At SCSU, we have access to a rich archive of pre-printed material, through DISCUS (at library.scsu.edu) and JSTOR (www.jstor.org). However, both only work well from an on-campus computer. The following are general internet cites with good, worthwhile material on literature
Voice of the Shuttle: http://vos.ucsb.edu/
Voices from the GapsWomen Artists and Writers of Color, An International Website
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/VG/index.html
Modern American Poetry
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/
Internet Public Library : Literary Criticism
http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/
poets.org
http://www.poets.org/index.php
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide
An Ongoing Project http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/TABLE.HTML
E notes: short story criticism http://www.enotes.com/short-story-criticism
A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/bibliography.html
Handbook to Literature http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_harmon_handbook_10/
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “ Literary Theory http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/literary.htm
The LitCritToolKit http://www.geocities.com/litcrittoolkit/
Literary Criticism http://literarycriticsm.blogspot.com
Monday, April 14, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
E316 Literary Criticism
SOUTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
INSTRUCTOR’S NAME: Thomas Cassidy
DEPARTMENT: English and Modern Languages
SCHOOL: Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences
COURSE NUMBER: English 316 Literary Criticism
INSTRUCRTOR’S BUILDING AND OFFICE: Turner Hall, A-Wing, 286
OFFICE HOURS: MWF 12:50-1:50 T/R TBA
TELEPHONE EXT.: X68785 (803-536-8785)
EMAIL:
FAX: 803-533-3804
Spring 2009
Texts (all are required and available at the bookstore):
Shakespeare, William. Othello: A Norton Critical Edition Edward Pechter, Ed. NY: WW Norton, 2004.
Larsen, Nella. Passing: A Norton Critical Edition Carla Kaplan, Editor. NY: WW Norton 2007.
Bressler, Charles. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, 4/e. NJ: Pearson, 2007
I. Course Description: Literary Criticism E316 is an introduction to literary analysis with particular emphasis upon the terminology, language, and techniques of literary criticism; emphasis placed upon direct examination and study of literary texts; special attention is given to skill in close reading of texts. Texts are selected from major works of world literature.
II. Course Rationale:
The Collegiate, academic literature study began in the 19th century as an outgrowth of Victorian humanistic reform efforts, and grew into a multi-faceted, dialogic discourse which sometimes challenges the very ground (humanistic reform) which supports it. As such, since the 1980’s, no field of study has been more influential on language and literature studies—or more reviled—than Literary Criticism. Ten years earlier, the role of literary criticism seemed fairly clear: the job of the literary critic was to determine which works were good, which were great, and explain why. If no three critics ever completely agreed on a list or a work, yet there was widespread consensus on who were the luminaries and what were the criteria for greatness (subtlety of technique, universality of subject matter, unity of form and content).
No more.
Between them, deconstruction, feminist studies, and cultural literary studies have managed to challenge every notion of what is greatness and who gets to define it, and have exposed any number of previously ignored or overlooked assumptions regarding literary criticism. Despite it all, the anachronistically titled “new criticism” reigns as the default orthodoxy of our undergraduate and secondary education classrooms. Thus the study of literary criticism today not only entails the study of clear (and some not so clear) methods for evaluating literature, but also understanding where these methods came from, and what their limitations are.
E316 Literary Criticism is required of English and English Education majors. Those who will be teaching the next generation of English language users, or who will be using the skills of analysis and criticism in advanced English studies or in English related careers need to have an advanced understanding in the aesthetic, cultural, and ontological questions that surround the creation of meaning in a text.
III. Course Competencies
Literary Criticism E316 is a knowledge and skills based survey of the methods of literature criticism the have emerged as dominant since the development formalist “New Criticism,” on up to the post-modern strategies of the present. The core competencies, in sum, are the analytical reading of literature and criticism, particularly b applying different aesthetic, cultural, and conceptual standards. The goal is to develop knowledge of the ideas and people who have shaped the discussion of literature, and practical skill in applying their methods.
To elaborate, English 316 is concerned with presenting diverse strategies for appreciating the issues and experience that people from diverse backgrounds have represented in the literary arts. Students will be encouraged to ask questions such as, to what extent do distinct traditions of writing demand distinct traditions of interpretation? Is the English language the same for all users? Can we ask the same questions of a poem by the Caribbean writer Kamau Brathwaite as we would of the American writer Robert Frost? Do Toni Morrison and Birago Diop use narrative in the same way? Should we read the works of a feminist such as Alice Walker differently than we would a contemporary male writer, such as John Updike?
As such, E316 Literary Criticism is well aligned with the university’s goal of developing students and teaching candidates who are effective performers, reflective decision-makers, and humanistic practitioners. The humanities content of E316, and the students’ responsibility for demonstrating a keen appreciation of it, is designed towards developing effective performers. Students engage literature and culture from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives, including the voices of women, African-Americans, European-Americans, and writers from the Caribbean. Reflective decision making is developed through consideration of the ethical, moral, cultural and psychological issues that inevitably shape and inform aesthetic and critical reactions to literature Humanistic practice is engendered when the students demonstrate cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of others’ beliefs, values, and cultural constructions, as well as their own.
2. Specific Learning Outcomes Upon completion, the student of E316 should be able to
understand and apply the methods of New Criticism in a well constructed essay of B level or better, according to a class rubric for grading such essays;
construct a critique of a literary work using at least three each of the following perspectives:
psychoanalytic criticism;
Marxist literary criticism
Structuralist and Deconstructive criticism
Cultural literary criticism (including post-colonial and African American);
Feminist criticism;
Reader Response criticism;
New Historical Criticism;
show clear knowledge of the major figures and key ideas that have influenced the development of literary criticism in the 20th century, by passing exams with an 80% or better;
define and explain in lay terms the meanings of key technical terms related to each movement of criticism with a success rate of 80% or better;
Write an essay about an approach toward literary criticism, at a ‘B’ level or better, according a class rubruc.
.
V. Course Content
Likely Order of Readings:
Week One
Handout, Introduction.
Bressler Chapter one. “Introduction.”
Week Two
Bressler, Chapter Two. “Historical Survey”
Bressler, Chapter Three “New Criticism”
Expect some (anonymous) handouts.
Week Three
Introduce, plan, and write an in-class New Critical Essay.
Week Four
Bressler , Chapter Seven “Psychoanalytic Theory”
Selected essays of Sigmund Freud
Week Four
Shakespeare “Othello” New Critical v. Psychoanalytic view.
PAPER two introduced: Compare a New Critical and a Psychoanalytic Reading of “Othello” The goal is to provide a psychoanalytic reading of Othello; contrast it with a New Critical analysis of the play to show differences. Length is about 800-1200 words, typed. Use the class texts as sources, and essays in the Texts and Contexts Edition.
This is important: Focus! FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS! It might be a good idea to begin with the idea that you’re going to contrast Othello and Iago, or Othello and Desdemona. You may end up focusing only on one character; that might be all to the good.
Or ask yourself this: How do images of the Ego, the Id, and the Superego show themselves in this play? How does repressed sexual desire? How does projection?
Why are the psychological meanings of Desdemona’s / Othello’s public declaration of love, the fuss about the hanky, and the murder of Desdemona? How would a new critic see these events?
We’ll look at some of these elements from a formalist, a Jungian, and Freudian perspective. These approaches are covered pretty well in your text, but we’ll add to it considerably.
Week Five
Bressler Chapter Five. “Structuralism”
Handout, Barthes, “The Death of the Author.”
Bressler Chapter Six, “Post – Structuralism”
Week Six
Paper 2 Due
Bressler, “Chapter Eight: Feminism”
Expect a sheaf of handouts—feminist and not-so feminist writings!
Handouts: Gilbert and Gubar: “Madwoman in the Attic”
Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex”
Week Seven
Handout: Irigaray “Women on the Market” 799
Midterm will ask you to write an essay defending or critiquing a feminist reading of “My Last Duchess,” or poetry by Adrienne Rich or Margaret Atwood.
Week Seven
Bressler, Chapter Nine “Marxism”
Handout, Gramsci “Hegemony”,
Sinfield, “Cultural Materialism and Othello”
Week Eight
Bressler Chatpter Ten, “New Historicism”
Selected readings from “Othello” contexts.
Handout: Greenblatt, “Shakespeare and the exorcists”
Nathanial Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”
Week Nine
Bressler Chapter Eleven, “Cultural Studies”
Handout: Gates, “Blackness of Blackness,” 987
Toni Morrison, “Playing in the Dark” 1005
Ralph Ellison, “Flying Home” (handout)
Week Ten
Selected Poetry of Langston Hughes and Kamau Brathwaite
Handouts “Jane Austen and Empire” 1112
Ngugi, “Decolonising the Mind” 1126
Brathwaite, “English in the Caribbean,” 1151
Week Eleven
Kincaid “A Small Place”
Handout: Fiske, “Television Culture”
Krims “Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity”
Week Twelve
Bressler Chapter Four, “ Reader – Response Criticism”
: Stanley Fish, “Interpretive Communities”
Week the Last
Final Remarks. Open Discussion
Final Projects Due: Approach a work that may not be considered a great work of art but which you see value in, and which has SIGNIFICANT cultural resonance, one you are WELL familiar Tapproach. Final Exam.
Students will be responsible for the course readings. In addition to the typed precis, each student will be asked to do at least one oral presentation of an essay or chapter.
VI. METHOD OF EVALUATION/GRADING
The following general policies may affect your grade.
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. The general college policy is to allow students a total number of unexcused absences equal to the number of times the class meets each week. That is, students who miss the equivalent of one week of classes without a legal excuse should expect that their grades will be lowered as a result. Missing the equivalent of two weeks of classes without legitimate reason shall be considered sufficient grounds for failure.
Absences: Absences can be excused for medical and other legal reasons. Students who miss class to participate in a sport or other scholastic activity are expected to make up class work from their missed classes as soon as they return--an excused absence does not free you from the obligation of class work. Excessive absenteeism, even when excused, can result in a withholding of a final grade. It is the student's responsibility to see that routine dental and medical checkups are scheduled at times which do not conflict with class. No absences will be excused without appropriate documentation--a letter from a doctor, for instance--AND OBVIOUSLY FORGED DOCUMENTS CAN RESULT IN DISCIPLINARY ACTION AGAINST THE STUDENT. If you are going to miss an extended period of time for a family emergency, please get in touch with the dean and ask him to contact your instructors. If you participate in a sport, ask your coach to write a letter stating what classes you will miss. Only those absences your coach says are necessary will be excused.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the use of someone else's words or ideas without giving that person proper credit, and it is a serious breech of academic ethics. Depending on the severity of the offense, handing in plagiarized work is grounds for an F on the paper, an F for the class, or even suspension or expulsion from school. If the professor suspects plagiarism, it shall be up to the student to prove that the work is his or her own (by providing notes, sources, where applicable, and a rough draft). In the absence of such proof, the professor shall take appropriate action. This may mean an F on the paper, an F for the class, or, in the case of more flagrant plagiarism, recommending the student for more severe disciplinary actions. On research oriented assignments, the professor shall collect copies of source material for that paper with the final draft. IF YOU CHEAT, YOU FAIL.
