English R1A

Other Readings and Media

"Austen, J.: Pride and Prejudice

Bronte, C.: Jane Eyre

Dickens, C.: A Christmas Carol



Required Films:

Pride and Prejudice (Leonard, 1940)

Pride and Prejudice (Langton, 1995)

Bridget Jones?s Diary (Maguire, 2001)

Bride and Prejudice (Chadha, 2004) and/or Pride and Prejudice (Wright, 2005)

Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940)

Jane Eyre (Stevenson, 1944)

Jane Eyre (Young, 1997)

A Christmas Carol (Hurst, 1951)

A Christmas Carol (C. Donner, 1984)

Scrooged (R. Donner, 1988) "

Description

This course seeks to refine composition skills (thesis building, argumentation, processes of analysis, use of evidence, and mechanics) while also introducing students to the discipline of literary study. Students will be responsible for 32 pages of written work, consisting of short essay drafts and revisions. Coursework will culminate in a 4-5 page essay on a course-related topic of the student?s choosing. The focus of this course is twentieth- and twenty-first century adaptations of nineteenth-century texts. We will explore the ways in which ?modern? cultural dispensations coopt and recreate certain hoary classics of nineteenth-century literary canon, investigating the tangle of nostalgia, revision, longing, and repudiation that is adaptation. In addition to the required texts and films below, there will be an assigned reader including (but not limited to) excerpts from Jean Rhys? The Wide Sargasso Sea, Daphne Du Maurier?s Rebecca, Helen Fielding?s Bridget Jones?s Diary, and relevant critical articles.