Assignments

English 4110/5110: Literary Criticism, Spring 2009

Section 01 (CRN 21433/21434): TR 3:30-4:45PM, Arts & Sciences 338

In Class Activities

1. Classical Criticism: Sidney, Pope, Kant

In a threefold effort to catch up on the reading, meet fellow classmates, and practice finding the most significant passages in theoretical texts, today we will divide into groups to explicate passages. Find and explain the passage that best illustrates the theorist's argument for the give topic. Choose a secretary to report your group's findings to the class.

2. The New Criticism: Tyson and Ransom

We have all been doing some version of the New Criticism since high school; and so we are unconsciously competent in this critical approach. Today, we'll become consciously competent as we tease out the meanings of key terms from Lois Tyson's overview and explain passages from John Crowe Ransom's "Criticism as Pure Speculation."

  1. Define the following New Criticism terms.
    1. intrinsic criticism and objective criticism
    2. extrinsic criticism and biographical-historical criticism
    3. intentional fallacy and affective fallacy
    4. timeless, autonomous verbal object
    5. heresy of paraphrase
    6. organic unity
    7. paradox
    8. irony
    9. ambiguity
    10. tension
    11. close reading and "the text itself"
    12. literary language and figurative language (symbol and metaphor/simile)
    13. the key question New Critics ask about a work of literature
    14. Tyson's thesis and blueprint statement of "The 'deathless song' of Longing: A New Critical Reading of The Great Gatsby"
  2. Explicate the following significant passages.
    1. The intent of the critic may well be, then, first to read his poem sensitively, and make comparative judgments about its technical practice, or, as we might say, to emulate Eliot. Beyond that, it is to read and remark the poem knowingly; that is, with an esthetician’s understanding of what a poem generically "is." (450)
    2. But that is to do, after much wasted motion, what I have just suggested: to attend to the poetic object and let the feelings take care of themselves. (451)
    3. The thing I wish to argue is not that the comparative merits of the different moralities by which poetry is judged, but their equal inadequacy to the reading of the poet’s intention. The moralistic critics wish to isolate and discuss the “ideology” or theme or paraphrase of the poem and not the poem itself. (453)
    4. Art is post-ethical rather than unethical. In the poem there is an increment of meaning which is neither the ethical content nor opposed to the ethical content. (454)
    5. The experience called beauty is beyond the powerful ethical will precisely as it is beyond the animal passion, and indeed these last two are competitive, and coordinate. Under the urgency of either we are incapable of appreciating the statue or understanding the poem. (455)
    6. A poem is, so to speak, a democratic state, whereas a prose discourse—mathematic, scientific, ethical, or practical and vernacular—is a totalitarian state. (456)
    7. Suppose the logical substance remained there all the time, and there was in no way specially remarkable, while the particularity came in by accretion, so that the poem turned out partly universal, and partly particular, but with respect to different parts. The poem was not a mere moment in time, nor a mere point in space. It was sizeable, like a house. Apparently it had a “plan,” or a central frame of logic, but it had also a huge wealth of local detail, which sometimes fitted the plan functionally or served it, and sometimes only subsisted comfortably under it; in either case the house stood up. (457)
    8. A poem is a logical structure having a local texture. (457)
    9. The intent of the good critic becomes therefore to examine and define the poem with respect to its structure and its texture. If he has nothing to say about its texture he has nothing to say about it specifically as a poem, but is treating it only insofar as it is prose. (458)
    10. The final desideratum is an ontological insight, nothing less. (458)
    11. The prose is one-valued and the poem is many-valued. Indeed, there will certainly by poems whose texture contains many precious objects, and aggregates a greater value than the structure. (459)
    12. The most impressive reason for the bolder view of art, the speculative one, is the existence of "pure," or "abstractionist," or nonrepresentational works of art; though these will probably occur to us in other arts than poetry. (459-60)
    13. Music is not music, I think, until we grasp its effects both in structure and in texture. . . . To what then do our feelings respond? To music as structural principles of the world; to modes of structure which we feel to be ontologically possible, or even probable. (460)
    14. The painting is of great ontological interest because it embodies this special dimension of abstract form. And turning to the poem we should find that its represented “meaning” is analogous to the represented object in the painting, which its meter is analogous to the pure design. (463-4)

Undergraduate Assignments

Discussion Board Responses

Article Summary 1: Theory

GeorgiaVIEW Post: You will summarize a particular theorist's essay and post your summary to our course discussion board at GeorgiaVIEW > Discussions > Article Summaries. The summary should

Informal Presentation: You will also be responsible for a brief, informal presentation which introduces the essay by defining key points and terms (without simply reading your written summary) and broaching issues for class discussion.

