English 250

Other Readings and Media

Anand: Untouchable; Beckett, S.: The Unnamable, Company ; Conrad, J.: Heart of Darkness; Faulkner, W. Absalom, Absalom!; Joyce, J.: Portrait of the Artist, Ulysses; Lawrence, D. H.: Collected Stories, vol. 1; Mansfield, K.: Stories; Proust, M.: Swann's Way; Richardson, D.: Pilgrimage;, v. 1; Woolf, V.: To the Lighthouse; The Waves

Description

"This course will examine the modernist novel and short story (or fiction in general) as perhaps the modernist genres par excellence. We will look at alternative views of ""modern fiction"" (to use Virginia Woolf's term) in its relation to nineteenth-century ""realism"", a literary style intimately connected with the novel. One view sees modern fiction as one development of realism (Luk�cs considered Joyce a naturalist) and another sees it is a revolt against realism. This will lead us to examine the relation between Impressionism and the preoccupation of some modernist novels and stories with sense experience. We will consider questions of formal experiment and language, particularly the language for the representation of point of view. Finally we will analyze different methods for dealing with time, memory and history. The reading list is tentative. We will also read a number of essays on the novel. "