Class participation: A great deal of the learning that goes on in a classroom comes from students being engaged in the classroom in an active and courteous way. Therefore, class participation will be a factor in the final grade.
CELLPHONES ARE OFF!
Tardiness: Students should plan on being here and being on time. If there is any reason why a student cannot meet this very basic obligation, this is not the correct class session. Poor planning (i.e., scheduling classes on opposite ends of the campus back to back) does not constitute an excuse. Three tardies = one absence. Five tardies = two absences. Six tardies = three absences; seven = four, etc.
Assuming students avoid the pitfalls of absenteeism, lateness, and plagiarism, the following formula will be used, to the
EVALUATION
Unit + mid term Exams........……... 22%
Final Exam..............................…...16%
Critical Papers..........................…..30%
Research Paper..........................…15%
Quizzes and Oral exams................ 11%
Class Participation..........................6%
Total 100%
GRADING SCALE
90-93 A- 94-97 A 98-100 A+
80-83 B- 84-86 B 87-89 B+
70-73 C- 74-76 C 77-79 C+
60-63 D- 64-66 D 67-69 D+
Below 60 F
Guidelines for you graded class presentations:
Plan your presentations with an eye towards how you would present this material to public middle or high school classroom. Of course, you’re presenting it to graduate students, so you want to respect your audience, but show us how you would present some of the same ideas if you were teaching. (Ref NCATE 2.4)
Speak TO the class; don’t read something downloaded from the web!!
Make eye-contact.
Reading some of the text can be interesting, but you have to MAKE IT interesting! For instance, use inflections in your voice, and call on another member of the class to help.
Relate your material to other course material, and toq anything else that will help the students.
Ask for questions
Ask questions. Leave the audience something to consider.
When possible, give the class something to look at or listen to. Pictures of Columbus, Africa, slaves, and nineteenth centuries often reveal much about changing cultural attitudes—that is to say, the way we view such images today is not likely to be the way they’d have been viewed when they were made.. Examples can usually, be found at http://www.google.com/images. Ten copies of two pictures can do much to illustrate a point. (ref NCATE matrix 3.2.1-3.2.5;4.7; 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3; 3.6.2) .
Oral Presentation Rubric : Class Presentation Rubric
CATEGORY | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Props | Student uses several props (could include costume) that show considerable work/creativity and which make the presentation better. | Student uses 1 prop that shows considerable work/creativity and which make the presentation better. | Student uses 1 prop which makes the presentation better. | The student uses no props OR the props chosen detract from the presentation. |
Preparedness | Student is completely prepared and has obviously rehearsed. | Student seems pretty prepared but might have needed a rehearsal. | The student is somewhat prepared, but it is clear that rehearsal was lacking. | Student does not seem at all prepared to present. |
Content | Shows a full understanding of the topic. | Shows a good understanding of the topic. | Shows a good understanding of parts of the topic. | Does not seem to understand the topic very well. |
Interaction with class | Listens to, shares with, and supports the efforts of others in the class. Asks questions, allows the class a chance to ask. | Allows class a chance to ask questions but doesn't ask any him or herself, or vice versa. | Little room for others to ask or answer. | No room for others to ask or answer questions |
Time-Limit | Presentation is 8-10 minutes long. | Presentation is 6-8 minutes long. | Presentation is 4-5 minutes long. | Presentation is less than 4 minutes OR more than 10 minutes. |
The Following is a Rubric for how Literary Essays will be graded.
CATEGORY | 4 - Above Standards | 3 - Meets Standards | 2 - Approaching Standards | 1 - Below Standards | Score |
Focus or Thesis Statement | The thesis statement names the topic of the essay and outlines the main points to be discussed. | The thesis statement names the topic of the essay. | The thesis statement outlines some or all of the main points to be discussed but does not name the topic. | The thesis statement does not name the topic AND does not preview what will be discussed. | |
Sequencing | Arguments and support are provided in a logical order that makes it easy and interesting to follow the author's train of thought. | Arguments and support are provided in a fairly logical order that makes it reasonably easy to follow the author's train of thought. | A few of the support details or arguments are not in an expected or logical order, distracting the reader and making the essay seem a little confusing. | Many of the support details or arguments are not in an expected or logical order, distracting the reader and making the essay seem very confusing. | |
Transitions | A variety of thoughtful transitions are used. They clearly show how ideas are connected | Transitions show how ideas are connected, but there is little variety | Some transitions work well, but some connections between ideas are fuzzy. | The transitions between ideas are unclear OR nonexistant. | |
Closing paragraph | The conclusion is strong and leaves the reader solidly understanding the writer's position. Effective restatement of the position statement begins the closing paragraph. | The conclusion is recognizable. The author's position is restated within the first two sentences of the closing paragraph. | The author's position is restated within the closing paragraph, but not near the beginning. | There is no conclusion - the paper just ends. | |
Sentence Structure | All sentences are well-constructed with varied structure. | Most sentences are well-constructed and there is some varied sentence structure in the essay. | Most sentences are well constructed, but there is no variation is structure. | Most sentences are not well-constructed or varied. | |
Grammar & Spelling | Author makes no errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. | Author makes 1-2 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. | Author makes 3-4 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. | Author makes more than 4 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. |
VI. LIBRARY ASSIGNMENTS
On research related assignments, and on class presentations, students will be expected to avail themselves of the vast array of literary research materials our university makes ready to hand, both through library itself, and through online resources.
VII. SPECIAL COURSE REQUIREMENTS
None. From time to time, however, an out of class presentation can be substituted for an in class presentation, at the discretion of both the student and the instructor.
VIII. A Select, Annotated Bibliography
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 8th edition. NY: HBJ, 2004.
There are many glossaries of literary terms available. This may be the most helpful, in that it cross indexes many terms, and offers readers a variety of helpful essays about the concepts behind the terms. Amazingly, M.H. Abrams is still alive and working in his 90’s.
Baker, Houston. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
-----Workings of the Spirit.
Almost anything written by Houston Baker is worth reading, though not necessarily easy reading. In these two books he lays out his theoretical understanding of how African American literature in general, and African American women's literature specifically, have developed distinct, literary forms.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 2/e NY: Manchester University Press, 2002.
By far the most readable, non dogmatic account of the ambiguous world of literary theory. Very thoughtful, with no attempt to be complete, but every attempt to be clear and helpful.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Race," Writing, and Difference. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
An excellent collection of essays in which some of the most important literary critics of the day confront the question of race, its history, its definition, its importance, and the social forces which have constructed it.
-----The Signifying Monkey. NY: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Though its reputation has slowly begun to erode, this book's thesis that the repetition with an ironic difference evident in Jazz music, in folktales about trickster figures, and in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Ishmeal Reed, among many others, was and remains a breakthrough work making a connection between African American literature and the theories of the importance of "play" in meaning put forth by post-struturalists.
----Reading Black, Reading Feminist. NY: Meridian, 1990.
A groundbreaking collection of essays which looked at black literature from a thoughtful feminist/womanist perspective.
Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar, Ed. Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader NY: W W Norton, 2007
Published as a companion to the third edition of the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, this is a wonderful compilation of essays ranging from the literary tradition (i.e., Virginia Woolf, George Eliot), to those who are more specifically scholarly (Barbara Johnson, Luce Irigiray), and to those who occupy some middle space (Bell Hooks, Kate Millett). A great resource
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard, 1993.
A well thought out, well researched attempt to use post-structuralism to inform black literary theory. Gilroy argues that for several centuries, people of African descent have been defined less by national boundaries than by a shared, diasporic culture that criss-crosses the Atlantic.
Groden, Micheal, and Martin Kreiswirth. Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism 2/e Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2005
A comprehensive and extensive guide to literary terms and movements, written by experts in the field. This volume was published to be definitive, and has come close to fulfilling that goal. The essays in here are written with considerable authority and background.
Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 11th ed. NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009
A dictionary of literary terms, with more emphasis on traditional approaches to literature (as opposed to the most recent). The only handbook that is frequently updated. Maintains a companion website at http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_harmon_handbook_10/
Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide: 4th edition. NY: MLA, 2002A widely used bibiography of basic literary research sources. This book will tell you what other books to look for in the library to do your literary research.
Murfin, Ross C. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. NY: Bedford Books.
A paperback series which reprints well known texts, articles about various literary movements (reader response criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, feminist criticism, etc.) as well as essays which use those theories to understand the primary text from a variety of perspectives. So for instance the volume on The Awakening writes about that novel from feminist, psychoanalytic, marxist, and other positions. There are also volumes on The Scarlet Letter, The Dead, A Portrait of the Artist, Hamlet, Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness, Walden, Gulliver's Travels, and Walden. Highly recommended.
Marks, Elaine, and de Courtivron, Isabelle, eds. New French Feminisms: An Anthology. NY: Shocken, 1980.
This anthology remains the most influential collection of the highly theoretical, and very playful form of feminism that French feminists, including Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Monique Wittig, among others, have devised.
Mongia, Padmini. Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. London and NY: Arnold, 1996.
Like the Postcolonial movement in literature studies itself, this is a highly sophisticated,
theoretically dense collection. It is also the best collection of Post-colonial theory available.
Newton, K. M., ed. Theory into Practice. NY: MacMillan, 1992.
A collection of pieces on applied theory.
Orr, Leoard. A Dictionary of Critical Theory. NY: Greenwood Press, 1991.
A glossary of literary terms which provides reliable definitions for technical terms of current literary theory and criticism. Unparalleled when it was published for its lucid definitions of obtuse technical jargon, it is now sadly out of date.
Ryan, Kiernan. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism: A Reader. London and NY: Arnold, 1997.
An excellent collection for showing the wide diversity of approaches that are grouped together as "New Historicism."
Rice, Philip, and Patricia Waugh. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. 4th Edition.
NY: Edward Arnold Press, 2001
Contains a good overview of important, theoretical essays.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. NY: Vintage, 1978.
Though now dated, this work was a breakthrough in terms of its attempt to analyze how the concept of "The Orient" has distorted the West's view of itself and others.
Warhol, Robyn and Diane Price Herndl. Feminisms. Revised Edition. NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997.
An excellent collection of outstanding Feminist writing which looks at literature from a variety of perspectives, highlighting institutions, practice, conflicts, ethnicity, class, history, and autobiography, among other focuses.
