Lit 401 Literary Theory and Literary Criticism
Spring 2007
(T/Th 2:40-4:00)
This course explores the practical challenges of literary analysis. We will focus on what it means to “apply” a theory in the act of reading. We will also examine how critics respond to the concrete demands of individual texts rather than viewing them through the lens of pre-formulated methodologies. Each class session will be organized around the examination of a canonical work of poetry or prose alongside one or more of the interpretations it has occasioned. Students taking the course for German credit will meet in extra sessions. Prerequisites: at least one course in the Division of Literature and Languages or consent of the instructor. Cross-listed as English 401 and German 401. Conference.
Tentative Weekly Schedule
Week 1
William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 83”
John Donne, “A Valediction of Weeping”
William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (Chapter 4)
Week 2
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions (Book 2), Reveries of a Solitary Walker (Walk 4)
Paul de Man, “Excuses”
Week 3
William Wordsworth, “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”
Geoffrey Hartman, “Wordsworth”
Weeks 4-5
Charles Baudelaire, selected poems
Walter Benjamin, “Some Motifs in Baudelaire”
Roman Jakobson & Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Baudelaire’s ‘Les Chats’”
Week 6
Paul Celan, selected poems
Jacques Derrida, “Shibboleth: For Paul Celan”
Week 7
Henry James, “The Beast in the Jungle”
Eve Sedgwick, “The Beast in the Closet”
Weeks 8-9
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter”
Jacques Lacan, “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’”
Shoshana Felman, “On Reading Poetry: Reflections on the Limits and Possibilities of Psychoanalytical Approaches”
Weeks 10-11
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Stephen Greenblatt, “Remember Me”
Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx (Chapter 1)
Week 12
Samuel Beckett, Endgame
Theodor W. Adorno, “Trying to Understand Endgame”