English 461: Literary Criticism (Senior Seminar)
Professor: E. Derek Taylor
Fall 2015
Office: Grainger 306
Office Hours: M and W 10:00 and 3:00; F 10:00 (and by appointment)
Phone: 395-2748
e-mail: [email protected]
website: [email protected]
ENGLISH 461. Literary Criticism: Senior Seminar. Study of the history and aims of literary criticism from Plato and Aristotle to the present, including oral and written criticism of literary works. Capstone course for English majors. Enrollment limited to seniors and those with permission of instructor. 3 credits.
Texts:
Richter, David. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed.
Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2007.
Course Objectives. This course has three primary objectives:
1. Exposure. Students will read selections from major works of literary criticism, ranging from Plato’s dismissal of poets and poetry to Aristotle’s defense of the human capacity for mimesis, from Pope’s neoclassical aesthetic strictures to Wordsworth’s romantic attempt to redefine the work of poetry, from Roland Barthes’s pronouncement of the “death of the author” to Stanley Fish’s announcement of the birth of the reader. The readings will be challenging but enlightening for those students of literature who grapple with them honestly and persistently.
2. Participation. The success of the class will depend in large part upon whether or not students come prepared to discuss ideas, questions, annoyances, or delights elicited by the readings. In light of this fact, students should expect regular reading quizzes. Ideas and texts from other classes are not only relevant to class discussion, but welcome—indeed, making connections to other English courses will be a central focus of our class.
3. Articulation.
i. Students will write three in-class essays that measure their ability to apply recent critical readings to assigned literary texts (texts, prompts, and rubrics will be posted on my website one week in advance).
ii. The class will hold an academic conference on Friday, December 4 at which each student will present a conference paper (10 pages) on a topic of his or her choosing.
iii. The take-home final exam will require students to be familiar with and write clearly about major ideas, authors, and critical movements as they relate to assigned literary texts.
Grades: Student grades will be determined according to the following model:
--Quizzes: 20%
--In-class Essays (Weeks 3, 9, and 13): 15% total
--Conference Paper: 30%
--Out-of-class Final Exam: 25%
--Participation: 10%
Attendance, Tardiness, Late Papers, Plagiarism:
Students are expected to attend classes regularly. ONLY illness, official university business, and emergencies permit the make-up of work missed, and all such absences must be documented. Unexcused absences totaling 10% or more of class meetings will result in a one letter grade penalty; absences totaling 25% or more, excused or otherwise, will result in an F for the course.
Late work will not be accepted in this class. Turn in papers on time, and be in class on the day of all exams. Students may not make up missed quizzes.
Honor Code:
All work is governed by the Longwood University Honor Code. Written work must contain the pledge in writing and be signed. Students should read closely the section on plagiarism in the Longwood Style Manual.
Class Schedule: (I reserve the right to make changes to this schedule by giving oral notification in class. Absence from one class is never an excuse for being unprepared for subsequent classes.)
Week 1
M. 8-24. Introduction to Course
W. 8-26. Plato, From The Republic (25-38)
F. 8-28. Aristotle, From Poetics (55-70); Horace, The Art of Poetry (82-94)
Week 2
M. 8-31. Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (132-159)
W. 9-2 Alexander Pope, Part I of An Essay on Criticism (198-202); Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 4, Rasselas, Chapter 10, and From Preface to Shakespeare (210-230)
F. 9-4. William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (304-318); John Keats, From a Letter to Benjamin Bailey and From a Letter to George and Thomas Keats (330-333)
Week 3
M. 9-7. Class Canceled for Labor Day
W. 9-9. Immanuel Kant, From Critique of Judgment (247-274)
F. 9-11. In-class Essay 1
Week 4
M. 9-14. Matthew Arnold, The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and From The Study of Poetry (412-434)
W. 9-16. Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense and From Twilight of the Idols (452-461)
F. 9-18. Karl Marx, The Alienation of Labor, Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions, and On Greek Art in its Time (397-411)
Week 5
M. 9-21. Sigmund Freud, From The Interpretation of Dreams (497-509) and “Medusa’s Head” (533); T. S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (534-541)
W. 9-23. Virginia Woolf, [Shakespeare’s Sister] from A Room of One’s Own, [Austen-Brontë-Eliot] from A Room of One’s Own, and [The Androgynous Vision] from A Room of One’s Own (596-610); Simone De Beauvoir, “Myths: Of Women in Five Authors” (635-640)
F. 9-25. W. E. B. Du Bois, [On Double Consciousness] from The Souls of Black Folk and Criteria of Negro Art (565-574)
Week 6
M. 9-28. Formalisms (749-763); Cleanth Brooks, From My Credo: Formalist Criticism and Irony as a Principle of Structure (797-806)
W. 9-30. W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, The Intentional Fallacy (810-818); Erich Auerbach, Odysseus’ Scar (704-717).
