ENGL 6637-A - Criticism and Theory - Syllabus

Spring 2001

Tuesdays, 6:30-9:15 p.m., Newton 2215

Dr. David Robinson

Office: Newton 3303

GSU English Department Telephone: (912) 681-5471

Office Telephone: (912) 681-0155

E-mail: dwrob@gasou.edu

Web site: www.oneeyedman.com/home/

Office Hours: By appointment.

Required Text:

Hazard Adams, Critical Theory Since Plato (2^nd Ed.)

Course Description:

Literary theory - the act of reflecting on what we are doing when we read and interpret literature - is central to our mission as teachers and scholars of literature. No graduate student is prepared for the current state of the profession without being conversant in the principal discourses of theory. This seminar will introduce students to those discourses, help them to develop their own sense of how to approach literature, and enable them to put the practices of individual critics in historical perspective.

The course aims specifically at providing students with a broad grasp of the issues and major voices in literary theory, and at identifying some of the current trends in the field. Using Hazard Adams's Critical Theory Since Plato, we will trace the development of ideas about the nature of literature and interpretation, covering Plato and Aristotle, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Romantic movement, the rise of formalism(s) (such as the "New Criticism"), psychoanalysis, feminism, structuralism, various types of post-structuralism, "New Historicism," and varieties of Marxist criticism.

Graded Assignments: A short paper reviewing a non-assigned work in the Adams anthology; and in-class presentation on the same; a research paper tracing the development of critical response to a work of literature chosen by the student; and the final examination. I will set up an online forum in which students are required to participate. Questions for discussion will be posted prior to class, and your responses will help us begin the class discussion. Participation in the forum also counts toward the final grade.

Grading:

Short Paper--15%

Oral Presentation--5%

Forum Participation-5%

Research Paper-50%

Final Examination-25%

Tentative Schedule of Classes:

REVISED REMAINING SCHEDULE (as of 3-16-01)

Tuesday March 20 ----- Kant, Critique of Judgment, cont. Romanticism: Blake (400-414), Wordsworth (436-446), Coleridge (468-480), Shelley ("Mont Blanc" -- hand-out).

Tuesday March 27 ----- Art and Society. Arnold (585-607), Marx (624-627), Nietzsche (628-639), Freud (711-716).

Tuesday April 3 ------ Varieties of Formalism. Russian Formalism: Shklovsky (750-759), Eichenbaum (800-816), Mukarovsky (975-982). New Criticism: Eliot (760-766), Richards (826-837), Wimsatt & Beardsley (944-959), Brooks (960-974)

Tuesday April 10 ----- Structuralism and Poststructuralism. Saussure (717-726), Barthes (1127-1133), Foucault (1134-1145), plus Foucault excerpt from Discipline and Punish (handout); intro. to Derrida.

Tuesday April 17 ----- Deconstruction: Derrida, "Structure Sign, and Play" (1116-1126), plus handouts; de Man (1174-1182); the de Man crisis (handouts).

Tuesday April 24 ----- Poststructural Psychoanalysis: Lacan and Zizek. Readings to be announced.

Final Examination (as scheduled).