350:386
Twentieth -Century Women Writers

THIS COURSE SAME AS 988:386

01   TTH4  CAC  31249  SMITH  SC-103

House of Mirth and Willa Cather’s My Antonia.  Wharton’s “well-made novel” about the restrictive rules of the marriage game in New York society will be compared with Cather’s celebration of the pioneer women of the American West.  Another comparison will involve the women writers of the Paris Left Bank in the 1920's (Gertrude Stein’s Three Lives) with women writers of the Harlem Renaissance (Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing).

The second half of the course will examine the efforts of American women poets to rewrite the mythology of women (Anne Sexton and Adrienne Rich) and of contemporary women novelists to reinterpret American history (Toni Morrison’s Beloved).  Throughout the course we will look at these writers in the light of some seminal works of criticism and theory.

Attendance: Required

Means of Evaluation: Two short critical papers and ungraded response papers

Exam: Final examination