CL206.01 Literary Theory and Criticism II / Syllabus / Spring 2016-2017

CL206.01 Literary Theory and Criticism II / Syllabus / Spring 2016-2017

Tu 15:00-16:50 JF334, R 11:00-11:50 TB415

Instructor: Matthew Gumpert

Introduction. The second part of our introduction to literary theory and criticism: a survey of distinct approaches to understanding what and how texts mean. We examine these approaches as historically and culturally determined methodologies. This semester we turn to selected critical works of European Romanticism; the foundational figures of modern criticism (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Saussure); the rise of structuralism; and the emergence of critical methodologies based in identity politics, from feminism to theories of race and ethnicity.

Course Materials. The reader for Literary Theory and Criticism II, which includes all required readings for the course, is available at X. Supplementary and/or optional readings may be distributed as handouts during the course of the semester.

Grading. Midterm 30%; Class Performance and Short Papers 30%; Final 40%

---Class performance is a large part of your grade, and includes preparation, participation, attendance, and a number of short response papers assigned during the semester. It is your responsibility to have the text we are covering in class with you.

---There is an in-class midterm and final exam for this course. To be admitted to the final, the student must fulfill the attendance requirement. The midterm, class performance, and the final exam together make up the grade for the course.

Reading Schedule. Note: NA = Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism; LTRG = Literary Theory: A Reader and a Guide; LTA = Literary Theory: An Anthology

Week 1 (6-10 Feb)

Victorian Criticism

Arnold, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (NA 806-25); “Culture and Anarchy” (NA 825-32); Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life" (NA 792-802); Wilde, "The Critic as Artist" (NA 900-12)

Week 2 (13-17 Feb)

Nietzsche

On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (NA 874-84); The Will to Power (?) The Birth of Tragedy (NA 884-95)

Week 3 (20-24 Feb)

Marx

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (NA 764-67); The German Ideology (NA 767-69); Grundrisse (NA 773-74); Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (NA 774-75)

Week 4 (27 Feb – 3 March)

Marx

The Communist Manifesto (NA 769-73); Capital (NA 776-87)

Week 5 (6-10 March)

Freud

Selections from Some Elementary Lessons in Psycho-Analysis, The Ego and the Id, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis

Week 6 (13-17 March)

Freud

The Interpretation of Dreams (NA 919-29); "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming"; "The Uncanny" (NA 929-52); “Fetishism” (NA 952-56)

Week 7 (20-24 March)

Semiotics/Structuralism

Saussure, Course on General Linguistics (NA 960-77); Culler, "The Linguistic Foundation" (LTA 56-58)

Week 8 (27-31 March)

Semiotics/Structuralism

Propp, “Morphology of the Folk-tale” (LTA 72-75); Eichenbaum, The Theory of the “Formal Method” (NA 1062-87)

Week 9 (3-7 April)

Frankfurt Schooli and other responses to Marx

Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (NA 1166-86); Horkheimer and Adorno, “The Culture Industry as Mass Deception” (NA 1223-40); Lukacs, "Realism in the Balance" (NA 1033-58)

Week 10 (10-14 April)

Phenomenology

Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art”

17-21 April: Spring Break

Week 11 (24-28 April)

Phenomenology

Heidegger, “The Question concerning Technology”

New Criticism

Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (NA 1092-98); Brooks, "The Heresy of Paraphrase" (NA 1353-65); "The Formalist Critics" (NA 1366-71)

M 1 May: Tatil

Week 12 (2-5 May)

New Criticism

Wimsatt and Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy" (NA 1374-87)

Foundational Texts of Feminist Criticism

Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (NA 1021-29)

Week 13 (8-12 May)

Foundational Texts of Feminist criticism

de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (NA 1406-14)

Foundational Texts of Black Criticism

Du Bois, Criteria of Negro Art (NA 980-87)

Week 14 (15 May)

Foundational Texts of Black Criticism

Hurston, "Characteristics of Negro Expression" (NA 1146-58); Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (NA 1313-17)

15 May: Last Day of Classes