Webliography
A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/bibliography.html
Handbook to Literature http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_harmon_handbook_10/
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “ Literary Theory http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/literary.htm
The Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/guide.html
The LitCritToolKit http://www.geocities.com/litcrittoolkit/
Literary Criticism http://literarycriticsm.blogspot.com
Voice of the Shuttle: “Literary Theory” http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2718
Appendix A
Some movements of Literary Criticism
Deconstruction:
A movement of literary criticism that was spearheaded in France by the French philosophy, Jacques Derrida, and in America by the Yale critic, Paul De Man. The central belief of deconstruction is that meaning is elusive and cannot be fixed entirely and completely. Thus, the interpretation of any given text--including poems, novels, laws, philosophy, music, and other forms of art--must inevitably change. Because deconstructionists do not feel meaning can be fixed, their readings are often marked by a sense of playfulness, the idea being that there is an element of play in all language use. Deconstructionists typically try to show that a writer was saying something much more than they apparently thought they were saying, and then ask why has the reading that the clever critic discovered been so long ignored?
Cultural Studies Criticism:
Not a single movement, this term is used to group together schools of critical thought which take into account the ethnic origins of the writer, and their effect on the world. Asian-American, Hispanic-American, American Indian, and African American criticism all focus 1) on how the concerns writers of each group are developed in various ways similar and different, and 2) on how characters and concerns of each group are developed in writers of other groups.
The term Black Literature Criticism is frequently applied to discuss the works of writers of African descent, whether the writers were born in Africa, America, England, or the Caribbean.
Feminism: The term "feminism" is applied to a related core of beliefs the writing and interpretation about women's and men's lives has been significantly distorted by the prevalence sexually discriminatory laws, practices, and gender stereotypes. To look at a work from a feminist perspective means to ask: 1) whether male and female characters follow or go beyond traditional sex roles; 2) whether a given work contains an implicit or explicit gender bias; 3) analyzing a work from the perspective of subsidiary female characters; 4) analyzing a writer's total output from the perspective of how he or she challenged or failed to challenge prevailing sexual stereotypes.
Marxism
While traditional Marxism held that literature was one of many cultural forms that was entirely determined by the workings of class interests, contemporary Marxism has developed many far more nuanced approaches to looking at literature. Some fundamental questions that Marxists ask are, how are class interests and class conflicts portrayed in literature? What has been the effect of holding various literary ideals and standards (who has benefited, who has been marginalized)? Perhaps the most important term used by Marxist criticism is "ideology," by which they mean a set of ideas or assumptions which underlay the cultural and political practices of a given place and time.
New Criticism
The word "new" is somewhat outdated, but this name is too well established to argue with, although the more accurate term "formalists" is equally applicable. The central task of the New Critics was to try interpret a literary work as carefully constructed work of art. New criticism is implicitly laudatory; the critic tries to bare the careful workings of the artist. Less careful artist's are often dismissed as not worthy of study. The writer's politics and intent are assumed to be of secondary, or even no, importance.
New criticism has become widely established as the norm in English departments. A student who effectively writes a paper analyzing the use of irony, metaphors, or nature imagery in Oedipus the King or The Scarlet Letter is probably using the methods of new criticism.
New Historicism/Cultural Materialism
These two closely linked movements are both concerned with history, and both began with Renaissance studies, particularly Shakespeare studies, but their methodology has proved useful for analyzing many different texts. include many other
The central concern of cultural materialist criticism is how did the material and historical conditions surrounding a text's production affect the text? Thus, for instance, a cultural materialist interpretation of Hamlet might be interested in how religious instability of the England of Shakespeare's day was reflected in Hamlet's paralysis. Cultural materialists are also interested in who controlled access to presses and the public, and how authors have defied and played to the expectations of this ruling class.
While cultural materialists take their cue from Marxist criticism, New Historicism tends to be post-structularist in its concerns. Thus, new historicism often finds connections between historically celebrated texts and historically ignored ones, including letters and diaries. The point is not to reduce all texts to a rough equality, but to understand the intertextual relations between writing.
Psycholoanalytic Criticism: There are three common schools of psychoanalytic criticism: Freudian criticism; Jungian criticism; Lacanian criticism. Freudian critics depend upon Sigmund Freud's distinction between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, the latter of which is dominated by a childlike id (which wants and wants what it wants now) and a restricting superego, which seeks to control. Freudian critics look for unconscious meanings in a text, which they highlight as the true text. Such criticism typically looks for symbols of powerful psychoanalytic meaning (a snake with a severed heads might be said to be a symbol of castration, for instance). However, they may also analyze characters and even writers according to their acting upon specific psychological impulses as described by Sigmund Freud. Jungian criticism typically looks for archetypes as described by Carl Jung, often with an emphasis upon looking at how the male and female animus and anima are portrayed. Lacanian criticism is French movement which frequently looks at how a writer or a character attempts to affirm his own existence through controlling other people and/or language, the theory being that individuals live with a deep existential doubt of their own worth, and use language as a means a communicating with others for affirmation.
Friday, February 15, 2008
E531 Graduate Literary Criticism
South Carolina State University
Department of Communications and Languages
English 531
Literary Criticism
Summer 2007
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Thomas Cassidy
LOCATION: TH 286-A
OFFICE HOURS: TBA
PHONE: 803/536-8785 (X68785)
EMAIL: tcassidy@scsu.edu
REQUIRED TEXTS:
1. Othello: Texts and Contexts William Shakespeare / Kim Hall. Bedford/St.Martins
ISBN: 0-312-39898-0
3 Passing: A Norton Critical EditionNella LarsenEdited by Carla Kaplan, Northeastern UniversityISBN-10: 0-393-97916-4 • ISBN-13: 978-0-393-97916-
3. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature Wilfred L Guerin Fifth Edition Oxford U Press ISBN: 0195160177
I. COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 531 literary criticism is a one-semester course for which the student receives three credits. The course is a practical survey of theories and approaches to literature from the development of formalism in the early twentieth century on down to the explosion of critical approaches—feminism, Marxism, new historicism, deconstruction, cultural criticism—available to the modern reader and teacher of literature. Emphasis will be particularly places on the multiplicity of theoretical and cultural approaches that have dominated the field for the past 25 years.
II. COURSE RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE
E531 is a class in literature criticism and theory for graduate students who will become English educators; such students must learn to use speaking and observing as major forms of inquiry and reflection. Therefore, students will be responsible not only for learning the course material, but for being able to present it. Class assignments will not only require understanding of the material, but will emphasize how Marxist, feminist, deconstructive, and cultural studies insights might be applied in the classroom. The successful student of E531 will be able to apply critical thinking about culture, but explain the benefit of a lifelong habit of critical appreciation of culture.
III. COURSE OVERVIEW
Since the 1980’s, no field of study has been more influential on language and literature studies—or more reviled—than Literary Criticism. Ten years earlier, the role of literary criticism seemed fairly clear: the job of the literary critic was to determine which works were good, which were great, and explain why. If no two critics ever completely agreed on a list or a work, yet there was widespread consensus as to who the luminaries were and what constituted the criteria for greatness (subtlety of technique, unity of form and content, universality of subject matter).
No more.
Between them, deconstruction, feminist studies, and culture studies have managed to challenge every cozy notion of what is greatness and who gets to define it, and have also along the way exposed any number of previously ignored or overlooked assumptions regarding literary criticism. Despite it all, the now old-fashioned “new criticism” reigns as the supreme orthodoxy of our undergraduate and secondary education classrooms, even as its place in the graduate seminar has been firmly displaced by the study of “theory.” Thus the study of literary criticism today not only entails the study of clear (and some not so clear) methods for evaluating literature, but also understanding where these methods came from, and what their limitations are.
IV. COURSE COMPETENCIES.
1. Institutional Outcomes
E531 Literary Criticism is well aligned with the University’s goal of developing students and teaching candidates who are effective performers, reflective decision-makers, and humanistic practitioners.
q The humanities content of E531, and the students’ responsibility for demonstrating a keen appreciation of it, is designed towards developing effective performers. Students engage literature and culture from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives, including the voices of women, African-Americans, European-Americans, and writers from the Caribbean
q Reflective decision making is developed through consideration of the ethical, moral, cultural and psychological issues that inevitably shape and inform aesthetic and critical reactions to literature
q Humanistic practice is engendered when the students demonstrate cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of others’ beliefs, values, and cultural constructions, as well as their own.
This course offers the students an understanding of how collegiate, academic literature study began in the 19th century as an outgrowth of Victorian humanistic reform efforts, and grew into a multi-faceted, dialogic discourse which sometimes challenges the very ground (humanistic reform) which supports it.
2. Specific Learning Objectives.
Upon completion, the student of E531 should be able to
A. understand and apply the methods of New Criticism;
B. understand and challenge the limitations of New Criticism;
C. be able to construct a critique of a literary work from each of the following perspectives: (ref. NCATE matrix 3.2.4, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 4.7).
1. Jungian criticism
2. Freudian criticism
3. Deconstructive criticism
4. Cultural criticism
5. Feminist criticism
6. Reader Response criticism
7. New Historical Criticism;
D. be familiar with many of the standard reference works regarding literary criticism;
E. be able to show clear knowledge of the major figures and key ideas that have influenced the development of literary criticism in the 20th century;
F. be able to define and explain in lay terms the meanings of key technical terms;
G. be able to write an essay on a work of literature using multiple literary critical perspectives to demonstrate the importance of the text;
H. lead and participate in class discussions on the validity of each approach to literature;
I. lead and participate in class discussions on applications of literary criticism to the criticism of music, movies, magazines, the Internet, and other cultural formations.
GENERAL POLICIES
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. Be here
Excused Absences: Document absences, and be prepared to do make-up work.
Plagiarism: Don’t cheat. Plagiarism is the use of someone else's words or ideas without giving that person proper credit, and is a serious breech of academic ethics. If you cheat, you fail.
Class participation: You cannot sit quietly in this class. Be prepared to participate.
Tardiness: Be on time.
II EVALUATION
Presentations..................................30%
Final Exam……………………… 20%
Final Presentation…................…...30%
First Paper................………..…....15%
Class Participation..........................10%
Total 100%
III GRADING SCALE
90-93 A- 94-97 A 98-100 A+
80-83 B- 84-86 B87-89B+
70-73 C-74-76 C77-79C+
60-63D-64-66D67-69D+
Below 60 F
IV. Course Content
Likely Order of Readings:
Class One
Introduction.
ClassTwo
Criticism before New Criticism. (Apply to Emily Dickinson, “A Bird Came Down the Walk,” and “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass.”)
1. Textual Scholarship
2. Historical Biographical
3. Moral-Philosophical
Class Three
Othello– Part I
Class 4 (Tuesday May 29)
Criticism Before New Criticism, applied
1. “To His Coy Mistress.” 2. “Everyday Use.”
The “New” Criticism
Guerin, Chapter5,
Professorial overview and application to Emily D.
5/30 Formalism Continued
1. “Young Goodman Brown.”
2. “Everyday Use.”
First Theoretical approach: Freud
Overview of Freud as pertains to literature. Guerin, Chapter ^
5/31
Student Presentation on Blake?
Student Presentation on Poe?
