ENGL 151 A-Z - Special Topics: Major AuthorsSemester Hours: 3
This course explores the works of either one author or two significantly related authors who have contributed to literature written in English. The authors studied will vary.
Current Special Topics
CRWR 151A, Fiction: Major Authors: Jane Austen
Jane Austen turned her brilliantly observant eye on her contemporary world: England in the early 1800s. Fusing savage wit with eloquent prose, she sets up characters who seek to wield power through barely veiled cruelty to justifiable ridicule, and she also writes movingly about characters who refuse to make moral compromises in order to rise in status. Within her contemporary world, as Austen depicts it, desires are intensely felt, but are forced to give way to pragmatic considerations—therefore, romantic love, in her novels, is almost never earned or expressed without the knowledge gained through self-reflection or loss. As we read Austen’s fiction, we will explore the literary and cultural contexts in which her writing emerged, as well as the constructs of gender, sexuality, and inherited privilege that she opened to incisive critique. The readings for this course will include Lady Susan, a short novel in which a woman boldly pursues her own sexual pleasure and power without apology or regrets; Pride and Prejudice, a novel in which a man who has totally repressed his desires finds himself “bewitched” by a young woman who couldn’t care less whether he lives or dies; Sense and Sensibility, in which one woman’s descent into madness is answered by another woman’s cultivation of reason and self-mastery; Emma, a radical contrarian novel in which a rich young woman decides never to marry in order to rule over her self-created world; and Persuasion, in which an oppressive familial and class structure finally breaks down, allowing marriage between a woman and man, who recognize each other as equals, to take place. Throughout the course, we will also screen and discuss a number of film and television adaptations of Austen’s work, including Amy Heckerling’s film Clueless and the most recent film version of Emma, directed by Autumn de Wilde, which was released in 2020. This is a Writing Intensive course and it fulfills a Pre-1900 Literature requirement and the Major Author requirement in the Creative Writing Concentration.
Prerequisites: WSC 001. May not be taken on a Pass/D+/D/Fail basis.
Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
WSC 001 or WSC 002 . May not be taken on a Pass/D+/D/Fail basis. As individual authors are selected, each is assigned a letter (A-Z) which is affixed to the course number. Specific titles and course descriptions for special topics courses are available in the online class schedule.
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