Introduction to Literature- Telling and Retelling the Tale
Course Description Course Objectives Materials Assignments Schedule
Course Description
This course will serve as an introduction to literature, including the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama. It will focus on retellings and adaptations. Through examining how different writers in different cultural contexts have adapted and reworked literary texts students will come to discover that literature is an on-going conversation that reflects the cultural perspectives of its various participants. Students will be required to enter this conversation through the medium of critical analysis and interpretation, examining how each literary work shapes the dialogue, and is in turn shaped by others. In order to do this, students will learn the formal properties of literature and develop skills in close-reading and critical analysis. Students will learn to situate themselves within the critical conversation and become participants in the on-going dialogue.
Course Objectives
- To learn the formal elements of literature such as plot, character, style, tone, language, symbol, allegory, myth, imagery, figures of speech, themes and staging, and their function in the creative process of producing prose, poetry and drama.
- To read and critically examine literary works from diverse viewpoints and cultures and how they relate to one another and human concerns.
- To examine how writers from different time periods and cultures re-shape literary traditions and texts in order to express their concerns.
- To develop students’ own skills at closely-reading, analyzing and interpreting literary texts, traditions, and methods both orally and in writing.
- To explore and evaluate human values and ethics as they are expressed in literary texts.
- To come to a greater understanding of literature’s role in the production of human culture.
Materials
Required Text: M.B. Clarke and A.G. Clarke. Retellings: A Thematic Literature Anthology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
In addition to the text above, some of our readings will be posted on our class Blackboard site (http://my.usf.edu). You will be required to read and print these readings and bring them to class.
Assignments
Course Requirements
- Particpation 15%
- Mideterm Exam 15%
- Final Exam 20%
- Blog 15%
- Critical Perspective Presentation 15%
- Final Project 20%
Blog Assignment
Each student will be required to maintain a blog and post in response to weekly questions. These blogs are intended to build off of and add to class discussion and to demonstrate to yourself (and myself) how you are thinking about the course material. Each week I will post a link to a particular question or questions that you will be required to answer. Each post must be at least 250 words and will be graded pass/fail.
Critical Perspective Assignment
One of the purposes of this class is to introduce you to the variety of ways in which interpretation can work and to allow you to examine where you fit in amongst this interpretive community. Towards that end, students will work together in groups to create a presentation that explains a key area of literary criticism and its relationship to some of the readings we have done in class. I will help facilitate the forming of groups during class time; however, groups must meet to put together their presentations outside of class. A longer and more detailed description of this assignment will be made available mid-way through the semester.
Midterm and Final Exam
The midterm and final exams will be cumulative and will both follow the same format. You will have a choice of short answer and essay questions. They will be designed around the course theme and ultimately be drawn from our readings as well as class-discussions and blog-posts.
Note: That the questions on these exams will not be intended to trick you or trip you up. Rather they will be opportunities for you to demonstrate what you have learned thus far in the class.
Final Project
For your final project you will choose one of two options. The first option is a more traditional paper comparing a text we have read in class and an adaptation we have not. This adaptation could be another literary work, a film, a piece of music, or something else. The second option will be to create your own adaptation or retelling. In addition to creating your adaptation you will be responsible for writing a critical analysis of your work, focusing on the key purpose of your adaptation. Both of these options will consist of at least 2000 words.
There are two days scheduled for workshopping or peer editing at the end of the semester. You will be required to bring a draft of your project to class on each of these days and to offer meaningful feedback on the work of your fellow students. We will address the etiquette and importance of critique as we approach these days.
You will also be required to turn in one draft of your project for instructor feedback. You will be required to incorporate revisions in response.
