English 40H - Spring, 2017

Introductory Topics in Literature

Topic: RESTRICTED TO UNIVERSITY HONORS PROGRAM STUDENTS ONLY

Class Information

Instructor: Freeman, Elizabeth
Time: MW 12:10-1:30
Location: 396 Voorhies

Description

This course is about the love story: the ways that what we experience as love is shaped by the ways love stories are told. We will read some narrative theory, learning what shapes we expect stories to come in, and some theories of love and romance, learning how Western culture has understood courtship, romance, marriage, and adultery. And of course we’ll read plays and novels from the Early Modern to the contemporary period, view a couple of contemporary films, and think about song lyrics together—exploring hooking up, chastity, same-sex love, interracial desire, and passionate friendship. You’ll learn to read literature and film closely, for language and for structure, and to understand how our expectations about stories and our expectations about love often cohere, as well as how when love appears in unfamiliar forms, stories may have to change their shape. The course will be reading- and writing-intensive, and especially discussion-intensive.

PLEASE GET THE LISTED EDITIONS OF THE COURSE TEXTS

Grading

Short Paper: 20%
Long Paper: 30%
Exam: 20%
Participation: 30%

Texts

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Folger Shakespeare Library Ed.), 978-0743477543, William Shakespeare
Pride and Prejudice, 978-0486284736, Jane Austen
The Princess of Cleves (Norton Critical Edition), 978-0393963335, Madame de Lafayette
The Awakening, 978-0486277868, Kate Chopin
Absalom, Absalom! 978-067973218, William Faulkner
Sula, 978-1400033430, Toni Morrison