The Organization of the Course

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Words to Ponder:


“Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?”

Harold Bloom

“A blank page is actually a whitewashed wall with no door and no window. Beginning to tell a story is like making a pass at a total stranger in a restaurant. Remember Chekhov’s Gurov in “The Lady with the dog”? Gurov beckons to the little dog, wagging his finger at it over and over again, until the lady says, blushing, “ He doesn’t bite”, whereupon Gurov asks her permission to give the dog a bone. Both Gurov and Chekhov have now been given a thread to go by; the flirtation begins and story takes off.
The beginning of almost every story is actually a bone, something with which to court the dog, which may bring you closer to the lady.”

Amos Oz

Modus Operandi

Approach:

The emphasis of the course will not be on information, but on finding our critical individual voice for evaluating and understanding the American literary experience that spans over five centuries. Genuine American literature has been to a large extent a pioneer experience. It has been the expression of a necessity to arrive at a unique personal account vis à vis the surrounding universe. Emerson in his famous essay Self Reliance exhorts his readers to “judge for yourself” and Emily Dickinson promotes the individual “house” of human consciousness that is able “to support itself”. This attitude is at the core of the American experience. To thoroughly come to terms with this viewpoint, one needs at the end to stand on one’s own intellectual feet and judge for oneself.


Evaluation:

1) Diary: An ongoing record based on a short summary of authors and concepts discussed in the class plus one or two paragraphs of personal comments and criticism at the end of each entry. Neatness and legibility is important.

2) Round Table: Students will be responsible for working together on various topics. Round tables last between ten to fifteen minutes. A team of four students can work together on a topic and offer a joint presentation.

3) Short essays of around 200 words.

4) Regular attendance and active participation in the discussions.


A word of caution: Use of secondary material without providing the source will be considered plagiarism.


Recommended Texts:

1) An Outline of American Literature by Peter B. High, Longman, 1986
2) An Introduction to American Literature: time present and time past, Françoise Grellet, Hachette, 2000
3) La Littérature américaine par Dominique Lescanne, Langues Pour Tous, 2004
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Practical Criticism

Practical Criticism is a close reading of a text and writing an evaluation of that text based on first hand evidence.