Schedule
Week One: Introducing the Course
1/10 Introductions
1/12 In-Class Workshop
1/4 Reading: The Elements of Fiction 75-85; Kate Chopin, “Desiree’s Baby” (Blackboard); William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” 521-527
Week Two: Fairy Tales Revisted
1/17: Martin Luther King Day- No Class
1/19 Blog Post #1 due by midnight
Reading: Charles Perrault, “Little Red Riding Hood,” 619-621; The Brother’s Grimme, “Little Red Cap,” 621-624; Angela Carter, “The Company of Wolves,” 644-650
1/21 Reading: Charles Perrault, “Bluebeard” (Blackboard)
Week Three: Focus- Reading Fiction
1/24 Reading: Telling the Tale: The Role of the Speaker, 31-36; Angela Carter, “The Bloody Chamber” (Blackboard); Neil Gaiman, “The Hidden Chamber” (Blackboard)
1/26 Blog post #2 due by midnight
Reading: Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” 186-197; Don Moser, “The Pied Piper of Tucson,” 198-208; Bob Dylan, “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue,” 209
1/28 Reading: Katherine Mansfield, “Her First Ball” 753-757; Witi Ihimaera, “His First Ball” 758-765
Week Four: Fiction and Adaptation
1/31 Reading: Thomas Leitch, “Between Adaptation and Allusion,” (Blackboard)
2/2 Blog post #3 due by midnight
Reading: Julie Sanders, “What is Adaptation,” (Blackboard)
2/4 Reading: Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Blackboard)
Week Five: Introducing Poetry/Wandering Heroes
2/7 In-Class Workshop on poetry
2/9 Blog post #4 due by midnight
Reading: The Odyssey, Book 10 (Blackboard)
2/11 Reading: The Odyssey, Book 24 (Blackboard)
Week Six: The Language and Structure of Poetry
2/14 Reading: Reading Poetry: The Speaker and the Language of Poetry, 85-91; Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses,” 257-259; Dorothy Parker, “Penelope,” 263
2/16 Blog post #5 due by midnight
Reading: Augusta Webster, “Circe,” (Blackboard); Richard Howard, “Ithaca: The Palace at Four A.M.” 261-263
2/18 In-Class Workshop
Week Seven: Midterm
2/21 Reading: Petrarch, Sonnet 126 (Blackboard); Shakespeare, Sonnet 18, Sonnet 130 (Blackboard); Billy Collins, “Sonnet” (Blackboard)
2/23 No blog post this week
Midterm Review Day
2/25 Midterm exam
Week Eight: Introducing Drama
2/28 Reading: Reading Drama, 103-118; William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act I, 1215-1239
3/2 No Blog post this week- Prepare performance assignment for 3/4
Reading: Hamlet Act II 1239-1257
3/4 Performance assignment/ Workshop on Act III Scene IV
Reading: Hamlet Act III, 2157-1281
Week Nine:Responding to Hamlet
3/7 Reading: Hamlet Acts IV and V, 1281-1316
3/9 Blog post #6 due by midnight
Reading: Margaret Atwood, “Gertrude Talks Back,” 1334-1335; Louis MacNiece, “Rites of War,” 1335.
3/11 Reading: New York Bar Association, excerpts from The Elsinore Appeal: People V Hamlet 1341-1347
Week Ten: No Class- Spring Break
Week Eleven: The Tempest
3/21 Reading: William Shakespeare, The Tempest Acts I-II, 270-303
3/23 Blog post #7 due by midnight
Reading: The Tempest Act III, 270-303
3/25 Reading: The Tempest Acts IV-V, 313-332
Week Twelve: Tempests
3/28 Reading: Roger Hecht, “Ferdinand to Prospero at Milan,” 341-342; Aime Cesare, A Tempest Act I, 343-350
3/30 Blog post #8 due by midnight
Reading: A Tempest, Act II, 351-356
4/1 Reading: A Tempest, Act III, 356-371
Week Thirteen: Critical Readings
4/4 Final Project Workshop
4/6 Blog post #9 due by midnight
Reading: M.H. Abrams, “Orientation of Critical Theories: Some Co-Ordinates of Art Critcism” (Blackboard)
4/8 First Draft of Final Project due
Reading: Selections from Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde (Blackboard)
Week Fourteen: Critical Perspective Presentations
4/11 Critical Perspective Presentations
4/13 Blog post #10 due by midnight
Critical Perspective Presentations
4/15 Critical Perspective Presentation
Week Fifteen: Putting it All Togehter- A Case Book on Jekyll and Hyde
4/18 Reading: Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1374-1413
4/20 Blog post #11 due by midnight
Reading: “The Strange Case of Dr. T and Mr. H,” 1414-1415; Tony Eprile, “A True History of the Notorious Edward Hyde,” 1417-1419
4/22 Reading: Henry James “Partial Portraits,” 1426-1427; Elaine Showalter, “Dr. Jekyll’s Closet,” 1427-1443
Week Sixteen: Wrapping Up
4/25 Final Project Workshop
4/27: Blog post #12 due by midnight
Wrapping up the class
4/29 Last Class- Final Project Due
Final exam review
Final Exam will be given Saturday April 30, from 3:00 PM-5:00 PM in our usual classroom, Cooper 354. If you have a DIRECT CONFLICT between exams or if you have THREE OR MORE EXAMS scheduled for the same day please contact me BEFORE FINALS WEEK.
Course Description Course Objectives Materials Assignments Schedule
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