413S98

English 413: Literary Theory and Critical Practice Dr Pidge Molyneaux, Olney 146 molyneam@lasalle.edu molyneau@bellatlantic.net	Spring 1998 Office: (215) 951-1150 FAX: (610) 449-0418

Required Texts:

Donald Keesey, Contexts for Criticism
Peter G. Beidler, Case Study in Contemporary Criticism, Henry James: The Turn of the Screw
Course pack to be paid for at bookstore

Philosophy of the Course:

This course has at its center an introduction to twentieth-century literary criticism and the theories that are both source and product of such criticism. Our specials goals will be to trace some of the major issues and problems as they are treated by different writers at different times, and especially to understand current arguments and debates about the value, purpose, and political aspects of literary criticism. Taking as one of our premises that literary criticism is closely bound to material reality, that is, to the particular social, political, and economic conditions in which it is produced, we will begin with Robert Markley’s "History, Literature, and Criticism," which offers a brief overview of critical trends from classic to contemporary. Of particular significance for our discussions is Markley’s assertion that literary criticism can no longer be described as a single line extending from the Greeks to Derrida, but as pluralized and decentered; the "master narrative of critical history" is continually "being rewritten to take into account new political understandings of how the histories of literature and criticism have been constituted" (Davis and Finke 892-93). The course will take as much of a "hands-on" approach to the practice of literary criticism as possible; this considerable time will be devoted to critical analyses of selected texts.

Course Requirements:

Two 7-8 page papers or one 14-16 page term paper
Two exams, midterm and final
Occasional short in-class essays or quizzes on assigned readings
Attendance: Though I will sometimes lecture, the class will be run as closely to a seminar format as possible. It is thus crucial that consistent attendance, careful preparations, and vigorous engagement in class discussion be your watchwords. You will be graded down for every unexcused absence. I have voice mail, two e-mail addresses, and a FAX; I always can be reached in case of an emergency.

Grades: Here is how I will calculate your grade:

Quizzes @ 20%
Papers @ 20%
Exams @ 20%

20%
40%
40%

Schedule of Readings, Exams, Papers: (Subject to change)

Week 1: Introduction to the Course; Discuss suggested readings for critical exercises: James’s The Turn of the Screw; Chopin’s The Awakening; Melville’s "The Paradise of Bachelors, The Tartarus of Maids," Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper"; selected poems
Keesey, Introduction

Week 2: Martin Luther King Holiday
Robert Markley, "History, Literature, and Criticism"

Week 3: Joseph Addison, from The Spectator; Eliza Haywood, from The Female Spectator; Kristina Straub, "Women, Gender, and Criticism
Keesey, Ch.1: Historical Criticism I: Author as Context; E. D. Hirsch, "Objective Interpretation"; Keesey, Ch. 2: Formal Criticism: Poem as Context; Monroe Beardsley, "Textual Meaning and Authorial Meaning"

Week 4: Keesey, Ch. 3: Reader-Response Criticism: Audience as Context; Beidler, "What Is Reader-Response Criticism?"; Louise Rosenblatt, "The Quest for the Poem Itself"
Norman Holland, "The Miller’s Wife and the Professors: Questions About the Transactional Theory of Reading

Week 5: The Turn of the Screw discussion; Wayne C. Booth, "‘He began to read to our hushed little circle’: Are We Blessed or Cursed by Our Life with The Turn of the Screw?"
Exercise in Criticism: Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Week 6: Beidler, "What Is Psychoanalytic Criticism?"; Stanley Renner, "‘Red hair, very red, close-curling’: Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Bogeyman, and the ‘Ghosts’ in The Turn of the Screw"
Midterm Exam

Week 7: Spring Break

Week 8: Keesey, Ch. 4: Mimetic Criticism: Reality as Context; Beidler, "What is Feminist Criticism"; Josephine Donovan, "Beyond the Net: Feminist Criticism as a Moral Criticism"
Paper #1 due; Priscilla L. Walton, "‘What then on earth was I?’: Feminine Subjectivity and The Turn of the Screw; "The Yellow Wallpaper" revisited

Week 9: Keesey, Ch. 5: Intertextual Criticism: Literature as Context; Jonathan Culler, "Structuralism and Literature"; Mikhail Bakhtin, "From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse"
Exercise in criticism: Melville, "The Paradise of Bachelors, The Tartarus of Maids"

Week 10: Keesey, Ch. 6: Poststructuralist Criticism: Language as Context; Beidler, "What Is Deconstruction?"; Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"
Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?"

Week 11: Shoshana Felman, "‘The grasp with which I recovered him’: A Child Is Killed in The Turn of the Screw"
Keesey, Ch. 7: Historical Criticism II: Culture as Context; (New Historicism, Feminism, Marxism, Postcolonialism, Queer Theory); Beidler, "What Is Marxist Criticism?"

Week 12: Terry Eagleton, "Literature and History"; Catherine Belsey, "Literature, History, and Politics"
Exercises in Criticism, texts TBA

Week 13: Easter Holiday
Bruce Robbins, "‘They don’t much count, do they?’: The Unfinished History of The Turn of the Screw"

Week 14: Postcolonialism: Homi Babha, "Sly Civility"; Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"; critical essay TBA
Queer Theory: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, from Epistemology of the Closet

Week 15: Henry James, "The Beast in the Jungle"; Sedgwick, "The Beast in the Closet"
Final papers due; Reflections/conclusions