Term: Autumn 2010 Time and Venue: Thursday 8-9:30, Room 322

Term: Autumn 2010 Time and venue: Thursday 8-9:30, Room 322.

Title of course: Introduction to English Literary Studies

Type : Lectures Code: BAN 1310 Hours per week: 2 Credit value: 3

Instructors: Kállay G. Katalin ([email protected]), Kiricsi Ágnes and Péti Miklós

Office hours: Wednesday 12 – 1:30

Prerequisites: seminar course BAN 1311

Course status: compulsory for all students of English (and a prerequisite for all further literature courses)

Goals: This course introduces students to the basic resources, terminology, questions and theories of English literary scholarship, while also providing an opportunity for first-year students to get acquainted with staff members and their specialisations.

Course Schedule :

Lecture Topic

1 (09.16.) What is Literature? (Kállay)

2 (09.23.) Questions of Genre (Péti)

3 (09.30.) Rhetorical Devices (Kiricsi)

4 (10.07.) Poetry and Versification 1: Basic Concepts (Kiricsi)

5 (10.14.) Poetry and Versification 2: Textual Analyses (Kállay)

6 (10.21.) Narratives 1: Short Fiction: E. Hemingway: “Indian Camp” (Judit Nagy)

7 (11.04.) Narratives 2: A novel: F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (Kállay)

8 (11.11.) Drama 1: Origins (Péti)

9 (11.18.) Drama 2: Modern Drama: Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire (Kállay)

10 (11.25.) Literature and The Bible (TBA)

11 (12.02.) Literary Theory 1: from the beginnings to the 18th century (Péti)

12 (12.09.) Literary Theory 2: Practical Criticism (Kállay)

13 (12.16.) Conclusion (Kállay) Methods of instruction: Lectures and individual study.

Required and recommended reading: Required reading: William Wordsworth: “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” John Keats: “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer” Edgar Allan Poe: “Annabel Lee” Emily Dickinson: 712. [Because I could not stop for Death] Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How Do I Love Thee?” William Butler Yeats: “Among Schoolchildren”, “Sailing to Byzantium” W. H. Auden: “The Shield of Achilles” William Carlos Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow”, “This Is Just to Say” E.E. Cummings: [1/a] Robert Frost: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Wallace Stevens: “Phosphor Reading by His Own Light” Owen Sheers: “Leavings”, “May Ball”

Ernest Hemingway: “Indian Camp” F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire Genesis 1-4 and the “Song of Solomon” from the King James Bible (= Authorized Version, 1611) Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown” “Theory in Practice: A Working Model” Chapter 2.2 , in: Rob Pope: The English Studies Book (Routledge, 2002), pp. 76-82. The definition of 125 literary terms from The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms: see: glossary Lecture handouts Departmental guidelines on the writing of literary and other essays (copies available in the Department Library)

Assessment: written end-term examination (short terminological questions and a short essay) Introduction to English Literary Studies: LECTURE 1.

WHAT IS LITERATURE?

No “correct” definition.

We all have an intuitive sense of the word – but our experiences, readings and studies constantly change our image.

If the definition is rigid – something will be missing: the joy of finding it out, the beauty of the discovery!

Webster’s Dictionary: origin: latin littera ‘letter’

1. the profession of an author; production of writings, especially of imaginative prose, verse, etc.

2. a) all writings in prose or verse, especially those of an imaginative or critical character, without regard to their excellence: often distinguished from scientific writing, news reporting, etc.

b) all the writings of a particular time, country, region, as: “American literature”

c) all of such writings considered as having permanent value, excellence of form, great emotional effect, etc.

d) all the writings dealing with a particular subject

Definition: cannot contain the experience. When we want to define something objectively: it is distanced, seems far away, not in the ‘here and now’ of our moments.

But literature can be experienced all around us! We live among narratives (our life-story, the story of our day, a story that happened to a person we know) poetry (when we appreciate the beauty of something: sunshine, a smile, a fraction of light) drama (constantly in tensions of our conversations)

One of the most important characteristics of the literary experience: surprise, an unexpected discovery that brings a moment to life, and by this, it possibly changes our perspective, our view of the world.

Not always pleasant! A shock can also be a surprise! (Examples from everyday life)

Maybe it is not the “what?” but the “how?” that we are looking for when trying to define literature: more precise, more exciting question: HOW DOES LITERATURE HAPPEN?

Literature always happens in the ever-present ‘here and now’ of a distinguished and unique moment; it is always a particular, personal experience, connected to a certain concrete situation, which cannot be generalized. It can still be shared with other people – so through the particular, it might become universal.

Question to think about: Why do we read literature, how does it relate to our lives?

- 2 - Do we read --- in order to escape from immediate reality, our own problems?

--- or in order to be able to face immediate reality, our own problems?

Literature (and in this sense art in general) can be thought of as a means of escape from life into some other imaginary world – something like a drug that helps us to forget about our miseries for a short time (poison)

But: it can also be seen as a remedy to cure us, restore our way of seeing the world, our spiritual health

Greek word: PHARMAKON means both! (Plato, Derrida)

Example:

The Red Wheelbarrow

So much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens

(William Carlos Williams)

And so much depends upon how we see it! The image can suggest something important and beautiful or something ugly, insignificant. American rural life (idyll or despair?) Colors: red, blue, white. Chicken: alive – poem: alive?

Letters and words might be dull, dead, unimportant -- but if they surprise us in some way, disturb us in some way, they might come alive! Matter of life and death (for the words). How about us?

More texts to look at:

William Carlos Williams: “This Is Just to Say”

Ezra Pound: “In a Station of the Metro”

Hemingway: In Our Time, Chapter III.

E.E. Cummings: [l/a]