biography is entirely different from an autobiography. Autobiography is a description about own life whereas biography is an account of someone else life.
UNIT 01 gives you a comprehensive introduction to biography and autobiography. UNIT 02 deals with Mahatma Gandhi’s An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments With Truth. UNIT 03 talks about Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography and UNIT 04 deals with Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey.