CLL 151 - (LT) Studies in Literature

Semester Hours: 3

Fall, Spring

Designed to treat special subjects or authors at the discretion of the department, but with the student’s interest in view. Such subjects as existentialism, death, and the literary imagination, love in literature, or subjects of a like nature have been topics of recent analysis.

Current Special Topics

Literary Stylistics

Literary stylistics examines how readers interact with literary works, and how they understand and are moved by them. we consider how meanings and effects are generated in the three major literary genres, carrying out stylistic analyses of poetry, drama, and prose fiction in turn. We will analyze brief texts and extracts from English literature, adopting an approach to the analysis of literary texts that can be applied easily to other texts in English and in other languages. Literary Stylistics provides a clear and broad-ranging introduction to stylistic analysis – covering all three literary genres in detail. The course provides an overview of stylistics as a whole and discusses the links between linguistics and literary criticism, and shows the practical ways in which linguistic analysis and literary appreciation can be combined, and illuminated, through the study of literary style. We will cover all the major theories, concepts, and methods required for the investigation of language in literature, from meter to metaphor, dialogue to discourse. It also captures the latest major developments in stylistics, such as corpus, cognitive, and multimodal approaches to the study of style. The course begins with samples of stylistic analyses. Detailed analysis of each genre follows in subsequent modules, with writing assignments designed to develop skills in stylistic analysis. The course also includes a series of checklists of style features to look for when analyzing literary texts.

Avant-Garde

This course examines the theory and practice of four defining avant-garde movements between the two world wars which sought to create a “revolution of the mind”: Futurism, Expressionism, Dada and Surrealism redefined the style and politics of art. We read mainfestoes, poetry, an expressionist play, a surrealist novel, see an expressionist film and look at paintings, photomantages, collages, found objects, which defy reality; and analyze the style and politics of the groups. Works include Futurist, Dada and Surrealist Manifestoes, the expressionist play, The Son and the expressionist film, Metropolis, the surrealist novel, Nadja, and poety and art reflective of the movements and their impact worldwide.

Queering Ancient Fiction

This course will pair readings in ancient Greek and Latin literature alongside modern fiction to explore the many ways in which writers of the 20th and 21st centuries have used antiquity to think about modern queer identities. Works by Homer, Sappho, Plato, Sophocles, and Ovid (among others) will be brought into dialogue with E.M. Forster’s Maurice, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Mark Merlis’ An Arrow’s Flight, Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles, Selby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho, and Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe.

CLL 151 WI2 Literary Stylistics

Literary stylistics examines how readers interact with literary works, how they understand and are moved by them. We consider how meanings and effects are generated in the three major literary genres, carrying out stylistic analyses of poetry, drama, and prose fiction in turn. We will analyze brief texts and extracts from English literature, adopting an approach to the analysis of literary texts which can be applied easily to other texts in English and in other languages. Literary Stylistics provides a clear and broad-ranging introduction to stylistic analysis - covering all three literary genres in detail. The course provides an overview of stylistics as a whole and discusses the links between linguistics and literary criticism and shows the practical ways in which linguistic analysis and literary appreciation can be combined, and illuminated, through the study of literary style. We will cover all the major theories, concepts and methods required for the investigation of language in literature, from meter to metaphor, dialogues to discouse. It also captures the latest major developments in stylistics, such as corpus, cognitive and multimodal approaches to the study of style. The course begins with samples of stylistic analysis. The course also includes a series of checklists of style features to look for when analyzing literary texts.

Prerequisite: WSC 001 and WSC 002 or equivalent

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
May be repeated when topics vary.