Spring 2008

E 314L • Reading Literary Form

Course Description

Computer-assisted instruction.

By examining various forms of textuality this class seeks to familiarize students with the skills fundamental to literary analysis. The main goal of this course is to introduce students to the vocabulary and practices of literary studies while exposing them to a wide range of literature across historical and generic divides. We will especially consider the structural characteristics of genre and how they shape textual meaning.

Grading Policy

Weekly reading response journal 15%
Two 5-6-page essays 20% each
One research response paper 5%
One 6-8-page research paper 25%
Peer Review 5%
Attendance and Class Participation 10%

Texts

Among the possible texts we will be exploring are short stories by Eudora Welty, Poe, and Henry James and poetry by Donne, Thomas, Yeats, Shakespeare, Milton, Walcott, Brooks, Bishop, and Chaucer. We will certainly read Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, and J.M. Coetzee's masterful response to that text Foe. Other more genre-defying texts we may address are The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius and Joe Sacco's Palestine.

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