Twisted:

--Consisting of two or more threads… twined together
--Wrung out of shape; distorted; contorted; turned or bent awry
--Of a person: neurotic emotionally unbalanced; perverted.

What do twisted love poems and literature of the fantastic have in common? Both of them defy public norms and threaten our conventional structuring of reality. The love poems we’ll examine seem to lack affection or scorn social forms we typically understand to express love: they upend our commonplaces about maternal love, romantic love, friendship, and agape. Fantastical texts suspend us in no man’s land, between the supernatural and the psychological. Do these texts liberate readers from undesirable social confines? Or do they imperil our notions of what is right and good, perhaps our very sanity? Part reading laboratory, part writing workshop, this W course will examine ways in which compact texts—short stories, fables, fragments, poems, prose poems, and parables—challenge social, political, and psychological norms.

We will primarily explore challenging texts “on our own” (collectively), without recourse to literary critics’ interpretations, because this class aims to make you a more skilled, thoughtful, interesting, and independent reader. You will also have the opportunity to try your hand at both creative writing—largely by imitating some of the texts we’ll be reading—and literary criticism.
Texts will include works by Lydia Davis, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Peter Hoeg, Charles Baudelaire, Robert Browning, Kenneth Koch, Sylvia Plath, Phillip Larkin, and Alan Dugan.