Second Theoretical approach: Jung (Archetype) and Frye (Myth)
Guerin Chapter 7
6/4/06 Return to Othello
Application of the above to the text:
Brief Discussion of Feminism
6/5 Feminism
Guerin Chapter 8
6/9/06
Paper 1 due . The goal is to provide a psychoanalytic reading of Othello; contrast it with a New Critical analysis of the play to show differences. Length is about 800-1200 words, typed. Use the sources in Guerin and in the Textx and Contexts Edition.
This is important: Focus! FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS! It might be a good idea to begin with the idea that you’re going to contrast Othello and Iago, or Othello and Desdemona. You may end up focusing only on one character; that might be all to the good.
Or ask yourself this: How do images of the Ego, the Id, and the Superego show themselves in this play? How does repressed sexual desire? How does projection?
Why are the psychological meanings of Desdemona’s / Othello’s public declaration of love, the fuss about the hanky, and the murder of Desdemona? How would a new critic see these events?
We’ll look at some of these elements from a formalist, a Jungian, and Freudian perspective. These approaches are covered pretty well in your text, but we’ll add to it considerably.
6/13
Student presentations on selected feminist essays.
Class nine Cultural Studies
Guerin 239-267
Class ten Cultural Studies
Student presentations on
Selected essays.
Class eleven
Guerin, “ Reader – Response Criticism”
Class Twelve
Class Thirteen
These classes will be devoted to final student presentations. The final presentations will be graded presentations and open discussions about major works of literature (or your choosing) analyzed from a variety of perspectives. You will be expected to use and refence major sources of research and theory (i.e., books, periodicals, reports, proceedings of professional conferences, videotapes, electronic and non-electronic data bases) (ref. NCATE matrix 3.2.4; 3.5.1.6; 3.7.1).
Last Class
In-Class, Written final. Referencing two of the assigned critical readings, write two short essays on The Marrow of Tradition taking differing critical approaches.
Guidelines for you graded class presentations:
q Plan your presentations with an eye towards how you would present this material to public middle or high school classroom. Of course, you’re presenting it to graduate students, so you want to respect your audience, but show us how you would present some of the same ideas if you were teaching. (Ref NCATE 2.4)
q Speak TO the class; don’t read something downloaded from the web!!
q Make eye-contact.
q Reading some of the text can be interesting, but you have to MAKE IT interesting! For instance, use inflections in your voice, and call on another member of the class to help.
q Relate your material to other course material, and to anything else that will help the students.
q Ask for questions
q Ask questions. Leave the audience something to consider.
q When possible, give the class something to look at or listen to. Pictures of Columbus, the Puritans, slaves, and the founding fathers often reveal much about changing cultural attitudes. Examples can be found at http://www.learner.org/amerpass/. This doesn’t have to be elaborate; 10 copies of two pictures can do much to illustrate a point.
(ref NCATE matrix 3.2.1-3.2.5;4.7; 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3; 3.6.2)
Grading criteria for class presentations:
Summary of the material (present the main points in a way that is easily understandable) 38%
Relationship to the course material in general (other authors, issues, and periods) 20%
Showmanship (presentation, audio/visual, eye-contact, posture, dress) 22%
Clarity and pronunciation of speech 10%
Questions and Answers 10%
Top Possible score: 100%
Not only will the instructor evaluate the student; students will be required, at the end of each class, to evaluate the student presentations of that class. (ref. NCATE matrix 4.6, 4.7, 4.8).
A Select, Annotated Bibliography
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th edition. NY: HBJ, 1993. There are many glossaries of literary terms available. This may be the most helpful, in that it cross indexes many terms, and offers readers a variety of helpful essays about the concepts behind the terms.
Baker, Houston. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
-----Workings of the Spirit.
Almost anything written by Houston Baker is worth reading, though not necessarily easy reading. In these two books he lays out his theoretical understanding of how African American literature in general, and African American women's literature specifically, have developed distinct, literary forms.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. NY: Manchester University Press, 1995.
By far the most readable, non dogmatic account of the ambiguous world of literary theory. Very thoughtful, with no attempt to be complete, but every attempt to be clear and helpful.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Race," Writing, and Difference. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
An excellent collection of essays in which some of the most important literary critics of the day confront the question of race, its history, its definition, its importance, and the social forces which have constructed it.
-----The Signifying Monkey. NY: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Though its reputation has slowly begun to erode, this book's thesis that the repetition with an ironic difference evident in Jazz music, in folktales about trickster figures, and in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Ishmeal Reed, among many others, was and remains a breakthrough work making a connection between African American literarature and the theories of the importance of "play" in meaning put forth by post-struturalists.
----Reading Black, Reading Feminist. NY: Meridian, 1990.
A groundbreaking collection of essays which look at black literature from a thoughtful feminist/womanist perspective.
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard, 1993.
A well thought out, weel researched attempt to use post-structuralism to inform black literary theory. Gilroy argues that for several centuries, people of African descent have been defined less by national boundaries than by a shared, diasporic culture that criss-crosses the Atlantic.
Groden, Micheal, and Martin Kreiswirth. Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.
A comprehensive and extensive guide to literary terms and movements, written by experts in the field. This volume was published to be definitive, and has come close to fulfilling that goal. The essays in here are written with considerable authority and background.
Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 7th ed. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996
A dictionary of literary terms, with more emphasis on traditional approaches to literature (as opposed to the most recent).
Murfin, Ross C. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. NY: Bedford Books.
A paperback series which reprints well known texts, articles about various literary movements (reader response criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, feminist criticism, etc.) as well as essays which use those theories to understand the primary text from a variety of perspectives. So for instance the volume on The Awakening writes about that novel from feminist, psychoanalytic, marxist, and other positions. There are also volumes on The Scarlet Letter, The Dead, A Portrait of the Artist, Hamlet, Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness,Walden, Gulliver's Travels, and Walden. Highly recommended.
Marks, Elaine, and de Courtivron, Isabelle, eds. New French Feminisms: An Anthology. NY: Shocken, 1980.
This anthology remains the most influential collection of the highly theoretical, and very playful form of feminism that French feminists, including Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Monique Wittig, among others, have devised.
Mongia, Padmini. Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. London and NY: Arnold, 1996.
Like the Postcolonial movement in literature studies itself, this is a highly sophisticated, theoretically dense collection. It is also the best collection of Post-colonial theory available.
Newton, K. M., ed. Theory into Practice. NY: MacMillan, 1992.
A collection of pieces on applied theory.
Orr, Leoard. A Dictionary of Critical Theory. NY: Greenwood Press, 1991.
A glossary of literary terms which provides reliable definitions for technical terms of current literary theory and criticism.
Patterson, Margaret C. Literary Research Guide 2nd edition. NY: MLA, 1984.
A widely used bibiography of basic literary research sources. This book will tell you what other books to look for in the library to do your literary research.
Ryan, Kiernan. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism: A Reader. London and NY: Arnold, 1997.
An excellent collection for showing the wide diversity of approaches that are grouped together as "New Historicism."
Rice, Philip, and Patricia Waugh. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. 3rd Edition.
NY: Edward Arnold Press, 1997.
Contains a good overview of important, theoretical essays.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. NY: Vintage, 1978.
Though now dated, this work was a breakthrough in terms of its attempt to analyze how the concept of "The Orient" has distorted the West's view of itself and others.
Warhol, Robyn and Diane Price Herndl. Feminisms. Revised Edition. NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997.
An excellent collection of outstanding Feminist writing which looks at literature from a variety of perspectives, highlighting institutions, practice, conflicts, ethnicity, class, history, and autobiography, among other focuses.
A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/bibliography.html
Handbook to Literature http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_harmon_handbook_10/
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “ Literary Theory http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/literary.htm
The Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/guide.html
The LitCritToolKit http://www.geocities.com/litcrittoolkit/
Literary Criticism http://literarycriticsm.blogspot.com
Voice of the Shuttle: “Literary Theory” http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2718
Appendix B
Your graduate education will play a key role in helping you to become a well rounded teacher in today's and tomorrow's technologically sophisticated, multi-culturally diverse classroom.
Of particular interest to us is how English 531 Literature Criticism fits into that goal. Like all of the humanities, English 531 is concerned with presenting the issues that people from diverse backgrounds have represented in the arts. English 531 though, is particularly interested in asking questions such as, to what extent do distinct traditions of writing demand distinct traditions of interpretation? Is the English language the same for all users? Can we ask the same questions of a poem by the Caribbean writer Kamau Brathwaite as we would of the American writer Robert Frost? Do Toni Morrison and Willa Cather use narrative in the same way? Should we read the works of a feminist such as Alice Walker differently than we would a contemporary male writer, such as John Updike?
Do not expect this class to provide easy answers to such questions. It is hoped that you will come up with answers that you can fully justify, but at least it is important that you enter the classroom aware of the role that such issues may play.
Department of Communications and Languages
English 531
Literary Criticism
Summer 2007
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Thomas Cassidy
LOCATION: TH 286-A
OFFICE HOURS: TBA
PHONE: 803/536-8785 (X68785)
EMAIL: tcassidy@scsu.edu
REQUIRED TEXTS:
1. Othello: Texts and Contexts William Shakespeare / Kim Hall. Bedford/St.Martins
ISBN: 0-312-39898-0
3 Passing: A Norton Critical EditionNella LarsenEdited by Carla Kaplan, Northeastern UniversityISBN-10: 0-393-97916-4 • ISBN-13: 978-0-393-97916-
3. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature Wilfred L Guerin Fifth Edition Oxford U Press ISBN: 0195160177
I. COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 531 literary criticism is a one-semester course for which the student receives three credits. The course is a practical survey of theories and approaches to literature from the development of formalism in the early twentieth century on down to the explosion of critical approaches—feminism, Marxism, new historicism, deconstruction, cultural criticism—available to the modern reader and teacher of literature. Emphasis will be particularly places on the multiplicity of theoretical and cultural approaches that have dominated the field for the past 25 years.
II. COURSE RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE
E531 is a class in literature criticism and theory for graduate students who will become English educators; such students must learn to use speaking and observing as major forms of inquiry and reflection. Therefore, students will be responsible not only for learning the course material, but for being able to present it. Class assignments will not only require understanding of the material, but will emphasize how Marxist, feminist, deconstructive, and cultural studies insights might be applied in the classroom. The successful student of E531 will be able to apply critical thinking about culture, but explain the benefit of a lifelong habit of critical appreciation of culture.
III. COURSE OVERVIEW
Since the 1980’s, no field of study has been more influential on language and literature studies—or more reviled—than Literary Criticism. Ten years earlier, the role of literary criticism seemed fairly clear: the job of the literary critic was to determine which works were good, which were great, and explain why. If no two critics ever completely agreed on a list or a work, yet there was widespread consensus as to who the luminaries were and what constituted the criteria for greatness (subtlety of technique, unity of form and content, universality of subject matter).
No more.
