Intermediate Courses: World Literature

(in English and translation; literature courses in other languages are included in the Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures section)

Literature of the Bible An introduction to the narratives and imagery of the Old and New Testaments, this course is designed to help students appreciate one of the major influences on Western literary tradition. A study of biblical myths, poetry, saga, epic, drama, folk tales, proverbs, parables, and short stories can increase awareness of our rich literary heritage and enhance comprehension and enjoyment of all other literature.

Faithful Thinkers: Emerson, Goethe, Thoreau, Barfield In proposing the concept of the “faithful thinker” in 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed what he believed to be the limitations of traditional science and religion as ways of understanding the world. Unfortunately, he never tried to develop the epistemological basis for his concept or found a way to put his theory into practice. Others, however, did. In his botanical studies, as well as his studies of light and color, the German writer and naturalist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe systematically developed a preliminary methodology of faithful thinking, which he called “exact sensorial imagination.” Indebted to both Goethe and Emerson, Henry David Thoreau’s natural history writing illustrates the philosophic, literary, and scientific consequences of looking at the natural world with their ideas and methods in mind. Finally, the work of the 20th-century English philosopher Owen Barfield articulates the historical and epistemological bases for faithful thinking and indicates various practical consequences stemming from its application to contemporary problems. A study of their literary, philosophical, and scientific writings can add a new dimension to our understanding of Romanticism, both past and present. In addition to studying key works by these four writers, we will briefly look at some instances and explorations of “faithful thinking” among contemporary writers and scientists (e.g., Arthur Zajonc, Craig Holdredge, David Seamon, Henri Bortoft).

Literary Christianity This course offers students a forum where Christian themes can be studied in various literary genres, not as articles of faith but as complex issues that require further exploration and discussion. By examining some personal, literary, and theological dimensions of these themes, we should be able to arrive at a fuller understanding of the meaning and purpose of human life as it is expressed within a Christian literary context. Readings include works by Frederick Buechner, Graham Greene, C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Shusaku Endo, George MacDonald, T.S. Eliot, G.K. Chesterton, William Blake, as well as selections from the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, George Herbert, Wallace Stevens, and others.

Cultural Perspectives
The Spider’s Web: Contemporary Fiction of North Africa & Mideast Although in the Qur’an, “the spider’s web” is identified as the “frailest of all houses” and the abode of “those who choose other patrons than Allah” for the purposes of this course, the phrase refers not merely to the secular nature of the works studied but more importantly to the fragile beauty of the craftsmanship of the novels considered; the complexity of the human experience depicted; the intricate interweaving of public and private, secular and spiritual, tragedy and triumph to be found in these works; and yet again to the resiliency and enduring strength of the Semitic peoples. The focus of our discussions will be on the particular concerns and techniques of each individual work, but the course also aims to enrich our understanding of Middle Eastern peoples and cultures. Works of the following writers will be among those considered for inclusion in the course: Abdelrahman Munif (Jordan/Saudi Arabia), Tayeb Salih (Sudan), Amos Oz (Israel), Ghassan Kanafani (Palestine), Orhan Pamuk and Moris Farhi (Turkey), Yasmina Khadra and Tahar Djaout (Algeria), Nawal El-Saadawi, Naguib Mahfouz, and Ahdaf Soueif (Egypt), Mohamed Choukri (Morocco), and Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan).

Romantic Visionaries Romanticism emerged in Europe and England during the political and social upheavals of the late 18th- and early 19th-centuries. Many of its adherents saw it as a psychological and spiritual correlative to these changes in the world order. Although the definitions of Romanticism have always been complex, prompting ongoing debate among critics and historians as to its nature and meaning, it remains true that in various forms it has had a significant impact on the literature of the past 200 years. This course focuses on a particular aspect of Romanticism: the expression of “visionary” states of consciousness—their nature and significance— by various Romantic writers both early and modern. Readings include essays, short stories, novels, plays, and poetry selected from such writers as Goethe, Novalis, Hoffmann, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Shelleys, Emerson, Morris, MacDonald, Yeats, Rilke, Hesse, Williams, and Ginsberg.

