Courses

Courses

1301. The Literary Tradition I. An introduction to the study of poetry exploring the bearing of poetic form upon meaning and of poetic meaning upon truth. The student acquires the arts of careful, responsive reading; intelligent discussion; and lucid interpretive writing. Readings in classical epic poetry provide introduction to the heritage of great poems which have defined the Western tradition. Intensive study of The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, emphasizing the epic poet's representation of a comprehensive view of the cosmos, human effort, the city, and the divine, as well as his portrayal of the heroic life in confrontation with death. Fall and Spring.

1302. The Literary Tradition II. The Christian epic poems and the dissolution of the epic in the modern era. Studies in Dante's fusion of the classical and Christian in The Divine Comedy; Milton's reformed Christian epic, Paradise Lost. Additional readings in lyric poetry develop a sensitive apprehension of the resources of poetic language and a grasp of the difference between poetic and other modes of speech. Further exercises in critical writing. Fall and Spring.

2311. The Literary Tradition III. The study of dramatic tragedies and comedies with a view to understanding the meaning of these two alternative yet concurrently enduring vistas upon the human condition. Readings in the Greek dramatists, the Elizabethans, and modern European and American playwrights. Discussion of individual plays and continuity and difference within the tradition, accompanied by the student's composition of interpretive essays. Prometheus Bound, The Oresteia, Oedipus Tyrannos, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, The Bacchae, Frogs, The Book of Job, Everyman, The Second Shepherd's Play, Dr. Faustus, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest, and a selection of modern dramas. Fall and Spring.

2312. The Literary Tradition IV. Reflections upon the novel as the distinctively modern contribution to the literary tradition. Studies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American fiction with particular emphasis upon the development of the modern hero as a figure placed in confrontation with his society. Consideration of the novelists' concentration upon a background of societies in transition. Further training in writing interpretive essays culminating in the student's composing a short story indicative of his grasp of fictional technique and substance. Moby-Dick, Crime and Punishment, Mansfield Park, Go Down, Moses, and short stories. Fall and Spring.

3323. Medieval Literature. A study of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval poetry, narrative, and drama, with special emphasis on the importance of the Bible and biblical typology in the determination of medieval themes and patterns. Authors treated include Chaucer, the Pearl Poet, Malory, and others. Fall

3324. Literary Study I: Lyric. An introduction to literary study and interpretation, with a central focus upon lyric poetry in English. The course establishes the nature and practice of close reading of a literary text. At the same time it treats the various resources of poetic language-prosody, figurative language, tone, and allusiveness, with a view to grasping continuities within and new developments of the tradition of the English lyric. The course concludes with the Junior Project, independent study of an important British or American lyric poet. Fall.

3326. Early Modern Literature. A consideration of major writers of the period in light of their contribution to modern culture: the way in which they explore the limits of continental and English lyric conventions, the problematic character of political and religious contexts, the implications of the new science and philosophy upon traditional poetic models. Besides an emphasis upon Shakespeare's poetry and drama, the course will also treat authors such as Spenser, Sidney, the Metaphysicals, Milton, Pope, and Swift. Spring.

3327. The Romantic Tradition and Victorian Literature. This course considers Romanticism as a resistance to and continuation of the Enlightenment, and explores the aftermath of Romanticism not only in Victorian literature but more broadly among nineteenth-or twentieth-century writers. Spring

3343. Bible as Literature. A study of writing from the Old and New Testaments from a specifically literary perspective, suggesting continuities of biblical writing with traditional literary themes, genres, and forms, and establishing the centrality of the Bible-its stories, typology, and interpretation of history-in shaping the imagination of writers to the present time.

3355. Tragedy and Comedy. Studies of the major works of these two genres with a view toward understanding two alternative but concurrently enduring vistas upon the human condition. Readings normally include selections from the major Greek authors through Shakespearean examples of the dramatic genre.

3357. Special Topic. Study in an author, question, or topic not treated in any of the regular course offerings but of comparable consequence. Offered as needed.