Between them, deconstruction, feminist studies, and culture studies have managed to challenge every cozy notion of what is greatness and who gets to define it, and have also along the way exposed any number of previously ignored or overlooked assumptions regarding literary criticism. Despite it all, the now old-fashioned “new criticism” reigns as the supreme orthodoxy of our undergraduate and secondary education classrooms, even as its place in the graduate seminar has been firmly displaced by the study of “theory.” Thus the study of literary criticism today not only entails the study of clear (and some not so clear) methods for evaluating literature, but also understanding where these methods came from, and what their limitations are.
IV. COURSE COMPETENCIES.
1. Institutional Outcomes
E531 Literary Criticism is well aligned with the University’s goal of developing students and teaching candidates who are effective performers, reflective decision-makers, and humanistic practitioners.
q The humanities content of E531, and the students’ responsibility for demonstrating a keen appreciation of it, is designed towards developing effective performers. Students engage literature and culture from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives, including the voices of women, African-Americans, European-Americans, and writers from the Caribbean
q Reflective decision making is developed through consideration of the ethical, moral, cultural and psychological issues that inevitably shape and inform aesthetic and critical reactions to literature
q Humanistic practice is engendered when the students demonstrate cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of others’ beliefs, values, and cultural constructions, as well as their own.
This course offers the students an understanding of how collegiate, academic literature study began in the 19th century as an outgrowth of Victorian humanistic reform efforts, and grew into a multi-faceted, dialogic discourse which sometimes challenges the very ground (humanistic reform) which supports it.
2. Specific Learning Objectives.
Upon completion, the student of E531 should be able to
A. understand and apply the methods of New Criticism;
B. understand and challenge the limitations of New Criticism;
C. be able to construct a critique of a literary work from each of the following perspectives: (ref. NCATE matrix 3.2.4, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 4.7).
1. Jungian criticism
2. Freudian criticism
3. Deconstructive criticism
4. Cultural criticism
5. Feminist criticism
6. Reader Response criticism
7. New Historical Criticism;
D. be familiar with many of the standard reference works regarding literary criticism;
E. be able to show clear knowledge of the major figures and key ideas that have influenced the development of literary criticism in the 20th century;
F. be able to define and explain in lay terms the meanings of key technical terms;
G. be able to write an essay on a work of literature using multiple literary critical perspectives to demonstrate the importance of the text;
H. lead and participate in class discussions on the validity of each approach to literature;
I. lead and participate in class discussions on applications of literary criticism to the criticism of music, movies, magazines, the Internet, and other cultural formations.
GENERAL POLICIES
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. Be here
Excused Absences: Document absences, and be prepared to do make-up work.
Plagiarism: Don’t cheat. Plagiarism is the use of someone else's words or ideas without giving that person proper credit, and is a serious breech of academic ethics. If you cheat, you fail.
Class participation: You cannot sit quietly in this class. Be prepared to participate.
Tardiness: Be on time.
II EVALUATION
Presentations..................................30%
Final Exam……………………… 20%
Final Presentation…................…...30%
First Paper................………..…....15%
Class Participation..........................10%
Total 100%
III GRADING SCALE
90-93 A- 94-97 A 98-100 A+
80-83 B- 84-86 B87-89B+
70-73 C-74-76 C77-79C+
60-63D-64-66D67-69D+
Below 60 F
IV. Course Content
Likely Order of Readings:
Class One
Introduction.
ClassTwo
Criticism before New Criticism. (Apply to Emily Dickinson, “A Bird Came Down the Walk,” and “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass.”)
1. Textual Scholarship
2. Historical Biographical
3. Moral-Philosophical
Class Three
Othello– Part I
Class 4 (Tuesday May 29)
Criticism Before New Criticism, applied
1. “To His Coy Mistress.” 2. “Everyday Use.”
The “New” Criticism
Guerin, Chapter5,
Professorial overview and application to Emily D.
5/30 Formalism Continued
1. “Young Goodman Brown.”
2. “Everyday Use.”
First Theoretical approach: Freud
Overview of Freud as pertains to literature. Guerin, Chapter ^
5/31
Student Presentation on Blake?
Student Presentation on Poe?
Second Theoretical approach: Jung (Archetype) and Frye (Myth)
Guerin Chapter 7
6/4/06 Return to Othello
Application of the above to the text:
Brief Discussion of Feminism
6/5 Feminism
Guerin Chapter 8
6/9/06
Paper 1 due . The goal is to provide a psychoanalytic reading of Othello; contrast it with a New Critical analysis of the play to show differences. Length is about 800-1200 words, typed. Use the sources in Guerin and in the Textx and Contexts Edition.
This is important: Focus! FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS! It might be a good idea to begin with the idea that you’re going to contrast Othello and Iago, or Othello and Desdemona. You may end up focusing only on one character; that might be all to the good.
Or ask yourself this: How do images of the Ego, the Id, and the Superego show themselves in this play? How does repressed sexual desire? How does projection?
Why are the psychological meanings of Desdemona’s / Othello’s public declaration of love, the fuss about the hanky, and the murder of Desdemona? How would a new critic see these events?
We’ll look at some of these elements from a formalist, a Jungian, and Freudian perspective. These approaches are covered pretty well in your text, but we’ll add to it considerably.
6/13
Student presentations on selected feminist essays.
Class nine Cultural Studies
Guerin 239-267
Class ten Cultural Studies
Student presentations on
Selected essays.
Class eleven
Guerin, “ Reader – Response Criticism”
Class Twelve
Class Thirteen
These classes will be devoted to final student presentations. The final presentations will be graded presentations and open discussions about major works of literature (or your choosing) analyzed from a variety of perspectives. You will be expected to use and refence major sources of research and theory (i.e., books, periodicals, reports, proceedings of professional conferences, videotapes, electronic and non-electronic data bases) (ref. NCATE matrix 3.2.4; 3.5.1.6; 3.7.1).
Last Class
In-Class, Written final. Referencing two of the assigned critical readings, write two short essays on The Marrow of Tradition taking differing critical approaches.
Guidelines for you graded class presentations:
q Plan your presentations with an eye towards how you would present this material to public middle or high school classroom. Of course, you’re presenting it to graduate students, so you want to respect your audience, but show us how you would present some of the same ideas if you were teaching. (Ref NCATE 2.4)
q Speak TO the class; don’t read something downloaded from the web!!
q Make eye-contact.
q Reading some of the text can be interesting, but you have to MAKE IT interesting! For instance, use inflections in your voice, and call on another member of the class to help.
q Relate your material to other course material, and to anything else that will help the students.
q Ask for questions
q Ask questions. Leave the audience something to consider.
q When possible, give the class something to look at or listen to. Pictures of Columbus, the Puritans, slaves, and the founding fathers often reveal much about changing cultural attitudes. Examples can be found at http://www.learner.org/amerpass/. This doesn’t have to be elaborate; 10 copies of two pictures can do much to illustrate a point.
(ref NCATE matrix 3.2.1-3.2.5;4.7; 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3; 3.6.2)
Grading criteria for class presentations:
Summary of the material (present the main points in a way that is easily understandable) 38%
Relationship to the course material in general (other authors, issues, and periods) 20%
Showmanship (presentation, audio/visual, eye-contact, posture, dress) 22%
Clarity and pronunciation of speech 10%
Questions and Answers 10%
Top Possible score: 100%
Not only will the instructor evaluate the student; students will be required, at the end of each class, to evaluate the student presentations of that class. (ref. NCATE matrix 4.6, 4.7, 4.8).
A Select, Annotated Bibliography
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th edition. NY: HBJ, 1993. There are many glossaries of literary terms available. This may be the most helpful, in that it cross indexes many terms, and offers readers a variety of helpful essays about the concepts behind the terms.
Baker, Houston. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
-----Workings of the Spirit.
Almost anything written by Houston Baker is worth reading, though not necessarily easy reading. In these two books he lays out his theoretical understanding of how African American literature in general, and African American women's literature specifically, have developed distinct, literary forms.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. NY: Manchester University Press, 1995.
By far the most readable, non dogmatic account of the ambiguous world of literary theory. Very thoughtful, with no attempt to be complete, but every attempt to be clear and helpful.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Race," Writing, and Difference. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
An excellent collection of essays in which some of the most important literary critics of the day confront the question of race, its history, its definition, its importance, and the social forces which have constructed it.
-----The Signifying Monkey. NY: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Though its reputation has slowly begun to erode, this book's thesis that the repetition with an ironic difference evident in Jazz music, in folktales about trickster figures, and in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Ishmeal Reed, among many others, was and remains a breakthrough work making a connection between African American literarature and the theories of the importance of "play" in meaning put forth by post-struturalists.
----Reading Black, Reading Feminist. NY: Meridian, 1990.
A groundbreaking collection of essays which look at black literature from a thoughtful feminist/womanist perspective.
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard, 1993.
A well thought out, weel researched attempt to use post-structuralism to inform black literary theory. Gilroy argues that for several centuries, people of African descent have been defined less by national boundaries than by a shared, diasporic culture that criss-crosses the Atlantic.
Groden, Micheal, and Martin Kreiswirth. Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.
A comprehensive and extensive guide to literary terms and movements, written by experts in the field. This volume was published to be definitive, and has come close to fulfilling that goal. The essays in here are written with considerable authority and background.
Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 7th ed. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996
A dictionary of literary terms, with more emphasis on traditional approaches to literature (as opposed to the most recent).
Murfin, Ross C. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. NY: Bedford Books.
A paperback series which reprints well known texts, articles about various literary movements (reader response criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, feminist criticism, etc.) as well as essays which use those theories to understand the primary text from a variety of perspectives. So for instance the volume on The Awakening writes about that novel from feminist, psychoanalytic, marxist, and other positions. There are also volumes on The Scarlet Letter, The Dead, A Portrait of the Artist, Hamlet, Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness,Walden, Gulliver's Travels, and Walden. Highly recommended.
Marks, Elaine, and de Courtivron, Isabelle, eds. New French Feminisms: An Anthology. NY: Shocken, 1980.
This anthology remains the most influential collection of the highly theoretical, and very playful form of feminism that French feminists, including Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Monique Wittig, among others, have devised.
Mongia, Padmini. Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. London and NY: Arnold, 1996.
Like the Postcolonial movement in literature studies itself, this is a highly sophisticated, theoretically dense collection. It is also the best collection of Post-colonial theory available.
Newton, K. M., ed. Theory into Practice. NY: MacMillan, 1992.
A collection of pieces on applied theory.
Orr, Leoard. A Dictionary of Critical Theory. NY: Greenwood Press, 1991.
A glossary of literary terms which provides reliable definitions for technical terms of current literary theory and criticism.
Patterson, Margaret C. Literary Research Guide 2nd edition. NY: MLA, 1984.
A widely used bibiography of basic literary research sources. This book will tell you what other books to look for in the library to do your literary research.
