ENGLISH 441: “Literary Theory and Criticism”
Note: Details of the course for Fall 2008 will be posted by mid-August 2008.
****Note: Fall 2007 Syllabus (below) is subject to revision as necessary.****
Week 1 Meet on 8/28 and 8/30
Bonnycastle Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4; Lynn Chapters 1 and 2
Week 2 Meet on 9/4 & 9/6
Bonnycastle Chapter 5 “Historical Criticism and New Criticism”; Lynn Chapter 3 “Unifying the Work: New Criticism”
Key Concepts: Formalism (New Criticism)
Week 3 Meet on 9/11 & 9/13
Bonnycastle Ch. 6 "Structuralism" (i) and Ch. 7 "Structuralism" (ii)
Key concepts: Saussure; Roland Barthes and structuralist criticism; Structuralism: a few more words
Weeks 4 & 5 Psychological and & Psychoanalytic Theories Meet 9/18, 20, 25 (online 27)
Bonnycastle Ch. 9 "Vico and the Four Stages of Mental Life" and Ch. 10 "Myths and Demystification"; Lynn Ch. 7 "Minding the Work: Psychological Criticism"
Key Concepts: Psychoanalytic Theory: basic premises; Lacanian theory
Key Concepts: Archetypal Theory; Joseph Campbell's Myth of the Hero; Northrop Frye's The Anatomy of Criticism; Annis Pratt's Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction
Week 6 10/2 & 4 Feminist Criticism(s); Mrs. Dalloway (online)
Bonnycastle, Ch. 14 “Feminism, Gender Issues, and Literature”; Lynn, Ch. 8 “Gendering the Text”
Key Concepts: Feminist Theories; Overview of second-wave feminist theories
Bloomsbury and Mrs. Dalloway; Woolf's writing: themes, style, etc.; Woolf's essay, "Modern Fiction"; Woolf's essay, "A Room of One's Own"
Week 7 Meet 10/9 & 11 Queer Theory
Key Concepts: Queer Theories; Judith Butler: Gender Trouble; "Transgressing, Queering"
Week 8 10/16 & 18 Work-in-Progress (midterm take-home exam and film viewing)
Oct. 16 Film: Mrs. Dalloway (in class screening) Oct. 18 no class meeting—time to work on take-home midterm exam
Week 9 10/23 & 25 Marxist Criticism
Bonnycastle Ch. 15, “Marxist Criticism”; Lynn, pp. 145-48
Key concepts: Marxist Criticism; Marxist Theory: dialectical materialism, etc.; Granville Hicks: The Great Tradition
Week 10 10/30 and 11/1 New Historicism
Bonnycastle Ch. 12, “New Historicism” and Ch. 16, “Postcolonial Criticism and Multiculturalism”; Lynn, Ch. 6, “Connecting the Text”
Key Concepts: New Historicism; Cultural Poetics; Postcolonialism; Postcolonial Studies
Week 11 11/6 & 8 Reader-Response Criticism
Bonnycastle Ch. 11, “Structuralism (iii); Narratology”; Ch. 13, “Reader-Response Criticism”; Lynn Ch. 4, “Creating the Text: Reader-Response Criticism”
Key Concepts: Reader Response Theory; Narratology
Week 12 11/13 & 15 August Wilson’s play, “The Piano Lesson”
Weeks 13 & 14 11/20, 11/22 (no class) Nov. 27, 29 Poststructuralism/Postmodernism
Bonnycastle, Ch. 8, “Deconstruction”; Lynn Ch. 5, “Opening Up the Text: Deconstructive Criticism”
Week 15 12/4 & 6 Conclusions
Bonnycastle Ch. 17, “Resituating Authority” and Epilogue; Lynn Ch. 9, “Investigating the Work”
Week 16 12/11-15 Final Exam Week