The Labyrinth of Being: Russian Writers of the 19th Century The 19th-century is recognized as the golden age of Russian literature, and the excellence of the fiction of that period is beyond dispute. The novels and short stories of the era are exquisitely crafted and are lyrical and exuberant, ironic and despairing by turns; they are full of the mystery and passion, the bitter complexities of human life. The survey will include works by Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Pushkin and Chechov.

Modern Drama : From Realism to the Absurd An intensive examination of writers, theories, and movements of 19th- and 20th-century drama. Authors, texts, and subjects differ each time the course is taught, and may include the works of writers such as Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Strindberg, Pirandello, Lorca, O’Neill, Beckett, Brecht, Sartre, Genet, Ionesco, Pinter, Miller, Williams, Albee, Shepard, Mamet, and Stoppard.

The 19th-Century Novel: Inventing Reality This course examines major works of realism and naturalism by 19th-century American, European, and Russian novelists in their social and political contexts. Novels are selected from the works of writers such as Austen, Balzac, Conrad, Crane, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Dreiser, Eliot, Flaubert, Gogol, Hardy, James, Norris, Sinclair, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Twain, and Zola.

Five Books of Moses: Hermeneutics and the Hebrew Bible Hermeneutics can be understood as the art of interpretation of sacred scripture. What is the meaning of a text? How can that meaning be illuminated? What is the author’s intent? What are the questions one must ask when the author is divine? This course will center on the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These five books offer richly textured and intricately woven motifs, powerful inner structures of sound, echoes, allusions, repetitions, and complex narrative and rhetorical force. Further, ideas of primeval history, patriarchy, deliverance, law, sacrifice, ritual, holiness, rebellion, and the covenant find their home here. Over the last 20 years there has been an explosion of literary study of the Hebrew Bible, and we will do both a close reading of the text and an examination of some of the theoretical issues which are fundamental to it. We will read secondary literature by biblical scholars such as Harold Bloom, Leslie Brisman, Martin Buber, Mary Douglas, Everett Fox, Joel Rosenberg, and Gershom Scholem, and by creative writers such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, John Milton, and William Blake.

Cultural Perspectives
Religion and Literature This course will focus on religious traditions, particularly in America, Europe, and the Middle East. We will examine texts from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for their artistic expression and for the ways in which they address issues of religious belief and experience. We will read the Torah and the Koran, interpreted in their entirety, and we will read selected parts of the Christian Bible. Further, we will examine classic and contemporary art and literature which spring from these primary sources, and we will write both creatively and theoretically about such themes as salvation, sin, creation, holy war, mysticism, law, and retribution.

Cultural Perspectives
20th-Century Latin American Novel in Translation In recent years, the novelists of Latin America have been widely known and acclaimed. The best-known is doubtless Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, but others, such as Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, Juan Rulfo, Alejo Carpentier, and Ernesto Sábato have established an important tradition in contemporary Latin American fiction. In this course, novels by these authors are read critically, with special attention given to the theme of cultural identity and to the historical and political reality of Latin America. (This course is also offered, using the texts in the original language, as Spanish 313 CP.)

Cultural Perspectives
Nature and Literature This course examines various literary responses to the natural world, both as works of art and as expressions of different cultural beliefs and values (e.g., Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, Laguna Pueblo, Blackfeet, American Transcendentalist, Christian). Among the writers typically studied are Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Matsuo Basho, William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Faulkner, Annie Dillard, Peter Matthiessen, Margaret Atwood, and Mary Oliver. Students have the opportunity to do some of their own nature writing in addition to pursuing critical explorations of writers and issues.

Twenty-first Century Fiction This course will focus on novels and short story collections published in the past 10 years, exploring the forms and concerns of fiction in English from North America, Ireland, Britain, Africa, India, and Australia. While the focus will be on students developing their own reading of each text, the class will also read reviews and criticism in order to examine how critical opinion forms around a book in the months and years after it is published. Writers considered in the class may include: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Deborah Eisenberg, Jonathan Safran Foer, Aleksandar Hemon, Uzodinma Iweala, Edward P. Jones, Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwen, Alice Munro, Marilynne Robinson, Chris Ware, Colson Whitehead, and others. Students are required to read a novel a week.