 

Due Dates:

  1. Your written article summary will be due in GeorgiaVIEW > Discussions > Article Summaries on the Thursday before we discuss an essay in class. If you do not submit your written summary to Blackboard before the article is discussed in class, you will fail the assignment.
  2. Your brief, informal presentation will be due on the day we discuss the essay in class. This date is approximate for we sometimes fall a day behind.
  3. I will return your graded article summary to you in GeorgiaVIEW > Assignments > Summary 1: Theory by the week after we discussed the article in class.
  4. For example, we are scheduled to discuss Felman on Tuesday, 2-3. Therefore, someone's summary will be due in GeorgiaVIEW by Thursdday, 1-29. In class on Thursday, 2-3, that student will informally present the main ideas of Felman's essay. I will return the graded article summary to her the following week in GeorgiaVIEW >Assignments > Summary 1: Theory.

Note: As I wrote on the syllabus course schedule, we may have to slow down for certain theorists and theories. We will not be able to discuss each and every article in class. Thus, some articles may only be summarized on GeorgiaVIEW's Article Summaries discussion board and presented to the class by the person assigned to the article. Therefore, it is extremely important for each person to turn in the summaries on time and attend class for the presentation component. Summaries will be penalized one letter grade for each day, not class period, that they are turned in late. Failing to present the article to the class without providing a valid absence excuse will result in a one letter grade penalty.

 

V8 Due Date Presentation Due Date Reading Student
T, 1-13
R, 1-15
T, 1-13
   
R, 1-15
   
T, 1-20
R, 1-22
T, 1-20
   
R, 1-22
   
R, 1-22
T, 1-27
   
R, 1-29

 

  
R, 1-29
T, 2-3

Theory: Felman, "The Case of Poe"

OR

Theory: Lacan, "Seminar on The Purloined Letter"

  
R, 2-5

Theory: Lacan, "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud"

  
R, 2-5
T, 2-10

Theory: Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"

Mike Demarest
R, 2-12

Theory: Marx, "Manifesto of the Communist Party" AND

Marx, from The German Ideology

 

Spencer Litland
R, 2-12
T, 2-17

Theory: Eagleton, from Marxism and Literary Criticism

 

Kaoru Kobori
R, 2-19

Theory: Horkheimer and Adorno, from "The Culture Industry: Englishtenment as Mass Deception" (online)

 

Lindsey Neely
R, 2-19
T, 2-24

Theory: Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (online)

 

Nancy Tiede
R, 2-26

Theory: Woolf, "Shakespeare's Sister" (Kaplan and Anderson 411-21)

 

Molly Walker
R, 2-26
T, 3-3

Theory: Rich, "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision"

OR

Theory: Smith, "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism"

 

Chelsea Losh
R, 3-5

Theory: Gilbert and Gubar, "Tradition and the Female Talent: Modernism and Masculinism"

 

John Cogsdill
R, 3-5
T, 3-10

Theory: Baym, "Melodramas of Beset Manhood"

 

Michelle Stinson
R, 3-12
   
R, 3-12
T, 3-17

 

  
R, 3-19

 

  
R, 3-19
T, 3-24

No Class: Spring Break

 
R, 3-26

No Class: Spring Break

 
R, 3-31
T, 3-31

Theory: Eco, "The Deconstruction of the Linguistic Sign"

Beth Benton
R, 4-2

Theory: Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"

  
R, 4-2
T, 4-7

Theory: Derrida, "Differance"

  
R, 4-9

Theory: De Man, "Semiology and Rhetoric"

Pamela Cunneen
R, 4-9
T, 4-14

Theory: Johnson, "A Hound, a Bay Horse, and a Turtle Dove: Obscurity in Walden"

Matt Robertson
R, 4-16

Theory: Foucault, "What Is an Author?"

