READING SCHEDULE: MODULE FOUR: LITERARY FORM
(The ‘Objective’ View of
Literature)
Week 11: Analysing Poetry: the
New Critics / Formalist
Literary History
Required Readings:
Lec. 1: New
Criticism I
- Keats, John "Letters" (pp. 492-494 in Adams)
- Eliot, T. S. "Tradition and the Individual Talent":
part II (pp. 762-764 in Adams)
- Eliot, T. S. "Hamlet" (pp. 764-766 in Adams)
- Ransom, John Crowe "Criticism as Pure Speculation" (pp.
874-883 in Adams)
Lec. 2: New
Criticism II
/ Formalist Literary
History
- Coleridge, S. T. "Biographia Literaria: chapter XIV"
(pp. 479-480 in Adams)
- Brooks, Cleanth "Irony as a Principle of Structure" (pp.
968-974 in Adams)
- Wimsatt and Beardsley "The Intentional Fallacy" and
"The Affective Fallacy" (pp. 945-959 in Adams)
- Eliot, T. S. "Tradition and the Individual Talent":
part I (pp. 761-762 in Adams)
Recommended Reading:
- Robey, David "Anglo-American New Criticism"
(in Ann Jefferson, et al., eds. Modern Literary Theory: a Comparative
Introduction)
Praxis:
- Brooks, Cleanth "The Language of Paradox"
(in E23F folder; also pp. 3-21 in his The Well-Wrought Urn)
Brooks, Cleanth "The Heresy of
Paraphrase" (pp. 961-968 in Adams; also pp. 192-214 in The
Well-Wrought Urn)
Week 12: Analysing Plot-Structure (Narratology): the
Neo-Aristotelians
Required Readings:
Lec. 1: Aristotle on Dramatic Plot
- Aristotle Poetics: chs. VI-XIX (pp. 53-60 in Adams)
Lec. 2: Neo-Aristotelian Narratology / An
Anti-colonial Perspective
- Crane, R. S. "From 'Toward a More Adequate
Criticism of Poetic Structure'" (pp.1002-1021 in Adams)
- Booth, Wayne "Types of Narration"
(in E23F folder; also ch. 6 of his The Rhetoric of Fiction)
Recommended Reading:
- Crane, R. S. "Poetic Structure in the Language
of Aristotle" (pp. 39-79 in his The Language of Criticism and the
Structure of Poetry)
- Crane, R. S.
"Introduction" to his Critics and Criticism
Praxis:
- Clarke, Richard "The ‘Homely,’ the ‘Wild,’
and the Horror of ‘Mere Household Events’: the Aristotelian Poe-etics of The
Black Cat" Short Story 4.1 (1996): 57-68
Week 13: Feminist, Diasporic and Anti-colonial Perspectives
on the
Author, Literary History and Literary Form
Required Readings:
Lec. 1: Feminist Perspectives
- Woolf, Virginia "Women and Fiction" (in E23F folder; also pp.
33-40 in Deborah Cameron, ed. The Feminist Critique of Language)
- Showalter, Elaine "Toward a Feminist Poetics"
(pp.1224-1233 in Adams)
Recommended Reading:
- Moi, Toril "Feminist Literary Criticism"
(in Ann Jefferson and David Robey, eds. Modern Literary Theory: a Comparative
Introduction)
- Moi, Toril Sexual/Textual Politics:
- "Introduction: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Feminist Readings of
Woolf"
- "Women Writing and Writing About Women"
- Humm, Maggie Feminist Criticism: Women as
Contemporary Critics: "Virginia Woolf"
- Spaull, Sue "Gynocriticism" (in Sarah
Mills, et al., eds. Feminist Readings, Feminists Reading)
Praxis:
- Moers, Ellen Literary Women
Lec. 2: Diasporic and Anti-colonial Perspectives
- Brathwaite, Kamau "Caribbean Critics" (in E23F folder; also
pp. 111-125 in his Roots)
- Achebe, Chinua "Colonialist Criticism" (pp. 1191 - 1198 in
Adams)
- Irele, Abiola "The African Imagination" (in E23F folder;
also in Research in African Literatures 21.1 [1990]: 49-67)
- Ramchand, Ken "Concern for Criticism" (in E23F folder; also
in Caribbean
Quarterly 16 [1970]: 51-60)
Recommended Reading:
- Ashcroft, Bill, et al. The Empire Writes Back
Praxis:
- Rohlehr, Gordon Pathfinder: Black Awakening in The Arrivants of Edward
Kamau Brathwaite
- Chamberlain, J. Edward Come Back to Me My Language: Poetry and the West
Indies