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Readings in Literary Theory

01-This course is an introduction to literary theory and criticism. It will provide a foundation so that students may take a more sophisticated approach towards the literature, culture, and texts they encounter in their future academic career. To this end, we will endeavor to cover as wide a range of theories and thinkers as possible. We will learn about structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction, psychoanalysis, feminism, gender studies, political criticism, historicisms, and various cultural studies. In order to do this successfully, we will rely on both secondary descriptions of the various “schools” of literary theory as well as the more difficult primary texts themselves. While much of the material will certainly be challenging, the emphasis throughout will be on praxis (practice)--literary theory is important not for its own sake, but because it allows us to better approach the world we occupy and which occupies us. Expect lots of academic reading, weekly quizzes, short writing assignments, class participation, and a longer final paper.   

02-Truth and Beauty in the Twentieth Century

According to the poet John Keats at the beginning of the nineteenth century, “beauty is truth and truth beauty.” Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, does this declaration retain any meaning for our experience of art or literature? What is the relationship between beauty and truth in twentieth and twenty-first century theory, particularly in light of literary and artistic movements that seek to redefine what is beautiful and theorists who suggest aesthetic value should be subordinated to political or ideological concerns? Is there room any more, within modern theory or literature, for ideas of beauty, aesthetics or even truth? Beginning at the dawn of the twentieth century we will investigate these questions together as we look at the strange transformations of aesthetics within critical theory during the last century. From Walter Pater’s idea of “art for art’s sake” to Walter Benjamin’s theory of “aura” to the New Critics’ “well-wrought urn,” we will examine the ways in which traditional aesthetic notions of beauty were transformed in the early twentieth-century as authors confronted new cultural, societal and technological changes. As we move through the course, we will also examine how different kinds of social and political criticism, such as feminism and Marxism, challenged ideas of beauty and attempted to introduce different aesthetic criteria. Finally, we will investigate the problem of truth in post-structural theory and examine how it becomes once again linked with beauty as it once more becomes a matter of taste. Throughout the course we will supplement the theoretical readings with sections of poetry and short prose works drawn from twentieth-century literature.  We will therefore be able to observe, first hand, the transformations of aesthetics in contemporary thought.