English 45C

Other Readings and Media

Conrad J.: Heart of Darkness; Faulkner, W.: The Sound and the Fury; Hurston, Z.N.: Their Eyes Were Watching God; James, H.: The Turn of the Screw; Rhys, J.: Wide Sargasso Sea; Woolf, V.: To the Lighthouse

Description

This course is primarily an introduction to literary modernism in early- through mid-twentieth-century Britain, America, and Ireland. We will be asking what constitutes the modern in a range of now canonical texts that broke with narrative, rhetorical, and cultural traditions. Some of the specific topics we will explore are the relations between formal innovation and transformations of sexual, racial, and national identities; the methods of composing a usable past; the self-representation of the modern author; and the cultural status and uses of literature. In addition to the books listed above, we will be studying a selection of poetry and essays collected in a reader. Written work will consist of three short papers, a final, and a midterm. Regular attendance at lecture and active participation in discussion sections are essential.