The overall goal of this course is to equip you with techniques for and practice in reading and responding critically to a variety of forms of literature. We will read a wide variety of literary texts, ranging from poetry to prose to drama, and from the 18th to the 20 th century. With each text we read, the focus will be on developing close-reading practices that help us engage in and hopefully enjoy the reading process. We will begin in perhaps more familiar territory with the short story, reading short fiction by Hawthorne, Poe, Chopin, Joyce, Kafka, O'Connor (x2), and Silko. From fiction we will move to a selection of poetry by Coleridge, Keats, Dickinson, Blake, Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Auden, and Hughes, among others. We will finish the quarter with a play by Wilde, looking for commonalities between the three genres under investigation as they converge at this moment at the turn of the century. In all the literature we read together, we will focus on the social, political, and philosophical implications of each genre, considering the possibilities of literature as representative of human experience. Along the way, we will read accompanying works of literary criticism in order to better situate our critical responses within existing critical conversations – how do claims other readers of literature have made compare to our own findings and interests? Course requirements include a demanding reading schedule, short reading responses, active in-class participation, an annotated bibliography of critical sources, a midterm paper, and a final paper.

Texts:

• Kelley, ed. The Seagull Reader: Literature, 1st ed.

photocopied course packet.