So next fall I get my first, full-blown, literature course. Called "Reading Literature," it's a course that is pitched largely to non-majors, tho majors take it as well. Any rate, I have to submit a course description before students register, and would like to hear what those of you reading this blog think of it. The question I have is quite basic: would you want to take a course like this? That is, just because these matters are interesting to me, and, I believe, important, does that mean that they are interesting to others? Any comments would be deeply appreciated.
Here 'tis:
The simple, two-word title of this course has embedded within it a few implications. Among them, that there is a category of texts which one could qualify as “literature”; secondly, that such texts require a particular kind of reading, different from the reading demanded by other linguistic structures (such as, for example, course descriptions); and, finally, that “reading literature” is sufficiently strange that it warrants its own university course. Instead of taking these implications for granted, the ten or so weeks of English 200F will be dedicated to experimentally, critically, and rigorously testing their verity. Is there something peculiar to the way “literary” texts are made? Do those constructions both demand and produce reader participation in ways other texts do not? What might be the value of reading these texts? Such basic yet complicated questions will occupy our thinking, reading, and writing.
To conduct this experiment, we will examine a transhistorical and heterogeneous sample pool of texts that have been called “literary,” looking for constants and variables. We will begin with readings in one of the oldest textual traditions, namely the lyric poem, considering works by Sappho, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Christina Rossetti, Robert Browning, Charles Baudelaire, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, Charles Olson, and Bernadette Mayer. As we read, we’ll examine poetic devices such as metaphor, voice, rhyme, and meter, as well as poetic tropes and genres, for their conceptual, aesthetic, and affective consequences. For the second half of the quarter, the attention will shift to prose, as well as to the last 200 years (for reasons we’ll discuss), beginning with short fiction by Edgar Allan Poe ("The Purloined Letter") and Herman Melville ("Bartleby the Scriviner"), moving to Nathaniel West’s novella Miss Lonelyhearts, and ending with an extended examination of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. We will pay close attention to the strategies of narration, the function of character, and the role of plot, as well as the social, ethical, and philosophical implications of fiction. To aid our inquiry, throughout the quarter we will also examine some key theoretical literature (!) on these topics, testing the claims others have made against our own discoveries.
Students will be asked to participate actively in each class discussion, prepare an annotated bibliography of secondary material, and give a brief presentation on their final paper. The writing will be divided up into three 2-page critical response essays; students will chose one of these essays to expand into a final 6-8 page paper.
Posted by pjaussen at April 26, 2007 10:39 AM
I'm a bit worried about your range here, Paul.
Perhaps it would be better to stretch your historical horizons, maybe focus a little bit outside of the 20th century? Even if just a text or two...
That way you can really cover some ground, you know?
Oh, and the annotated bib is a hot idea.
Hope all's well. Keep up the honest work,
-j
Hey, Paul.
Not sure what Jentery is talking about. You start with Sappho, Shakespeare and Donne. Ancient Greek, 16th century, 17th Century (?). Really there are only a few 20th Century here.
My question, though, lies elsewhere. I like the idea of questioning 'literature.' You end up with a pretty traditional list, however. What texts on this list question what literature is or does? Certainly none of the fiction and the poetry has been high school canon for decades. In short, your reading list seems to me to supplant the intention of the question. What about something like Shandy? I suppose e.e. cummings is in this mix. What about Stein? Canon as well, but certainly screws with what is literature. If we are getting 20th century, what about multimedia works? Even Agee and Evans would move in that direction.
Anyway, maybe not your intention, but that is the direction I would take it.
In a separate but related question; if you are testing the changes in 'literature' from Sappho to Mayer, will your students be able to follow? Just thinking scaffolding, will being able to read, say, Donne well really prepare students to deal with Olsen? I don't know because I don't know the later poetry you are talking that well, nor do I know how you intend to approach it. But, just thinking about how I would go about this course, which is about how to define literature, I don't know how I would go about establishing for students the differences and similarities in a way they could recognize. Then again, there is a reason why I am not teaching this course.
I like the idea and the assignments look great. Good luck writing the syllabus. I'd love to see it.
- t
T--
You have to beware of J-dogg's irony. It nabs you sometimes.
As far as the texts are concerned: you are, of course, absolutely correct. By putting together these readings, I'm effectively deciding in advance what counts as literature. But there are reasons for doing this. The choice to stick with fairly "canonical" stuff was half-theoretical and half-pragmatic (well, more like 40/60). And, really, they bleed into each other. First, the pragmatic: you have to set up a certain amount of experimental controls. That is, you have to limit the variables. Sticking with the canon, for the purposes of this class, was a means of doing that. Second, on the theoretical side, if there is a group of texts out there that counts as "literature," then you would be hard pressed to argue that these works don't fit into that category. (You might argue that the category shouldn't exist, that the category is arbitrary, that the category hides all kinds of other problems, etc. All of which is true, but I can't answer all of those questions in one quarter). Another theoretical assumption is at play in the way I emphasize construction, which I borrow from the Russian Formalists. Basically, the later RF's ended up arguing that "literature" is a relative term, but the constructedness of texts is not. What we call "literature" at any given moment is simply the particular configuration of devices we find in the group of works we happen to call "literary." Hence, the historical variability of the "canon," despite the presence of self-conscious textual traditions.
On the other hand, the self-conscious tradition is what mediates the RF's radical constructivist tendencies. Although I don't say it in the course description, every single poem we'll be looking at falls within the tradition of love poetry, and every single one is written by someone knowing they are in that tradition. (Which is also a brief answer to your scaffolding question.) And maybe that's the best, non-essentializing critical definition of "literature" one can get: the intersection of construction and tradition. Couldn't the texts you mentioned, from Shandy to Stein to new media, fit that definition? Of course, I suppose you could say ANY text meets that definition. Which is why perhaps it makes more sense to talk in narrower terms (poems, novels, etc.).
All that said, or spouted, I HOPE that the questions you are raising will be raised by the students (and if they don't, I will) as the course progresses. One of the first (cheesy and predictable) classroom activities I intend to do is to ask people to answer the question "What is literature?" What I plan on doing is write down their responses and keep returning to them as the course progresses, saying, OK, here are a bunch of texts people have called "literary." Do they match the criteria we listed the first day of class? Do they match ANY criteria? How do these texts work, and how does that differ from the "working" of other texts you've read?
We'll see. Thanks for your comments.
Posted by: paul at May 2, 2007 4:07 PM
"Be realistic - demand the impossible!"
Be a nab - deploy irony at all costs!
Posted by: Jentery at May 3, 2007 2:39 PMThat sounds like a Pepsi commercial.
Posted by: paul at May 4, 2007 10:16 AMwell, i didn't mean to fodder a canon debate [come on, that's clever]; i don't really care if we call hypertext literature or not. my interest is more in the teaching side. basically, i don't think students would have any problem naming all this stuff literature. i suppose that is part of the task of the class, to point out how unsettled the relationship between these texts really is. still, it seems like some challenging examples would be a help. but you are right, it would be awesome for students came up with the canon problem on their own.
Posted by: twel at May 5, 2007 11:40 AMNo canon shots fired. I agree that students will have no problem calling this stuff literature, but my whole intent is to explore the criteria by which they make that judgment. In other words, if this _is_ literature, then why? The "challenging examples" are of course relevant. I'll see what happens--it is rather up in the air right now.
Alas, it's Situationist speak from May '68, which would of course make it ripe for commodification.
Posted by: Jentery at May 8, 2007 3:00 PMI wonder how many kids partying in the '68 riots ended up working for Pepsi in the 80s?
Posted by: paul at May 8, 2007 8:46 PM