The third- and fourth-year students must take this course. Be sure to record this course on the registration form.

This course will help to prepare students for graduate school writing about literature, and thus will provide practice in critical reading, outlining, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, presenting and organizing an argument or analysis, formatting, and multiple drafting. Language use will be focused on throughout all types of practice. The instructor will give close responses of various types to student writing, including individual conferences. Assignments will include a position paper, article review, position paper with documented support, evaluation of an MA thesis, and various exercises.

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There is no description for this course. Please feel free to contact the teacher if you have any questions.

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COURSE OBJECTIVE:

This course will acquaint students with important developments in British fiction in the early twentieth century. To observe this development we shall study John Galsworth's The Man of Property (1906) as an example of 'Middle-brow' literature and of Realism in British fiction. Contrasting with it are the works of the modernist writers such as James and Conrad, who introduced modernism into British fiction, Ford Madox Ford, Joyce, Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, and E.M. Forster. We shall study Conrad's Under Western Eyes, V. Woolf's To the Lighthouse, D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love, and E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. Besides illustrating developments in fiction writing, these works show up contemporary developments of British and European history and thought. By studying these novels, students will become acquainted with these developments, gain insight into the concerns of the chosen novelists, and, hopefully, acquire sensitivity and perception in the reading of fiction.

REQUIREMENTS:

Close reading of the assigned texts will be basic for arriving at an appreciation of the novelists and their art and for the enjoyment of the course. Students will be expected to write two position papers (three to five pages) and a term paper (twelve to fifteen pages).

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Important volumes of American poetry were published in the 1920s, and in many ways criticism has only recently come to terms with those books and begun to offer new and helpful points of entry. In this course we will read six books of poetry published during the 20s, spending two to three weeks on each book. We will also examine each book from the perspective of one strand of literary criticism. We will begin by reading T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) in terms of New Criticism, followed by William Carlos Williams' Spring and All (1923) in terms of cultural studies, the Anglo-American poet Mina Loy's Lunar Baedeker (1923) in terms of feminist criticism, Hart Crane's first book of poems, White Buildings (1926) in light of recent queer theory/gay studies, Langston Hughes' Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927) in terms of African-American criticism, and conclude with Carl Sandburg's Good Morning, American (1928) in terms of Marxist criticism.

Because this will be a seminar course, most of our class time will be spent in discussion. Each student will be responsible for two in-class presentations and will have the option of doing two medium length papers-the first due at mid-term-or one longer paper due at the end of the semester.

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We will deal with the two main areas of surviving medieval dramatic texts, the plays of the organized religious drama: firstly, the Mystery Cycles, and secondly, the Morality plays and Interludes. The division is based more upon the methods of presentation and function of the drama rather than on chronology or evolution. In late fifteenth-century England it would have been equally possible to witness a performance of the York, Chester, Conventry or Towneley-Wakefield Mystery Cycle, The Castle of Perseverance, Mankind, Everyman, Fulgens and Lucrece, a Saint's play, a Robin Hood play, a civic pageant for a royal entry into a city, a liturgical play during a church service, a Mummer's Play or a trickery or misogyny-based turn performed by a solo actor or touring group of entertainers. It should not be thought that one kind of drama died out and evolved into or was substituted by another and it should be borne in mind that all types were thereby open to influence from one another. By reading these religious plays we come to some understanding of life and thought in the medieval period and of the development, change and continuity in English drama to the Renaissance and later periods.

Requirement: Emphasis will be on close reading and analysis of the assigned texts. Students will be responsible for a) oral presentation on assigned topics on the background to our readings or portions of the readings; b) active class discussions; c) two papers.

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The first half of the 20th century witnessed vigorous growth in an American literary genre we might term naturalistic fiction. Here writers offered realistic portraits of characters and life situations which focused on psychological motivations for human behavior and criticism of social norms seen as sentimentalized or unthinkingly traditional. For these reasons, early 20th century fiction was sometimes viewed as shocking, perhaps even unacceptable. In retrospect we are now able to appreciate its honest, unflinching view of life's dilemmas. The purpose of this course is to guide students as they move from early samples of naturalistic fiction to a more genteel version in the form of work by someone like, for example, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Among the texts to be discussed are the following: Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, and perhaps Richard Wright's Native Son, and several short stories by Katherine Anne Porter. Students will be expected to participate vigorously in class, keep a regular literary journal in which they offer personal reflections/analysis of the works, and write a 15-20 page thematic paper for the end of the course.

709. 中國文學：韻文專題／2 credits／廖棟樑 老師
       01:40-03:30 p.m., Friday

課程目標：

    本課程宗旨在探討中國古代韻文的成素與常規，闡明韻文的歷史變遷；提昇學生鑑賞分析之素養；繼而，期待學生關心、明瞭中國文化的深層內運，俾與現代人生關聯呼應；同時，要求學生透過自身的西洋韻文知識，尋求對話，嘗試中外比較之研究。

課程內容：

    通過定點上的橫斷與歷史發展上的縱貫的交互運用，清楚說明中國古代韻文的歷史事實。
    首先，我們的起點是認定文學是一種語言的藝術：「語言文字」是它的本質，「藝術」則是它的目的與效用。緣此，經由作品的實證分析，走向比較、分析眾多作品所體現的相同或相異的整體結構，再從這種結構的異同裡規範出韻文形式所獨具的表現模式、美感設計與美學目的。同時，以之觀照韻文在中國傳統文化的架構裡具有怎樣的一種特質，如何反映中國民族心態的形貌。
    其次，按照現代文學理論的觀點，主題乃是文學作品的中心觀念，或支配性觀念，它處於作品結構的意義層面的核心，既內屬於個別作家，又超出個別作家的範圍，成為整個文學傳統的組成部份。在此，我們選擇若干主題來勾勒韻文所呈示的某些精神面貌。
    循此，本課程內容為：

緒論：課程介紹
詩言志：論抒情精神與抒情傳統
原興：論形象與情意的關係
形式與意義：論中國古代韻文的形式與抒情特質
格律：論中國古代韻文語言的圖案化結構
典故與詩眼：論中國古代韻文中的特殊詞匯
詩無達詁：論韻文的鑑賞
死亡：中國古代韻文的主題之一
情愛：中國古代韻文的主題之二－兼論比興寄託說
隱逸：中國古代韻文的主題之三
思鄉：中國古代韻文的主題之四
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課外討論地點：文學院研究大樓308室