Geoffrey Chaucer has often been called the Father of English poetry, and indeed his literary work has profoundly influenced both the literary canon and the very language itself.  Our course will involve a survey of Chaucer’s works in the original Middle English, moving from Chaucer’s lyrics, to the dream visions of his courtly works, and finally to a wide-ranging exploration of many of The Canterbury Tales.  We will also familiarize ourselves with the cultural and historical background of Chaucer’s works, by examination both of primary and of secondary texts.  Our course will require two term papers, a midterm and a final examination, as well as a performance of some Middle English poesy.

Learn a foreign language—your own! We will explore popular poetic texts of late medieval Britain in the original Middle English language, working slowly enough for students to savor the details of some of the key works of pre-modern Britain.  Scholars disagree as to the definition of romance, and our course will cover the various kinds of works grouped by this literary theoretical term.  We will examine courtly romances, both in the popular style (Sire Orfeo) and in the high style of Chaucer’s neo-classical Troilus and Criseyde.  We will also explore some of the masterpieces of Arthurian literature, including Yvain and Gawain and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We will also read a romance of the Crusades, a tale of Faerie, and a narrative of “pagan” Britain, while covering the major metrical forms of late medieval Britain.  The course will include a midterm and a final examination, as well as two term papers.

Designed as a survey class, English 301 is intended to introduce students to literary criticism of the 20th Century, with an emphasis on the post-1960s period.  Chronological in approach, it will study the representative texts of various schools of criticism, focusing on the basic terms, concepts, and methodologies.  The goals of this course are 1) to learn and understand the principles and paradigms of each kind of criticism; 2) to become critically aware of not only the ramifications but also the limitations of literary theory; 3) to rethink and question such notions as “innocent reading” or “purely spontaneous response”; and 4) to learn a range of interpretative methods.

 

The primary texts for the course are:

Literary Theory: An Anthology, 2nd Edition. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, Blackwell, 2004. (ISBN: 1-4051-0696-4)

Billy Budd and Other Tales, by Herman Melville, with a new introduction by Joyce Carole Oates. Signet Classic, 1998.  (ISBN: 0-451-52687-2)

(Supplementary reading materials in criticism will be distributed when needed.)

 

Class requirements include regular attendance, active participation in class discussions, quizzes, response papers to readings, and a 6-8 page term paper at the end of the course. 

Criticism

301

Professor Ming-Qian Ma

MWF    8:00 - 8:50

Reg. No. 374067

Or

MWF    10:00 - 10:50

Reg. No. 112334

Herman Melville

The Wife of Bath

Professor  James Holstun

MWF 9:00-9:50

Clemens 103

Reg. No.: 328549

 

This course will introduce the study of literary theory and the craft of literary criticism. The key concept all semester will be rewriting-both in our discussions of drafting and revising, and in our discussions of literature and criticism itself. This focus will begin with our two primary texts: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which rewrites Conrad's own experience in the Congo and Europe (1899), and Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North (1969), a classic of modern Afro-Arabic fiction, which rewrites Conrad's novel and Salih's own experience in Sudan and London. So three rivers (Congo, Thames, and Nile), here by the Mighty Niagara.

 

In our study of criticism on these works and our more general theoretical readings, we will consider some modern explorations in formalist, feminist, marxist, structuralist, and postcolonial theory. We'll read a wide array of essays, chapters, excerpts, and all of Roland Barthes's Mythologies, a study of popular culture as a system of signs and class oppression.

 

In our study of the craft of literary criticism, we will talk about paper development, prose revision and manuscript form; research methods (finding works online and on the shelves); and using secondary sources creatively (including biographical and sociocultural material).

 

No exams. You will write regular informal short essays on our readings, an eight-page paper at mid-semester, and a sixteen-page revision and expansion at the end of the semester. Talking Leaves Bookstore will stock Barthes (Hill & Wang), Conrad (Norton) and Salih (Heinemann). Queen City Imaging will stock our course reader. For more information, please contact me at jamesholstunna,hotmail.com.

301

Criticism