Marina Goddard
R, 4-16
T, 4-21

Theory: Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture"

Sam Pavely
R, 4-23

Theory: Greenblatt, "Shakespeare and the Exorcists"

OR

Theory: Greenblatt, "The Circulation of Social Energy"

  
R, 4-23
T, 4-28

Theory: Hall, "Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms"

  
R, 4-30

 

  

Article Summary 2: Criticism

GeorgiaVIEW Post: You will summarize a critic's interpretive essay, and post your summary to our course discussion board at GeorgiaVIEW > Discussions > Article Summaries.

Informal Presentation: You will also be responsible for a brief, informal presentation which introduces the essay by defining key interpretations and methodologies (without simply reading your written summary) and broaching issues for class discussion.

 

For due dates and late penalties, see above, Summary 1: Theory.

 

V8 Due Date Presentation Due Date Reading Student
R, 1-15
T, 1-20
   
R, 1-22  
   
R, 1-22
T, 1-27

Criticism: Tyson, "'What's Love Got to Do with It?': A Psychoanalytic Reading of The Great Gatsby"

Beth Benton
R, 1-29
   
R, 1-29
T, 2-3
   
R, 2-5

Criticism: Sadoff, "The Father, Castration, and Female Fantasy in Jane Eyre"

OR

Criticism: Williams, "An I for an Eye: 'Spectral Persecution' in 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'"

Michelle Stinson
R, 2-5
T, 2-10

Criticism: Adelman, "'Man and Wife Is One Flesh': Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body

Sam Pavely
R, 2-12

Criticism: Tyson, "You Are What You Own: A Marxist Reading of The Great Gatsby"

Pamela Cunneen
R, 2-12
T, 2-17

Criticism: Fraiman, "Jane Eyre's Fall from Grace"

  
R, 2-19

Criticism: Simpson, "How Marxism Reads 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'"

Robert Galyean
R, 2-19
T, 2-24

Criticism: Bristol, "Funeral-Bak'd-Meats": Carnival and the Carnivalesque in Hamlet"

  
R, 2-26

Criticism: Tyson, "'. . . Next they'll throw everything overboard . . .': A Feminist Reading of The Great Gatsby"

Marina Goddard
R, 2-26
T, 3-3
   
R, 3-5

Criticism: Gilbert, "Plain Jane's Progress"

Matt Robertson
R, 3-5
T, 3-10

Criticism: Showalter, "Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism"

  
R, 3-12

 

  
R, 3-12
T, 3-17

 

  
R, 3-19

 

  
R, 3-19
T, 3-24

No Class: Spring Break

 
R, 3-26

No Class: Spring Break

 
R, 3-26
T, 3-31

Criticism: Tyson, "'. . . The thrilling, returning trains of my youth . . .': A Deconstructive Reading of The Great Gatsby"

Kaoru Kobori
R, 4-2

 

  
R, 4-2
T, 4-7

 

  
R, 4-9

Criticism: Eilenberg, "Voice and Ventriloquy in 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'"

Spencer Litland
R, 4-9
T, 4-14

Criticism: Garber, "Hamlet: Giving Up the Ghost"

Chelsea Losh
R, 4-16

Criticism: Tyson, "The Discourse of the Self-Made Man: A New Historical Reading of The Great Gatsby"

Mike Demarest
R, 4-16
T, 4-21

Criticism: Modiano, "Sameness or Difference? Historicist Readings of 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'"

Lindsey Neely
R, 4-23

Criticism: Michie, "White Chimpanzees and Oriental Despots: Racial Stereotyping and Edward Rochester"

Molly Walker
R, 4-23
T, 4-28

Criticism: Coddon, "'Suche Strange Desygns': Madness, Subjectivity, and Treason in Hamlet and Elizabethan Culture"

John Cogsdill
R, 4-30
   

Criticism Journal

For the criticism journal, you will select a work of literature (a novel, short story, play, long poem, film, or television series) and, throughout the course, interpret it using a variety of methods (psychoanalytical, Marxist, feminist, deconstructive, and New Historical/cultural). Some students have already mentioned Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Chopin's The Awakening as subjects for their criticism journal. For the first entry, due Tuesday, January 27, as a hard copy in class or on an electronic copy on GeorgiaVIEW, write 2-3 typed and double-spaced pages of interpetation of your selected work of literature. Do not apply the classical criticism of Plato, Aristotle, etc. and do not worry about about using theoretical methods like psychoanalysis, Marxism, etc. How do you read and interpret the work of literature green, before you've read theories of criticism?

 

After the initial entry, you will write 2-3 page entries applying each critical theory we study (psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, deconstruction, and New Historicism/cultural studies) the class period after we finish discussing the theory.

