EN 133.12 Studies in Narrative (Spring 2011-2012: 3)
This course introduces students to questions, terms, and tools that they
might bring to the study of narrative works, primarily novels and short
stories. This section of the course has three units. In "Suspense, Plot,
Narrative," we will focus on detective fiction (by Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar
Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and Booker-prize winner John Banville), a
genre that emphasizes the mechanics of plot and the pleasures of reading.
In "Consciousness and Narration," we will analyze two novels (Jane Austen's
Emma and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway) in great detail, dissecting the
many ways Austen and Woolf use language to depict and create consciousness.
Finally, in a section on "Writing a Research Paper," our focus will be
a meditation on both suspense and consciousness, Robert Louis Stevenson's
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We will practice conducting library
research, and putting Stevenson's novella in conversation with biographical
material, the novel's early reviews, nineteenth-century theories of the
mind and psychology, cultural history from the period, and other literary
critical approaches. This, like all sections of "Studies in Narrative,"
is a writing-intensive course.
Maia McAleavey
Last Updated: 12-OCT-11