4359. Shakespeare. Study in the comedies, histories, and Roman plays against the background of the four great tragedies (Eng. 2311) seeking understanding of this great poet as a thoughtful guide in a confrontation of classical, Christian, and modern traditions. Spring.

4360. American Literature. Studies of major American writers, predominantly of nineteenth century, focusing upon Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, and James. Reflection upon the definitive stresses productive of the national character and upon continuing tensions generated by the meeting of the New World with the Old. Fall and Spring.

4361. British Novel. Study in the development of the British novel from the eighteenth-century to Virginia Woolf. Consideration of the novel as a reflection of changing conceptions of human consciousness, of changing attitudes toward society and of the individual's participation in community. Spring.

4362. Twentieth Century Literature. A study of major poets, novelists, and dramatists of the twentieth century writing in English, modern writers such as Pound, Yeats, Stevens, Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner, as well as writers from the second half of the century. Students may substitute for this course another course in twentieth-century literature. Fall.

4363. Literary Study II: Prose Fiction. A study of the nature of narrative and of the interpretative skills necessary for reading fiction. The course will consider major British and American novels, or novels written in English. It culminates in the Senior Project, a written and oral presentation on a major novel in English. Spring.

4370. Dante. A study of the works of Dante with emphasis upon The Divine Comedy and Dante as the greatest poetic exponent of medieval Christendom's understanding of the analogical character of being. As needed.

4371. Southern Literature. Studies of the principal participants in the Southern Literary Renaissance and its heirs: Davidson, Ransom, Tate, Warren, Lytle, Porter, Welty, Gordon, O'Connor, Taylor. The course includes the major achievements of the Southern writer in verse, prose fiction, literary and social criticism. Special emphasis is given to the consideration of the relation between the Southern writer and culture of the South. As needed.

4372. Faulkner. A consideration of Faulkner's fiction as uniquely capable of grasping at once the novel character of the American experience and its continuity with the great tradition. As needed.

4373. The Russian Novel. Studies in the fiction of Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. Special emphasis is accorded the theme of the abrupt and relatively belated confrontation of a Christian society with European modernity. As needed.

4374. Menippean Satire. Studies in a distinguished but relatively unexplored family of literary works focusing upon Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, Sterne, Byron, Lewis Carroll, Joyce, John Barth. Emphasis upon the preponderance in these works of authorial digression over the more usual emphasis of fiction upon human character and action. As needed.

4V41. Independent Research. An opportunity to conduct a special program of inquiry under the guidance of a faculty member. Approval by Chairman required.

5311. Studies in Myth. A consideration of literary renderings of myth with a view to grasping how myths inform particular works of literature. Associated issues are the relations between myth and ritual, cult, religion, philosophy; the persistence of myths from ancient to modern art. Authors most frequently treated included Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Ovid, Vergil, Spenser, Yeats, Joyce (as needed), Faulkner, Freud, Eliade, Levi-Strauss, V. Turner. As needed.

5312. The English Renaissance. Through study of literature written under the Tudors and Stuarts the course reflects upon artistic accomplishment amid conflicting perspectives upon the individual and society, the Church, the relation between Christianity and rediscovered classical ideals, and emerging new science. Authors usually read include Erasmus, More, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Bacon, Webster, Middleton, Sidney, Marlowe, Castiglione, Machiavelli, and other influential Continental authors. As needed.

5313. Thomas More. The major writings of Thomas More and the important literary accounts of his life. Special attention is given to More's indebtedness to the classical world and to the Church Fathers, especially in Utopia, The History of Richard III, and his humanist writings. As needed.

5320. Arthurian Romance. An approach to medieval genre-romance-and a medieval theme-fin' amors-through the study of major literary manifestations of the medieval legend of Arthur. Authors and texts studied may vary, but as a rule special emphasis will be given to the twelfth-century verse romances of Chretien de Troyes and Sir Thomas Malory's fifteenth-century "reduction" of the legend into English prose. As needed.

5375. Special Studies. Study in an author, question, or topic not treated in any of the regular course offerings but of comparable consequence. Offered as needed.