Ryan, Kiernan. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism: A Reader. London and NY: Arnold, 1997.
An excellent collection for showing the wide diversity of approaches that are grouped together as "New Historicism."
Rice, Philip, and Patricia Waugh. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. 3rd Edition.
NY: Edward Arnold Press, 1997.
Contains a good overview of important, theoretical essays.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. NY: Vintage, 1978.
Though now dated, this work was a breakthrough in terms of its attempt to analyze how the concept of "The Orient" has distorted the West's view of itself and others.
Warhol, Robyn and Diane Price Herndl. Feminisms. Revised Edition. NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997.
An excellent collection of outstanding Feminist writing which looks at literature from a variety of perspectives, highlighting institutions, practice, conflicts, ethnicity, class, history, and autobiography, among other focuses.
A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/bibliography.html
Handbook to Literature http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_harmon_handbook_10/
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “ Literary Theory http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/literary.htm
The Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/guide.html
The LitCritToolKit http://www.geocities.com/litcrittoolkit/
Literary Criticism http://literarycriticsm.blogspot.com
Voice of the Shuttle: “Literary Theory” http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2718
Appendix B
Your graduate education will play a key role in helping you to become a well rounded teacher in today's and tomorrow's technologically sophisticated, multi-culturally diverse classroom.
Of particular interest to us is how English 531 Literature Criticism fits into that goal. Like all of the humanities, English 531 is concerned with presenting the issues that people from diverse backgrounds have represented in the arts. English 531 though, is particularly interested in asking questions such as, to what extent do distinct traditions of writing demand distinct traditions of interpretation? Is the English language the same for all users? Can we ask the same questions of a poem by the Caribbean writer Kamau Brathwaite as we would of the American writer Robert Frost? Do Toni Morrison and Willa Cather use narrative in the same way? Should we read the works of a feminist such as Alice Walker differently than we would a contemporary male writer, such as John Updike?
Do not expect this class to provide easy answers to such questions. It is hoped that you will come up with answers that you can fully justify, but at least it is important that you enter the classroom aware of the role that such issues may play.
English 509 Graduate American Literature
SOUTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
ENGLISH 509
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Spring, 08
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Thomas Cassidy
LOCATION: TH 286-A
OFFICE HOURS: MWF 12-1; TR TBA
PHONE: 803/536-8785 (X68785)
EMAIL: tcassidy@scsu.edu
TEXTBOOK:
Norton Anthology of American Literature. In 2 volumes, Nina Baym, et al.
WWNorton and Company, 2007 [Packaged with Passing ].
I. COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 509, American Literature is a one-semester course for which the student receives three credits. The course is a survey American writers from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. In this course, students are exposed to an interweaving and unfolding of disparate threads and literary voices that will give them an integrated vision that crosses boundaries of ethnic, gender or regional perspectives.
II. COURSE RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE
English 509 helps students develop an understanding of and appreciation for the literary merit and cultural context of male and female writers from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, the history and intellectual currents that influence them, and the literary genres they employ. In this course students will be able to demonstrate in their writing and speaking an understanding of the literature through interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and presentation.
E509 is designed as a class for students who will become English educators; such students must learn to use speaking and observing as major forms of inquiry and reflection. Therefore, students will be responsible not only for learning the course material, but for being able to present it (see “special course requirements,” below). Whether or not an individual is in fact an education major, it is true that when a student takes responsibility for presenting material, she learns it in a more dynamic way, as do her classmates. In this way, the successful student of E509 is expected to become an ambassador for the arts and humanities, and for the benefits of critical thinking as a lifelong habit (ref. NCATE matrix 2.4, 2.7, esp. 3.2).
III. COURSE OVERVIEW:
English 509, American literature, is a graduate level, one semester, three credit courses which surveys the works of American writing from its beginnings, through its flowering in the 19th century, and on towards its emergence as a major world literature in the 20th century. Besides acquainting students with a body of remarkable literature that has recently been reshaped to include far more disparate voices than were once included, the course will seek to both question and develop narratives that link literary texts to one another through relations of affinity, influence, interconnection, and culture. This course is dedicated to finding cultural links and crossings, and is particularly interested in those moments in American texts in which writers move across boundaries of social class, gender, race, culture in the widest sense. In teaching and learning about United States authors, it is particularly useful to find connections and contrasts between Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frederick Douglass, or Ann Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley, or Edward Albee and James Baldwin, at least in how their writings differingly "read" and reinterpret the North American world whose stage they shared.
IV. COURSE COMPETENCIES
1. Institutional Outcomes
E509 American Literature is well aligned with the University’s goal of developing students and teaching candidates who are effective performers, reflective decision-makers, and humanistic practitioners.
1. The humanities content of E509, and the students’ responsibility for demonstrating a keen appreciation of it is designed towards developing effective performers. Students engage the literature and culture of early America wide variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives, including the voices of women, Native-American, African-Americans, and European-Americans.
2. Reflective decision making is developed through consideration of the ethical, moral, and spiritual issues surrounding the literature of a people who claimed divine providence as their guide, but countenanced atrocities (slavery, AmerIndian genocide) repugnant to the modern mind. Students relate their own backgrounds to the backgrounds of the writers, to examine the ideas and cultural settings that have informed contemporary cultures and the culture of times past.
3. Humanistic practice is engendered when the students demonstrate cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of others’ beliefs, values, and cultural constructions, as well as their own.
This course offers the students an understanding of how American Literature began in the 1600s as an obscure offshoot of the English Renaissance, grew gradually out of its provincial status and underwent its own Renaissance in the nineteenth century, moved its literary center southwards and westwards in the post civil-war nineteenth century, and exploded into a series of cultural and ethnic movements in the twentieth century.
2. Specific Learning Objectives
The course is designed to equip students to acquire the following competencies:
A. To acquaint students with the ideas and writing associated with each major period of American literature: pre-colonial, colonial, romantic, post-bellum, naturalism, modernism, and post-modernism;
B. To impel students to explore the social, political, literary, and economic factors that promoted the development of American literary movements and theories;
C. To introduce students to the major genres of each literary period as they reflect the thinking in various periods;
D. To understand the thematic or ideological “content” of certain genres in American literature;
E. To understand what makes some genres more “American” than others;
F. And to acquaint students with themes that are characteristic of, though not necessarily exclusive to the American experience, and that includes the following:
1. the problem of American identity;
2. the individual and the community;
3. the problem/expression of literary authority;
4. the American Dream;
5. the immigrant experience, family relationships and attitudes toward children;
6. race, segregation, and slavery;
7. progress and modernity;
8. and gender issues of women’s lives, works, vision, and politics.
IV. EXPECTED MEASURABLE OUTCOMES
Through
1. typed papers,
2. in-class essays and exams,
3. formal class presentations,
4. typed papers, and
5. formal and informal class discussion, (ref. NCATE matrix 3.2.2, 3.2.3,3.2.4)
students will at the end of English 317 be able
A. to discuss the intellectual currents of the colonies; Puritanism, Anglicanism, Separatism, Catholicism and Quakerism;
B. to understand how the writers of the Enlightenment era became more and more American as the century progressed, until the Revolutionary War ended their Colonial status;
C. to discuss the writer of the Romantic Period as a professional author, though many writers still regarded literature as an avocation;
D. to analyze the intellectual currents of the Romantic period: nationalism, romanticism and transcendentalism;
E. to understand why the so-called American Renaissance produced classic examples of fiction and poetry.
F. to discuss the basis for understanding the political writing of the period.
G. distinguish between naturalism, social realism, local color realism, and psychological realism;
H. show understanding of the effect of both reconstruction and Jim Crow on the literature of the late 19th century
I. note the influences of American's emergence as an economic and military power on the literature of this period;
J. explore and explain the contrasting themes of early 20th century modernism, such Optimism for the future (Hughes) vs. pessimism (Eliot);
K. elucidate, in writing and discussion, the rise of “pure” aesthetic concerns as a category of concern for American literary modernists;
L. explore and discuss the different ethnic, economic, and social experiences used in the post- WWII fiction of Bernard Malamud, Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison;
M. analyze the common themes and elements uniting writers of differing backgrounds; and
N examine the stylistic innovations of writers of the late 20th century period, including their links to modernism, realism, and naturalism, but also to post-modernism.
COURSE CONTENT
1. The Literature of Pre- Colonial America
Jan. 31
. Irioquois and Pima Creation stories
· Christopher Columbus (1451) Letters
. John Smith, “What happened Till the First Supply”
This class will be short due to a meeting of all English Majors, grad students included.
· Feb. 7
· William Bradford (1590-1657) Chapters IX and X and XIX
· Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) "The Author to Her Book" "Upon the Burning of our Home," "To My Dear and Loving Husband."
· Mary Rowlandson "Narrative of Captivity" Beginning, First Remove, Last Remove
Feb. 14
The Literature of Reason and Revolution
· Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
· Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
· Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) (Chapter II)
Feb. 21
· Thomas Jefferson “Declaration” and “Notes on the State of Virginia.”
. Phillis Wheatley 367-76
. Crevecouer 300-14 “Letter from an American Farmer”
3. The Age of Romanticism
. Iriving, “Rip Van Winkle”
· Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) “Tell Tale Heart” “The Raven
· Nathanial Hawthorne “Young Goodman Brown”
Feb 28
· Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
· Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
· Herman Melville (1819-1891)
· Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
· Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
· Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897)
· Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
· Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
4. Post-Bellum Regionalism, Realism, and Naturalism.
1. Charles Chesnutt (1958-1938)
2. Mark Twain (1835-1910) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
3. William Dean Howells (1837-1920) "Editha,"
4. Henry James (1843-1916
5. Kate Chopin
6. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1. Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
5. Twentieth Century Modernism
1. W.E. B. DuBois
2. Edward Arlington Robinson
3. Robert Frost
4. Ezra Pound(1885-1972)
5. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
6. T.S. Eliot. (1888-1965)
7. Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
8. Jean Toomer
9. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
10. Richard Wright
6. Post-WWII Writing: Multi-culturalism and post-modernism.
1. Tillie Olsen
2. Ralph Ellison Excerpt from Invisible Man
3. Tomas Rivera. "...And the Earth Did not Part"
4. James Baldwin "Sonny's Blues."
5. Toni Morrison. Excerpt from Sula.
V. SPECIAL COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Each student is required to make two oral presentations each half of the semester, which will also serve as a basis for a critical review (that is, you will write up one of your presentations).
The following critical readings are in the library
Ray B. Browne and Martin Light, Critical Approaches to American Literature, Volume I
Lawrence Buell, Literary Transcendentalism
H. S. Commager, The American Mind.
Everett Emerson, ed. Major Writers of Early American Literature 1764-1789: The Revolutionary Years Everett Emerson, ed. Puritanism in America, 1620-1750,
Perry Miller, The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings, Volume I
Charles Shapiro, ed. Twelve Original Essays on Great American Novels,
The Gale Literature Criticism Series will be of help to you . Look for books in the LC (Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800) NCLC (Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism), TCLC (Twentieth Century Literary Criticism), CLC (Contemporary Literary Criticism) and DLB (Dictionary of Literary Biography).
