COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course will look at such issues as
gender relations and constructions of human and divine authority in
17th-century literature. We will read both recent (20th-century) and
contemporary (16th/17th-century) "secondary" texts that engage with
the above-mentioned issues as they are found in such "primary" texts
as Hamlet, Othello, Paradise Lost, and selections from the most
widely-read text of the English 17th-century, the King James Bible. We
will make use of a variety of critical approaches to literature and
culture, with a special emphasis on New Historicist, Psychoanalytic,
and Feminist perspectives.
"Primary" texts will include—William
Shakespeare:
Hamlet
(Bedford Critical Edition),
Othello
(Signet); John Milton:
Paradise Lost, Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates, Doctrine and Discipline of
Divorce, (Oxford Authors Edition);
King James Bible (Job, a
selection from Judges).
"Secondary" texts will include—Carl
Jung: Answer to Job; Stephen Greenblatt: Renaissance Self-Fashioning (selections); Sigmund Freud (brief selection from Interpretation of
Dreams); Diane K. McColley: “Milton and the Sexes” (short
article); Mary Nyquist, "Gendered Subjectivity…” (short article);
Mieke Bal:
Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges
(selection); Michael Bryson,
“Dismemberment and Community…” (short article); as well as critical
essays on New Historicist, Psychoanalytic, and Feminist approaches to
literature, and selections from political and theological writings of
the 16th/17th centuries.
Note: Some of the readings are in
HTML or PDF formats. Print these readings out and bring them to class
when we are considering them.
EVALUATION METHOD:
Class participation (including two short presentations done in teams
of two--about 5-10 minutes in
which you both introduce and question the assumptions at
work in critical material); one short paper (5
pages, due end of Week 6) one slightly longer paper (8 pages, due noon
Thursday of Finals week).
Weekly Preview
Week 1
Introductions
Week 2
Day 1) Hamlet
Day 2)
-
Freud (HTML file)
- A Critical History, 190-193 (section
on Freud's interpretation from Bedford Hamlet)
- Psychoanalytic Criticism (from
Bedford Hamlet)
- Adelman (from Bedford Hamlet)
- Presentation #1—Adelman
Week 3
Day 1) Othello
Day 2)
Week 4
Job
Week 5
Day 1)
Day 2)
Paper #1
(5 pages, due end of Week 6)
Do a "reading of the readings." Picking from Hamlet, Othello, and Job,
write an essay in which you analyze the perspectives offered by the
critical material. How does the criticism illuminate and/or obfuscate
the text it works with?
Week 6
Day 1)
Day 2)
Week 7
Day 1) Paradise Lost 7-12
Day 2)
Week 8
Day 1)
- Feminist Criticism (from Bedford
Hamlet)
- McColley "Milton
and the Sexes" (PDF file)
- Presentation #7—McColley
Day 2)
Week 9
Day 1) Judges 19-21
Day 2) Bal,
selection from Death and Dissymmetry (PDF
file);
Bryson, "Dismemberment and Community" What kind of
approaches are these?
Paper #2
(8 pages, due noon Thursday of Finals week)
Picking from Paradise Lost, Judges, Hamlet,
Othello, and Job (basically, whatever you did not work with
last time), write an essay in which you analyze the perspectives
offered by the critical material. How does the criticism illuminate
and/or obfuscate the text it works with? If you argue against a
critic/critical perspective (often a fruitful exercise), explain—and
demonstrate—how you approach the text. This is your turn at
being a literary critic.
