Genre: Advanced Topics

Study of works drawn from a specific literary genre or subgenre. Examples include Confessional Poetry, The Early Novel and Revenge Tragedy.

Current Semester Information

392A: Tps:The Bildungsroman

Genre: Advanced Topics: The Bildungsroman

A type of novel that follows the formative years of its protagonist, the "Bildungsroman" invites us to think at length and in depth about what it may mean to become educated (since "education" is one way of translating the German word "Bildung"). In this course we will examine stories of various characters' intellectual and emotional growth (or their arrested development, to use a contemporary phrase) as it pertains to their social ambitions, political consciousness, and sexual experiences. We will begin with Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship", from 1796 (commonly considered the prototype of the genre), and include, among others, an almost 600 page novel, Charlotte Bronte's "Villette" (from 1853) as well as a 1995 graphic novel, "V for Vendetta", by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

392B: Tps:UnreliableNarrators

Genre: Advanced Topics: Narrative Conundrum and Unreliable Narrators

What difference does it make who is telling the story and why? We will survey a range of narrative conventions (many of which started as "inventions") looking at novels, some classic, some just published, to examine the problems of what have been called "reliable/unreliable" narrators. What are artistic and philosophical implications of perspective? Is there ever really a reliable narrator? Some readings will include: "The Good Soldier" (Ford), Edgar Allen Poe short stories, "The Counterfeiters" (Gide), "A Lost Lady" (Cather), "Wuthering Heights" (Bronte), "Old School" (Woolfe), "Under the Feet of Jesus" (Viramontes).