DISCUSS is an online resource accessible from library computers that offers full text articles; use it!
IF YOU CAN’T FIND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, ASK A LIBRARIAN FOR HELP!!
Of course, there are many, many internet sources that are of help. For my list of recommended internet sources, see the list of selected internet links at the end of this document.
Guidelines for class presentations:
1. Plan your presentations
2. Speak TO the class; don’t read something downloaded from the web!!
3. Make eye-contact.
4. Reading some of the text can be interesting, but you have to MAKE IT interesting! For instance, use inflections in your voice, and call on another member of the class to help.
5. Relate your material to other course material, and to anything else that will help the students.
1. Ask for questions
6. Ask questions. Leave the audience something to consider.
2. When possible, give the class something to look at or listen to. Pictures of Columbus, the Puritans, slaves, and the founding fathers often reveal much about changing cultural attitudes. Examples can be found at http://www.learner.org/amerpass/. This doesn’t have to be elaborate; 10 copies of two pictures can do much to illustrate a point.
(ref NCATE matrix 3.2.1-3.2.5;4.7; 3.6.2)
Grading criteria for class presentations (in descending order)
35% Summary of the material (present the main points in a way that is easily understandable)
20% Relationship to the course material in general (other authors, issues, and periods)
20 % Showmanship (presentation, audio/visual, eye-contact, posture, dress)
15% Questions and Answers
10% Clarity and pronunciation of speech
Not only will the instructor evaluate the student; students will be required, at the end of each class, to evaluate the student presentations of that class. (ref. NCATE matrix 4.6, 4.7, 4.8).
Writings
The following formal papers are required:
1 At the mid term, each student will submit a comparison paper on two of the works the class has studied (this will NOT be on the same topic as the class presentation);
2. Each student will write a paper, due at the end of the semester which relates the topic of his or her paper to one or two other major works we study in the course of the semester.
Papers must be well researched and properly referenced.
VI. METHOD OF EVALUATION
Students must complete four unit examinations in addition to the mid-term and final examinations. Quizzes will be given throughout the semester. All unit examinations will be announced. Quizzes will not always be announced.
Unit Tests………………………………………….. 15%
Mid-Semester Examination……………………….. 13%
Special Presentations………………………………. 22%
Papers……….……………………………….. 30%
Final Examination………………………….… 20%
100%
List of suggested internet links.
The following websites are listed roughly in order of usefulness, in the instructor’s opinion. (Some of the best sites are not the most useful, because they demand a high speed, multi-media connection).
Anthology of American Literature by George McMichael companion website.
http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/mcmichael/
Like most textbooks today, yours supports a companion website. Features of this site include an interactive timeline, dynamic web links which are a valuable source of supplemental information, author profiles, essay questions, bulletin board discussion areas. It’s pretty good.
Companion Website to Norton Anthology of American Literature
http://www.wwnorton.com/naal/
An older website than the prenhall American Lit. website, this one has recently been extensively refreshed. Very good.
C-Span American Writers
http://www.americanwriters.org/index_short_list.asp
I love this site!! It is a true multi-media site. Filled with information and material, and very lively. You need a highspeed network connection to appreciate it.
American Passages: A literary survey
http://www.learner.org/amerpass/
Want to put together your own slide show on American Lit? This is the place to go!
A co-production of WWNorton and PBS, this is an interactive, multi-media site designed to support a college level American Literature course. Excellent!
Early American Literature 1600 - 1900, Resources
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/amlitfirst.htm
A link to links. So far, it has always been kept up to date.
PAL Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/table.html
The Seventeenth Century: Echoes of the Renaissance and Reformation
http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/amlit1.html
Lecture notes from Michael S. Seiferth
Resources for American Literature
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/amlit.html
Analysis and criticism of works by Lorraine Hansberry, Frank Norris,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Sarah Orne Jewett, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, American Literature Survey, literary study, teaching methods, online etexts.
Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature
http://vos.ucsb.edu/
English & American literature. Literary criticism. This site keeps growing! Must visit
Outline of American Literature
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/amlitweb.htm
From USIA. Literary movements; time periods. Excellent site, From U.S. Information Agency
AmericanLiterary Movements
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/litfram.html
Defines literary terms, timeline, biography and links for authors.
The American Renaissance and Transcendentalism
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/transcend.html
From PBS. I Hear America Singing
Electronic Archives for Teaching the American Literatures
http://www.georgetown.edu/tamlit/tamlit-home.html
Essays, syllabi, bibliographies
Romancing the Indian
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/main.html
Comparison of the sentimentalizing and demonizing representations of American Indians in the works of
James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain and other nineteenth-centurey American authors.
Who Was Benjamin Banneker?
http://www.progress.org/banneker/bb.html
Biography from Banneker Center for Economic Justice
The World of Benjamin Franklin
http://sln.fi.edu/franklin/rotten.html
Biography; Franklin as a scientist, inventor, statesman, printer,
philosopher, musician and economist;
American Transcendentalism Web
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/Begun in Spring 1999 by Virginia Commonwealth University graduate students studying in Professor Ann Woodlief's class in Studies in American Transcendentalism. This is a major resource for students of American Literature.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
http://bartleby.com/225/index.html
An encyclopedia in 18 volumes. Vol. 15. Colonial and Revolutionary Literature.
From Project Bartleby.
An Early American Almanac
History; facsimile of first almanac published in 1725
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/almanac/index.html
Fire and Ice; Puritan and Reformed Writings
http://www.puritansermons.com/"
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alaimo, Stacy. Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature as Feminist Space. Ithaca: Cornell, 2000.
Allen, Gay Wilson. A Guide to Walt Whitman. New York: Farrar,
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American Autobiography, 1760-1865. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Baker, Houston A., Jr. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1984.
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Bell, Bernard. The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.
Bell, Michael Davitt. The Problem of American Realism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993
Bertani, Lea, and Vozor Newman. A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of
Herman Melville, Boston: Hall, 1986.
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Blake, Caesar R. and Wells, Carlton F. The Recognition of Emily Dickinson.
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Campbell, Jane. Mythic Black Fiction: The Transformation of
History Knoxville: Universtiry of Tennessee Press, 1986.
Carby, Hazel. Reconstructing Womanhood. New York: Oxford, 1987.
Castronovo, Russ. Fathering the Nation: American Genealogies of Slavery and Freedom. Berkeley: U of Ca. Press, 1995
Cummingham, Noble E. In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson.
Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1987.
Cowell, Pattie. Women Poets in Pre-Revolutionary America. Troy, N.Y.:
Whitston, 1981.
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Tubayne/Macnillan Publishers, 1999.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism NY: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. et. al, eds. Black Imagination and the Middle Passage,
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Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. et. al. Slave Narratives. New York: Library of
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Gibson, Donald B. “Reconciling Public and Private in Frederick Douglass’
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Gleckner, Robert F., and Gerald E. Enscor, eds. Romanticism. Englewood
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Habegger, Alfred. My Wars are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson. NY: Random House, 2001.
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Harvard University Press, 1987.
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Harvard Univ. Press, 1982.
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Richardson, Robert D. Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind
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Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969.
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
ENGLISH 509
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Spring, 08
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Thomas Cassidy
LOCATION: TH 286-A
OFFICE HOURS: MWF 12-1; TR TBA
PHONE: 803/536-8785 (X68785)
EMAIL: tcassidy@scsu.edu
TEXTBOOK:
Norton Anthology of American Literature. In 2 volumes, Nina Baym, et al.
WWNorton and Company, 2007 [Packaged with Passing ].
I. COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 509, American Literature is a one-semester course for which the student receives three credits. The course is a survey American writers from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. In this course, students are exposed to an interweaving and unfolding of disparate threads and literary voices that will give them an integrated vision that crosses boundaries of ethnic, gender or regional perspectives.
II. COURSE RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE
English 509 helps students develop an understanding of and appreciation for the literary merit and cultural context of male and female writers from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, the history and intellectual currents that influence them, and the literary genres they employ. In this course students will be able to demonstrate in their writing and speaking an understanding of the literature through interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and presentation.
E509 is designed as a class for students who will become English educators; such students must learn to use speaking and observing as major forms of inquiry and reflection. Therefore, students will be responsible not only for learning the course material, but for being able to present it (see “special course requirements,” below). Whether or not an individual is in fact an education major, it is true that when a student takes responsibility for presenting material, she learns it in a more dynamic way, as do her classmates. In this way, the successful student of E509 is expected to become an ambassador for the arts and humanities, and for the benefits of critical thinking as a lifelong habit (ref. NCATE matrix 2.4, 2.7, esp. 3.2).
III. COURSE OVERVIEW:
English 509, American literature, is a graduate level, one semester, three credit courses which surveys the works of American writing from its beginnings, through its flowering in the 19th century, and on towards its emergence as a major world literature in the 20th century. Besides acquainting students with a body of remarkable literature that has recently been reshaped to include far more disparate voices than were once included, the course will seek to both question and develop narratives that link literary texts to one another through relations of affinity, influence, interconnection, and culture. This course is dedicated to finding cultural links and crossings, and is particularly interested in those moments in American texts in which writers move across boundaries of social class, gender, race, culture in the widest sense. In teaching and learning about United States authors, it is particularly useful to find connections and contrasts between Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frederick Douglass, or Ann Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley, or Edward Albee and James Baldwin, at least in how their writings differingly "read" and reinterpret the North American world whose stage they shared.
IV. COURSE COMPETENCIES
1. Institutional Outcomes
E509 American Literature is well aligned with the University’s goal of developing students and teaching candidates who are effective performers, reflective decision-makers, and humanistic practitioners.
1. The humanities content of E509, and the students’ responsibility for demonstrating a keen appreciation of it is designed towards developing effective performers. Students engage the literature and culture of early America wide variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives, including the voices of women, Native-American, African-Americans, and European-Americans.
2. Reflective decision making is developed through consideration of the ethical, moral, and spiritual issues surrounding the literature of a people who claimed divine providence as their guide, but countenanced atrocities (slavery, AmerIndian genocide) repugnant to the modern mind. Students relate their own backgrounds to the backgrounds of the writers, to examine the ideas and cultural settings that have informed contemporary cultures and the culture of times past.
3. Humanistic practice is engendered when the students demonstrate cross-cultural understanding and appreciation of others’ beliefs, values, and cultural constructions, as well as their own.
This course offers the students an understanding of how American Literature began in the 1600s as an obscure offshoot of the English Renaissance, grew gradually out of its provincial status and underwent its own Renaissance in the nineteenth century, moved its literary center southwards and westwards in the post civil-war nineteenth century, and exploded into a series of cultural and ethnic movements in the twentieth century.