 

Due Dates

  1. Initial Entry: Tuesday, January 27 (mandatory)
  2. Psychoanalysis: Thursday, February 12 (strongly suggested)
  3. Marxism: Thursday, February 26 (strongly suggested)
  4. Feminism: Thursday, March 12 (strongly suggested)
  5. Deconstruction: Thursday, April 16 (strongly suggested)
  6. New Historicism/Cultural Criticism: Thursday, April 30 (mandatory: all six entries must be submitted by this date or late penalties will be imposed)

Here's what your fellow classmates are interpreting:

 

Student Work of Literature

Beth Benton

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

John Cogsdill

The Professional

Pamela Cunneen

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Mike Demarest

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

Marina Goddard

Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons

Kaoru Kobori

J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Chelsea Losh

John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

Lindsey Neely

Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

Samantha Pavely

Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong

Matt Robertson

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Michelle Stinson

Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

Nancy Tiede

Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Molly Walker

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Exam 1

The first take-home exam will be composed of two 5-7 page essays. In the first essay, you will define and debate the key terms of how psychoanalysts and Marxists see the world and literature. In the second essay, you will apply psychoanalytic and Marxist methodologies to either a few short poems, a short story or a film.

Exam 2

Final Paper or Theory Presentation

Paper Option

While the criticism journal encouraged you to look at the work of literature from a variety of critical perspectives, and the exams required you theoretically analyze literature in an abbreviated manner, the final paper allows you to write a focused and rigorous, thesis-driven and analytical interpretation of a work of literature of your choice by using and applying one theorist's approach to literature. You may use the work of literature from your criticism journal or choose a new work. You must use a theorist we've read in class, and you must use not only the article we read in class but also an outside essay by the theorist. For example, if you were writing a psychoanalytical interpretation of the Bride and Kill Bill using Laura Mulvey, you would incorporate not only "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema" but also another Mulvey work into your examination. The final paper should not only provide a thorough, thesis-driven reading of the work but also highlight your theoretical understanding. The 6-8 page final paper should not only merge abstract theory and interpretive practice but also constitute your best example of literary criticism in the course. You will informally present to the class a working abstract of your paper on Thursday, April 30.

Presentation Option

Those opting to present a critical theory not covered in the course must

  1. provide an overview of the theory via Tyson,
  2. compare and contrast the selected theory with at least two theories covered in the course,
  3. explain a particular theoretical article in Kaplan and Anderson,
  4. interpret how the general theorist might approach either The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Jane Eyre, or Hamlet,
  5. present for 15-20 minutes and field questions for 10-20 minutes

So the presenters will have an informed audience, it is encouraged and recommended that the class read the Tyson overview and particular Kaplan and Anderson articles.

Graduate Assignments

Presentation

While the undergraduate students are responsible for informally presenting their articles to the class in a 3-5 minute summary of their assigned article, the graduate student is reponsible for teaching (explaining and leading class discussion) the assigned article for approximately 30 minutes.

Criticism Journal

Same as undergraduate Criticism Journal.

Exam 1

Same as undergraduate Exam 1.

Exam 2

Same as undergraduate Exam 2.

Seminar Paper

While the criticism journal encouraged you to look at the work of literature from a variety of critical perspectives, and the exams required you theoretically analyze literature in an abbreviated manner, the seminar paper allows you to write a focused and rigorous, research and analysis-driven interpretation of a work of literature of your choice. You may use the work of literature from your criticism journal or choose a new work.

 

While the undergraduates are applying one theorist and not doing research, the graduate student will integrate into her overarching interpretation at least four contemporary scholarly interpretations of the work of literature and apply at least two theorists' two articles, for a total of at least eight secondary sources. Although both theorists should be of the same critical methodology, one theorist must be from in class reading and one theorist must be chosen from outside our course. For example, if you were writing a psychoanalytical interpretation of the Bride and Kill Bill, you could apply not only Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema" and another work by Mulvey but also two works by Julia Kristeva.

 

The 12-15 page seminar paper should not only provide a thorough, thesis-driven reading of the work but also highlight your theoretical understanding as well as your literary research skills. The final paper should not only merge abstract theory and interpretive practice but also constitute your best example of literary criticism in the course, one that is worthy of being presented to colleagues at a literature conference.

 

© Alex E. Blazer 2024