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ENGL330
Narratives, Novels and Society
ENGL330 SP
Next Offered in 9899 SP
This course will examine how the development of narrative
theory since the 1960s has influenced the study of the
novel. At stake are a number of fundamental questions
about how we understand the relationship of literature to
society and politics. The development of the novel as a
litrary genre runs parallel to the formation of bourgeois
society. But "narrative," as Roland Barthes describes it,
"is present in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic,
history, tragedy .... narrative is international,
transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like
life itself." How can "transcultural" models of narrative
be employed to understand the culturally specific concerns
and techniques of the novel? How is the culturally-situated
content of a novel affected by its narrative structure?
What are the ideological and critical implications of
maintaining -- or dismantling -- distinctions between
fictional narrative and historical or journalistic
narrative? In what sense was the development of the
semiotic study of narrative also an attack on popular and
realist fiction? Do "experimental" or avant-gardist novels
escape the ideological implications of "bourgeois"
narrative? We will read a selection of theoretical works
as well as a novel or two (to be chosen by the class at the
beginning of the semester) which will serve as case studies
for class discussion.
MAJOR READINGS
Armstrong, Nancy, selection from DESIRE and
DOMESTIC FICTION
Auerbach, Erich, selection from MIMESIS
Bakhtin, M.M., "The Problem of Speech Genres"; selections
from THE DIALOGIC IMAGINATION
Barthes, Roland: "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of
Narratives"; S/Z
Benjamin Walter: "The Storyteller"
Echevarria, Roberto Gonzalez: selection from MYTH AND
ARCHIVE
Frye, Northrop. "Myth, Fiction and Displacement"
Jameson, Fredric: selection from THE POLITICAL UNCONSCIOUS
Genette, Gerard: selection from NARRATIVE DISCOURSE
Goldmann, Lucien: selection from TOWARDS A SOCIOLOGY OF THE
NOVEL
Levi-Strauss, Claude: "The Structural Study of Myth"
Lukacs, Georg: "Narrate or Describe?"
McHale, Brian: selection from POSTMODERNIST FICTION
McKeon, Michael: selection from THE ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH
NOVEL
Moretti, Franco: selection from SIGNS TAKEN FOR WONDERS
Ricoeur, Paul: selection from TIME AND NARRATIVE
EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS
Five short response papers,
one class presentation, one longer final paper.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS
This course counts
toward the department's Theory requirement.
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting
or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the
first class, they will be dropped from the class list.
NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form
to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion Lecture
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Level: UG Credit: 1.00
Gen Ed Area & Dept: HA ENGL
Prerequisites:
None
Last Updated on MAR-03-1998
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459