F. 10-2. Structuralism and Deconstruction (819-841); Ferdinand de Saussure, From Nature of the Linguistic Sign (841-844)
Week 7
M. 10-5. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Structural Study of Myth (860-868)
W. 10-7. Jacques Derrida, Structure, Sign, and Play[. . .] and Differance (914-926; 932-949)
F. 10-9. Reader-Response Theory (962-978); Stanley Fish, How to Recognize a Poem When you See One (1022-1030); Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author (871-877)
Week 8
M. 10-12. Class Canceled for Fall Break
W. 10-14. . Wolfgang Iser, The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach (1001-1014)
F. 10-16. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Elevation of the Historicality of Understanding to the Status of the Hermeneutical Principle (718-737)
Week 9
M. 10-19. In-class Essay 2
W. 10-21. Psychoanalytic Theory (read only 1106-111); Harold Bloom, A Meditation upon Priority (1155-1160)
F. 10-23. Peter Brooks, Freud’s Masterplot (1161-1171)
Week 10
M. 10-26. Marxist Criticism (read only 1198-1207); Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1232-1249)
W. 10-28. Class Canceled
F. 10-30. Louis Althusser, From Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (1263-1272)
Week 11
M. 11-2. New Historicism and Cultural Studies (read only 1320-1329); Stephen Greenblatt, Introduction to The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance (1442-1447); Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” (1366-1383)
W. 11-4. Lawrence Buell, The Ecocritical Insurgency (1432-1442)
F. 11-6. Feminist Literary Criticism (read only 1502-1512); Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, From Infection in the Sentence (1531-1544)
Week 12
M. 11-9. Gender Studies and Queer Theory (read only 1614-1624); Monique Wittig, One is Not Born a Woman (1637-1642); Judith Halberstam, From the Introduction to Female Masculinity (1734-1752)
W. 11-11. Postcolonialism and Ethnic Studies (read only 1753-1764); Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa (1783-1790)
F. 11-13. Class Canceled (SAMLA Annual Conference)
Week 13
M. 11-16. Theorizing Postmodernism (1920-1932); Jean Baudrillard, The Precession of Simulacra (1935-1946)
W. 11-18. Gloria Anzaldúa, “La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness” (1850-1858); Bell Hooks, Postmodern Blackness (2008-2014).
F. 11-20. In-class Essay 3
Week 14
M. 11-23. Class Canceled for Mandatory Conferences
W. 11-25. Class Canceled for Thanksgiving Holiday
F. 11-27. Class Canceled for Thanksgiving Holiday
Week 15
M. 11-30. Class Canceled for Mandatory Conferences
W. 12-2. Class Canceled for Mandatory Conferences
F. 12-4. Senior Seminar
Week 16
W. 12-9. Take-home Final Exam due. Email it as an attachment before 6:00 pm.
F. 12-11. MFT (8:00-10:30 am).
Professor: E. Derek Taylor
Fall 2015
Office: Grainger 306
Office Hours: M and W 10:00 and 3:00; F 10:00 (and by appointment)
Phone: 395-2748
e-mail: [email protected]
website: [email protected]
ENGLISH 461. Literary Criticism: Senior Seminar. Study of the history and aims of literary criticism from Plato and Aristotle to the present, including oral and written criticism of literary works. Capstone course for English majors. Enrollment limited to seniors and those with permission of instructor. 3 credits.
Texts:
Richter, David. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed.
Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2007.
Course Objectives. This course has three primary objectives:
1. Exposure. Students will read selections from major works of literary criticism, ranging from Plato’s dismissal of poets and poetry to Aristotle’s defense of the human capacity for mimesis, from Pope’s neoclassical aesthetic strictures to Wordsworth’s romantic attempt to redefine the work of poetry, from Roland Barthes’s pronouncement of the “death of the author” to Stanley Fish’s announcement of the birth of the reader. The readings will be challenging but enlightening for those students of literature who grapple with them honestly and persistently.
2. Participation. The success of the class will depend in large part upon whether or not students come prepared to discuss ideas, questions, annoyances, or delights elicited by the readings. In light of this fact, students should expect regular reading quizzes. Ideas and texts from other classes are not only relevant to class discussion, but welcome—indeed, making connections to other English courses will be a central focus of our class.
3. Articulation.
i. Students will write three in-class essays that measure their ability to apply recent critical readings to assigned literary texts (texts, prompts, and rubrics will be posted on my website one week in advance).
ii. The class will hold an academic conference on Friday, December 4 at which each student will present a conference paper (10 pages) on a topic of his or her choosing.
iii. The take-home final exam will require students to be familiar with and write clearly about major ideas, authors, and critical movements as they relate to assigned literary texts.
Grades: Student grades will be determined according to the following model:
--Quizzes: 20%
--In-class Essays (Weeks 3, 9, and 13): 15% total
--Conference Paper: 30%
--Out-of-class Final Exam: 25%
--Participation: 10%
Attendance, Tardiness, Late Papers, Plagiarism:
Students are expected to attend classes regularly. ONLY illness, official university business, and emergencies permit the make-up of work missed, and all such absences must be documented. Unexcused absences totaling 10% or more of class meetings will result in a one letter grade penalty; absences totaling 25% or more, excused or otherwise, will result in an F for the course.
Late work will not be accepted in this class. Turn in papers on time, and be in class on the day of all exams. Students may not make up missed quizzes.