Herman Hesse Seminar Although he was awarded the Nobel Prize as early as 1946, it was only during the 1960s that Hermann Hesse was discovered in the United States, where he soon became a cult figure. Hesse’s exploration of Indian and Chinese philosophy, his refusal to comply with the values of mainstream society, and his consistent preoccupation with spirituality are only some of the aspects of his writings that appeal to a holistic, nonconformist audience. All of Hesse’s heroes are intensely involved with discovering their true self and achieving inner peace. In this course, students will read Hesse’s tales and his best-known novels, Underneath the Wheel, Siddhartha, Demian, Steppenwolf, Klingsor’s Last Summer, and The Glass Bead Game.

The Stories of Franz Kafka The focus of this course is on the shorter prose writings by Franz Kafka. Students will read and analyze Description of a Struggle (1904-5), The Judgment (1913), Metamorphosis (1915), The Country Doctor (1916), A Report to an Academy (1917), The Great Wall of China (1917), Letter to the Father (1919), In the Penal Colony (1919), A Hunger Artist (1924), and Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk (1924). They will also learn more about Kafka’s life and the circumstances that shaped his writing.

Postwar German Literature in Translation This course will examine developments in German literature following World War II. Topics to be considered will include the various ways that writers of the period dealt with the historical atrocities of the war itself, the issues attached to both the guilt and suffering of the Holocaust, the increased industrialization brought on by the German “economic miracle” of the 1950s, the separation and reunification of the two Germanys, and the forwarding of philosophical and aesthetic approaches to poetry and the novel in the contemporary work of West Germany, East Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Writers discussed will include Günther Grass, Heinrich Böll, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Wolfgang Koeppen, Max Frisch, Thomas Bernhard, Christa Wolf, and Peter Handke.

Cultural Perspectives
Women, Writing, and Resistance in Latin America This course considers a diverse range of novels, short stories, poetry, essays, testimonials, and autobiography by Hispanic women writers of North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Questions of authority and resistance, gender and race, and class politics, as well as postcolonial issues, are discussed as they pertain to particular works. Readings include I, Rigoberta Menchu by the 1992 Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner; testimonials by women involved with the resistance movements in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Argentina; feminist/antiracist works by Chicana activists Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa; novels by such writers as Cristina Garcia, Rosario Castellanos, Helena Viramontes, and others. We will also see a series of related films. Students will do independent research on topics related to the readings, and will write up their findings in an extended inquiry log project.

Women Novelists Unlike poetry and drama—with their long history as high art forms written almost exclusively by men and for men— the novel emerged as a form in the 18th century, and from the start it dealt with women’s concerns and experience, catered to women readers, and was a source of livelihood for women writers. This course surveys a range of novels by women, from Aphra Behn’s pathbreaking Orinooko to Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. Selections vary from year to year, and the emphasis is on variety rather than comprehensiveness.

French Film and Literature in Translation By viewing the films of many prominent French directors and by reading (in translation) the literary texts (novels, scripts, plays) upon which they were based, this course analyzes the relation between the literary works and cinema. (Other arts and media such as painting and music will also be addressed.) All films have subtitles. Students are encouraged to read literary works in the original language, whenever possible. No prerequisites.

Tears, Fears & Laughter: Greek Tragedy and Comedy The drama of the Greeks has always been considered one of the highpoints of Western literature. We will investigate this drama primarily by reading—in English translation—and discussing many of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles (but not the Oedipus plays read in Seminar) and Euripides, as well as the comedies of Aristophanes and the one which remains of the later poet Menander. We will consider theories concerning the origins of drama, in particular tragedy, and also the relationships among tragedy, comedy, and the mysterious satyr play. The major dramatists wrote in the fifth century in Athens, and an understanding of the conditions of production will provide insights into the plays. Such topics include: How and by whom were the plays chosen? Where and when were they performed, and who were the actors? What theatrical conventions existed and how did they help to determine what the playwright could do? What was the function of the chorus? Could Aristophanes really slander politicians and private citizens at will? How would an Athenian audience have reacted to the anti-war sentiments expressed during wartime constantly by Aristophanes and occasionally by Euripides (e.g., The Trojan Women)? I trust there will be sufficient Thespian interest to allow us to act out, or even stage, individual scenes, to test how one might embody different interpretations given the conventions and constraints.