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Academic Year 2004/2005

Fragments
ENGL 347 SP

This is a course about small pieces of language: aphorisms, epigrams, quotations, footnotes, anecdotes. These short forms proliferate in the 18th century in big books made of small parts (dictionaries, encyclopedias, anthologies), in philosophical systems based on "monads" or atomic facts, in the related discourses of science and pornography that fragment and disperse the human body, in histories that focus on the ruins of old civilizations, and in diaries that minutely observe everyday life.

MAJOR READINGS

Readings may include diaries by Pepys, Boswell, and Burney; histories by Aubrey and Gibbon; aphorisms by Rochefoucauld, Swift, Franklin, and Lichtenberg; forgeries by Macpherson and Chatterton; definitions from Johnson's dictionary; entries from encyclopedias; philosophical writings by Leibniz, Hume, and Vico; and anomalous works such as Smart's poem JUBILATE AGNO and Sade's novel 120 DAYS OF SODOM.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Frequent short writing assignments; final paper.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course meets the department's pre-1800 requirement.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: ENGL201 Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005

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