Honor Code:
All work is governed by the Longwood University Honor Code. Written work must contain the pledge in writing and be signed. Students should read closely the section on plagiarism in the Longwood Style Manual.
Class Schedule: (I reserve the right to make changes to this schedule by giving oral notification in class. Absence from one class is never an excuse for being unprepared for subsequent classes.)
Week 1
M. 8-24. Introduction to Course
W. 8-26. Plato, From The Republic (25-38)
F. 8-28. Aristotle, From Poetics (55-70); Horace, The Art of Poetry (82-94)
Week 2
M. 8-31. Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (132-159)
W. 9-2 Alexander Pope, Part I of An Essay on Criticism (198-202); Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 4, Rasselas, Chapter 10, and From Preface to Shakespeare (210-230)
F. 9-4. William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (304-318); John Keats, From a Letter to Benjamin Bailey and From a Letter to George and Thomas Keats (330-333)
Week 3
M. 9-7. Class Canceled for Labor Day
W. 9-9. Immanuel Kant, From Critique of Judgment (247-274)
F. 9-11. In-class Essay 1
Week 4
M. 9-14. Matthew Arnold, The Function of Criticism at the Present Time and From The Study of Poetry (412-434)
W. 9-16. Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense and From Twilight of the Idols (452-461)
F. 9-18. Karl Marx, The Alienation of Labor, Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions, and On Greek Art in its Time (397-411)
Week 5
M. 9-21. Sigmund Freud, From The Interpretation of Dreams (497-509) and “Medusa’s Head” (533); T. S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (534-541)
W. 9-23. Virginia Woolf, [Shakespeare’s Sister] from A Room of One’s Own, [Austen-Brontë-Eliot] from A Room of One’s Own, and [The Androgynous Vision] from A Room of One’s Own (596-610); Simone De Beauvoir, “Myths: Of Women in Five Authors” (635-640)
F. 9-25. W. E. B. Du Bois, [On Double Consciousness] from The Souls of Black Folk and Criteria of Negro Art (565-574)
Week 6
M. 9-28. Formalisms (749-763); Cleanth Brooks, From My Credo: Formalist Criticism and Irony as a Principle of Structure (797-806)
W. 9-30. W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, The Intentional Fallacy (810-818); Erich Auerbach, Odysseus’ Scar (704-717).
F. 10-2. Structuralism and Deconstruction (819-841); Ferdinand de Saussure, From Nature of the Linguistic Sign (841-844)
Week 7
M. 10-5. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Structural Study of Myth (860-868)
W. 10-7. Jacques Derrida, Structure, Sign, and Play[. . .] and Differance (914-926; 932-949)
F. 10-9. Reader-Response Theory (962-978); Stanley Fish, How to Recognize a Poem When you See One (1022-1030); Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author (871-877)
Week 8
M. 10-12. Class Canceled for Fall Break
W. 10-14. . Wolfgang Iser, The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach (1001-1014)
F. 10-16. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Elevation of the Historicality of Understanding to the Status of the Hermeneutical Principle (718-737)
Week 9
M. 10-19. In-class Essay 2
W. 10-21. Psychoanalytic Theory (read only 1106-111); Harold Bloom, A Meditation upon Priority (1155-1160)
F. 10-23. Peter Brooks, Freud’s Masterplot (1161-1171)
Week 10
M. 10-26. Marxist Criticism (read only 1198-1207); Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1232-1249)
W. 10-28. Class Canceled
F. 10-30. Louis Althusser, From Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (1263-1272)
Week 11
M. 11-2. New Historicism and Cultural Studies (read only 1320-1329); Stephen Greenblatt, Introduction to The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance (1442-1447); Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” (1366-1383)
W. 11-4. Lawrence Buell, The Ecocritical Insurgency (1432-1442)
F. 11-6. Feminist Literary Criticism (read only 1502-1512); Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, From Infection in the Sentence (1531-1544)
Week 12
M. 11-9. Gender Studies and Queer Theory (read only 1614-1624); Monique Wittig, One is Not Born a Woman (1637-1642); Judith Halberstam, From the Introduction to Female Masculinity (1734-1752)
W. 11-11. Postcolonialism and Ethnic Studies (read only 1753-1764); Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa (1783-1790)
F. 11-13. Class Canceled (SAMLA Annual Conference)
Week 13
M. 11-16. Theorizing Postmodernism (1920-1932); Jean Baudrillard, The Precession of Simulacra (1935-1946)
W. 11-18. Gloria Anzaldúa, “La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness” (1850-1858); Bell Hooks, Postmodern Blackness (2008-2014).
F. 11-20. In-class Essay 3
Week 14
M. 11-23. Class Canceled for Mandatory Conferences
W. 11-25. Class Canceled for Thanksgiving Holiday
F. 11-27. Class Canceled for Thanksgiving Holiday
Week 15
M. 11-30. Class Canceled for Mandatory Conferences
W. 12-2. Class Canceled for Mandatory Conferences
F. 12-4. Senior Seminar
Week 16
W. 12-9. Take-home Final Exam due. Email it as an attachment before 6:00 pm.
F. 12-11. MFT (8:00-10:30 am).