L202 16273 LITERARY INTERPRETATION
Allen Salerno

10:10a-11:00a MWF (25 students) 3 cr. A&H, IW.

TOPIC: "Transformations"

This course has three main objectives: to introduce students to major literary genres, to investigate approaches to interpretation, and to develop and refine those interpretations through discussion and writing. We will therefore be exploring a wide range of texts-- poetry, short fiction, drama, and the novel--in order to discern their formal features as well as their historical, cultural, and artistic preoccupations. Our overarching focus for the term will be on the idea of "transformation": What kinds of transformations are represented, literally and thematically, in texts? How does the inclusion of illustrations, or the fact that a text is meant for performance, change the way we read? How do authors adapt and shift the conventions of a given genre? In addition to a number of shorter works, our readings will likely include: Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience; Shakespeare's Twelfth Night; Millay's Aria da Capo; John Patrick Shanley's Doubt; Brontė's Wuthering Heights; and Barbara Vine's A Dark- Adapted Eye. What these texts say, how they say it, and what we make of this will be our key questions, and they will allow us both to emphasize close reading and to survey various critical approaches common to literary studies. This section of L202 carries an intensive writing component, so be prepared to write and revise regularly as you sharpen your interpretive skills.