Term IV  2003-04: Classes meet Mon-Wed from 31 Mar 2003

Texts:

   Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 
        3rd ed. New York: Prentice, 1999.

    Trimmer, Joseph F., and C. Wade Jennings, eds. Fictions. 4th ed. Fort Worth.   
        Harcourt, 1985.

     Morrison, Toni. Sula. 1973. New York: Plume-Penguin, 1982.

ENGL 303 Critical Approaches to Literature (3)

 (Fulfills the general education requirement in intensive upper-level writing. Designed as a foundation for other upper-level literature courses.) Prerequisite: ENGL 101 or equivalent. A study of the techniques of literary analysis, emphasizing close reading of texts. The goal is to better understand and appreciate literature and to be able to formulate concepts and express them in well-written, coherent prose. Students are required to compose a total of 6,000 words (approximately 25 pages).

Course Description as I see it: It is not my purpose in this class to turn you into a literary  theorist. Of course, if that should happen somewhere along the way, that is perfectly fine with me. My purpose instead is to give you a set of tools that will allow any work to unfold itself before your eyes, revealing depths of meaning, subtexts if you will, the untrained eye will seldom see. In a story set in the 1930s where an African- American man seeks shelter in a church only to be denied, we can explore the struggle between the haves and the have-nots in US capitalist society and also see a prophecy of the future. We can watch a woman pull a gun on a former employer and realize that the gun is a symbol of male power in a sexist society, power which she is seizing. In another tale, a teenage girl seems to invite the devil into her home--is not this every parent's fear of that wild young man who has seemed to seduce the perfect daughter. For me, the revelation of these other meanings within a work, whether it be a story, novel, poem, play, movie, TV show, song, or even a painting, adds beauty and complexity to the piece. I judge greatness in art by such complexities and beauty.

Course Objectives: My goal is to work on the way we look at the world around us, our ability to turn the gemstones of thought and study the facets of perspective.

Required Work: Two critical essays (40%), Response papers of approximately 300+ words to each class reading assignment (20%), all-essay midterm and final exams (40%).

 Course Outline

 Class Meetings Scheduled by Week

    Week One:  “Dancing in the Dark.”  Radical Aesthetics:  One Pluralist’s View.  New Criticism

    Week Two:  Reader-Response Criticism

    Week Three:  Structuralism.  Essay one is due.

    Week Four:  Deconstruction

    Week Five:  Psychoanalytic Criticism.  Midterm Exam

    Week Six:  Feminism

    Week Seven:  Marxism.  Sula. Essay two is due.

    Week Eight:  Cultural Poetics and Cultural Studies.  Final exam.  Bring SASE

This schedule may change as the term develops.