2. Specific Learning Objectives
The course is designed to equip students to acquire the following competencies:
A. To acquaint students with the ideas and writing associated with each major period of American literature: pre-colonial, colonial, romantic, post-bellum, naturalism, modernism, and post-modernism;
B. To impel students to explore the social, political, literary, and economic factors that promoted the development of American literary movements and theories;
C. To introduce students to the major genres of each literary period as they reflect the thinking in various periods;
D. To understand the thematic or ideological “content” of certain genres in American literature;
E. To understand what makes some genres more “American” than others;
F. And to acquaint students with themes that are characteristic of, though not necessarily exclusive to the American experience, and that includes the following:
1. the problem of American identity;
2. the individual and the community;
3. the problem/expression of literary authority;
4. the American Dream;
5. the immigrant experience, family relationships and attitudes toward children;
6. race, segregation, and slavery;
7. progress and modernity;
8. and gender issues of women’s lives, works, vision, and politics.
IV. EXPECTED MEASURABLE OUTCOMES
Through
1. typed papers,
2. in-class essays and exams,
3. formal class presentations,
4. typed papers, and
5. formal and informal class discussion, (ref. NCATE matrix 3.2.2, 3.2.3,3.2.4)
students will at the end of English 317 be able
A. to discuss the intellectual currents of the colonies; Puritanism, Anglicanism, Separatism, Catholicism and Quakerism;
B. to understand how the writers of the Enlightenment era became more and more American as the century progressed, until the Revolutionary War ended their Colonial status;
C. to discuss the writer of the Romantic Period as a professional author, though many writers still regarded literature as an avocation;
D. to analyze the intellectual currents of the Romantic period: nationalism, romanticism and transcendentalism;
E. to understand why the so-called American Renaissance produced classic examples of fiction and poetry.
F. to discuss the basis for understanding the political writing of the period.
G. distinguish between naturalism, social realism, local color realism, and psychological realism;
H. show understanding of the effect of both reconstruction and Jim Crow on the literature of the late 19th century
I. note the influences of American's emergence as an economic and military power on the literature of this period;
J. explore and explain the contrasting themes of early 20th century modernism, such Optimism for the future (Hughes) vs. pessimism (Eliot);
K. elucidate, in writing and discussion, the rise of “pure” aesthetic concerns as a category of concern for American literary modernists;
L. explore and discuss the different ethnic, economic, and social experiences used in the post- WWII fiction of Bernard Malamud, Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Alice Walker, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison;
M. analyze the common themes and elements uniting writers of differing backgrounds; and
N examine the stylistic innovations of writers of the late 20th century period, including their links to modernism, realism, and naturalism, but also to post-modernism.
COURSE CONTENT
1. The Literature of Pre- Colonial America
Jan. 31
. Irioquois and Pima Creation stories
· Christopher Columbus (1451) Letters
. John Smith, “What happened Till the First Supply”
This class will be short due to a meeting of all English Majors, grad students included.
· Feb. 7
· William Bradford (1590-1657) Chapters IX and X and XIX
· Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) "The Author to Her Book" "Upon the Burning of our Home," "To My Dear and Loving Husband."
· Mary Rowlandson "Narrative of Captivity" Beginning, First Remove, Last Remove
Feb. 14
The Literature of Reason and Revolution
· Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
· Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
· Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) (Chapter II)
Feb. 21
· Thomas Jefferson “Declaration” and “Notes on the State of Virginia.”
. Phillis Wheatley 367-76
. Crevecouer 300-14 “Letter from an American Farmer”
3. The Age of Romanticism
. Iriving, “Rip Van Winkle”
· Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) “Tell Tale Heart” “The Raven
· Nathanial Hawthorne “Young Goodman Brown”
Feb 28
· Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
· Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
· Herman Melville (1819-1891)
· Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
· Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
· Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897)
· Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
· Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
4. Post-Bellum Regionalism, Realism, and Naturalism.
1. Charles Chesnutt (1958-1938)
2. Mark Twain (1835-1910) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
3. William Dean Howells (1837-1920) "Editha,"
4. Henry James (1843-1916
5. Kate Chopin
6. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1. Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
5. Twentieth Century Modernism
1. W.E. B. DuBois
2. Edward Arlington Robinson
3. Robert Frost
4. Ezra Pound(1885-1972)
5. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
6. T.S. Eliot. (1888-1965)
7. Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
8. Jean Toomer
9. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
10. Richard Wright
6. Post-WWII Writing: Multi-culturalism and post-modernism.
1. Tillie Olsen
2. Ralph Ellison Excerpt from Invisible Man
3. Tomas Rivera. "...And the Earth Did not Part"
4. James Baldwin "Sonny's Blues."
5. Toni Morrison. Excerpt from Sula.
V. SPECIAL COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Each student is required to make two oral presentations each half of the semester, which will also serve as a basis for a critical review (that is, you will write up one of your presentations).
The following critical readings are in the library
Ray B. Browne and Martin Light, Critical Approaches to American Literature, Volume I
Lawrence Buell, Literary Transcendentalism
H. S. Commager, The American Mind.
Everett Emerson, ed. Major Writers of Early American Literature 1764-1789: The Revolutionary Years Everett Emerson, ed. Puritanism in America, 1620-1750,
Perry Miller, The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings, Volume I
Charles Shapiro, ed. Twelve Original Essays on Great American Novels,
The Gale Literature Criticism Series will be of help to you . Look for books in the LC (Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800) NCLC (Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism), TCLC (Twentieth Century Literary Criticism), CLC (Contemporary Literary Criticism) and DLB (Dictionary of Literary Biography).
DISCUSS is an online resource accessible from library computers that offers full text articles; use it!
IF YOU CAN’T FIND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, ASK A LIBRARIAN FOR HELP!!
Of course, there are many, many internet sources that are of help. For my list of recommended internet sources, see the list of selected internet links at the end of this document.
Guidelines for class presentations:
1. Plan your presentations
2. Speak TO the class; don’t read something downloaded from the web!!
3. Make eye-contact.
4. Reading some of the text can be interesting, but you have to MAKE IT interesting! For instance, use inflections in your voice, and call on another member of the class to help.
5. Relate your material to other course material, and to anything else that will help the students.
1. Ask for questions
6. Ask questions. Leave the audience something to consider.
2. When possible, give the class something to look at or listen to. Pictures of Columbus, the Puritans, slaves, and the founding fathers often reveal much about changing cultural attitudes. Examples can be found at http://www.learner.org/amerpass/. This doesn’t have to be elaborate; 10 copies of two pictures can do much to illustrate a point.
(ref NCATE matrix 3.2.1-3.2.5;4.7; 3.6.2)
Grading criteria for class presentations (in descending order)
35% Summary of the material (present the main points in a way that is easily understandable)
20% Relationship to the course material in general (other authors, issues, and periods)
20 % Showmanship (presentation, audio/visual, eye-contact, posture, dress)
15% Questions and Answers
10% Clarity and pronunciation of speech
Not only will the instructor evaluate the student; students will be required, at the end of each class, to evaluate the student presentations of that class. (ref. NCATE matrix 4.6, 4.7, 4.8).
Writings
The following formal papers are required:
1 At the mid term, each student will submit a comparison paper on two of the works the class has studied (this will NOT be on the same topic as the class presentation);
2. Each student will write a paper, due at the end of the semester which relates the topic of his or her paper to one or two other major works we study in the course of the semester.
Papers must be well researched and properly referenced.
VI. METHOD OF EVALUATION
Students must complete four unit examinations in addition to the mid-term and final examinations. Quizzes will be given throughout the semester. All unit examinations will be announced. Quizzes will not always be announced.
Unit Tests………………………………………….. 15%
Mid-Semester Examination……………………….. 13%
Special Presentations………………………………. 22%
Papers……….……………………………….. 30%
Final Examination………………………….… 20%
100%
List of suggested internet links.
The following websites are listed roughly in order of usefulness, in the instructor’s opinion. (Some of the best sites are not the most useful, because they demand a high speed, multi-media connection).
Anthology of American Literature by George McMichael companion website.
http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/mcmichael/
Like most textbooks today, yours supports a companion website. Features of this site include an interactive timeline, dynamic web links which are a valuable source of supplemental information, author profiles, essay questions, bulletin board discussion areas. It’s pretty good.
Companion Website to Norton Anthology of American Literature
http://www.wwnorton.com/naal/
An older website than the prenhall American Lit. website, this one has recently been extensively refreshed. Very good.
C-Span American Writers
http://www.americanwriters.org/index_short_list.asp
I love this site!! It is a true multi-media site. Filled with information and material, and very lively. You need a highspeed network connection to appreciate it.
American Passages: A literary survey
http://www.learner.org/amerpass/
Want to put together your own slide show on American Lit? This is the place to go!
A co-production of WWNorton and PBS, this is an interactive, multi-media site designed to support a college level American Literature course. Excellent!
Early American Literature 1600 - 1900, Resources
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/amlitfirst.htm
A link to links. So far, it has always been kept up to date.
PAL Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/table.html
The Seventeenth Century: Echoes of the Renaissance and Reformation
http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/amlit1.html
Lecture notes from Michael S. Seiferth
Resources for American Literature
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/amlit.html
Analysis and criticism of works by Lorraine Hansberry, Frank Norris,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Sarah Orne Jewett, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, American Literature Survey, literary study, teaching methods, online etexts.
Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature
http://vos.ucsb.edu/
English & American literature. Literary criticism. This site keeps growing! Must visit
Outline of American Literature
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/amlitweb.htm
From USIA. Literary movements; time periods. Excellent site, From U.S. Information Agency
AmericanLiterary Movements
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/litfram.html
Defines literary terms, timeline, biography and links for authors.
The American Renaissance and Transcendentalism
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/transcend.html
From PBS. I Hear America Singing
Electronic Archives for Teaching the American Literatures
http://www.georgetown.edu/tamlit/tamlit-home.html
Essays, syllabi, bibliographies
Romancing the Indian
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/main.html
Comparison of the sentimentalizing and demonizing representations of American Indians in the works of
James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain and other nineteenth-centurey American authors.
Who Was Benjamin Banneker?
http://www.progress.org/banneker/bb.html
Biography from Banneker Center for Economic Justice
The World of Benjamin Franklin
http://sln.fi.edu/franklin/rotten.html
Biography; Franklin as a scientist, inventor, statesman, printer,
philosopher, musician and economist;
American Transcendentalism Web
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/Begun in Spring 1999 by Virginia Commonwealth University graduate students studying in Professor Ann Woodlief's class in Studies in American Transcendentalism. This is a major resource for students of American Literature.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
http://bartleby.com/225/index.html
An encyclopedia in 18 volumes. Vol. 15. Colonial and Revolutionary Literature.
From Project Bartleby.
An Early American Almanac
History; facsimile of first almanac published in 1725
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/almanac/index.html
Fire and Ice; Puritan and Reformed Writings
http://www.puritansermons.com/"
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