READING SCHEDULE FOR E300 ANALYSIS OF LITERARY FORMS
CSU FULLERTON, FALL 2014

*2023 Note: Links and most procedural information have been removed from this archival copy, leaving mainly the assigned editions and the reading schedule.

COURSE INFORMATION. English 300, Course Code 16446, Section 80. MW 4:00 – 5:15 p.m., Irvine Campus (IRVC) 120. Instructor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. Office hours: MW 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in IRVC  239. Email: e300_at_ajdrake.com. Catalog: “Main literary forms – prose fiction, poetry and drama – are studied and analyzed. English majors should schedule this basic course as early as possible. Units: (3).”

REQUIRED TEXTS AT IRVINE CAMPUS BOOKSTORE

Booth, Alison and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Shorter Eleventh Edition. New York: Norton, 2012. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-0393913392.

Appelbaum, Stanley, ed. English Romantic Poetry: an Anthology. Dover, 1996. ISBN-13: 978-0486292823.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Modern Library, 2001. ISBN-13: 978-0375756887.

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Dover, 1990. ISBN 13: 978-0486264783

SCHEDULE: WORKS DISCUSSED ON DATES INDICATED

WEEK 1 FICTION

M. 08/25. Course Introduction.

W. 08/27. Norton Chapter 1: Plot. Read this chapter’s introductory material (82-89). Guy de Maupassant. “The Jewelry” (90-95). Edith Wharton. “Roman Fever” (118-28).

WEEK 2 FICTION

M. 09/01. Labor Day Holiday, No Classes.

W. 09/03. Chapter 2. Narration and Point of View: read this chapter’s introductory material (160-64). Edgar Allan Poe. “The Cask of Amontillado” (164-70). Jamaica Kincaid. “Girl” (170-71).

WEEK 3 FICTION

M. 09/08. Norton Chapter 3. Character: read this chapter’s introductory material (180-87). David Foster Wallace’s “Good People” (215-20); Toby Litt’s “The Monster” (241-43). Norton Chapter 4. Setting: read this chapter’s introductory material (245-51). Anton Chekhov. “The Lady with the Dog” (251-62).

W. 09/10. Norton Chapter 5. Symbol and Figurative Language: read this chapter’s introductory material (285-90). Edwige Danticat. “A Wall of Fire Rising” (317-29).

WEEK 4 FICTION

M. 09/15. Special Focus on Fyodor Dostoevsky. Read Norton Introductory material on Theme (Ch. 6, 334-38). We will in part discuss this aspect of literary texts though Fyodor Dostoevsky. Read Notes from the Underground (Modern Library 95-215).

W. 09/17. Special Focus on Fyodor Dostoevsky. Read Norton Introductory material on Theme (Ch. 6, 334-38). We will in part discuss this aspect of literary texts though Fyodor Dostoevsky. Read Notes from the Underground (Modern Library 95-215).

WEEK 5 FICTION

M. 09/22. Special Focus, continued: Fyodor Dostoevsky. “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” (Modern Library 263-86).

W. 09/24. “The Author’s Work as Context: Flannery O’Connor” (Norton 419-22). “Good Country People” (Norton 433-47).

WEEK 6 POETRY

M. 09/29. Norton Introductory Material on Poetry, Chapter 10 (618-36). Special Focus: English Romanticism. William Blake. Read Blake selections from Songs of Innocence & of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Dover 1-22, also see question set for links to the two extra Innocence & Experience poems not available in Dover).

W. 10/01. Special Focus: English Romanticism. From Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1802: read only these brief excerpts. Read also in the Dover edition: “We Are Seven” (23-25); “She dwelt among the untrodden ways” (31-32); “A slumber did my spirit seal” (32); “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (43-44); “The Solitary Reaper” (42); “My heart leaps up when I behold” (35).

WEEK 7 POETRY

M. 10/06. Special Focus: English Romanticism. Read in the Dover edition: “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour. July 13, 1798” (25-29); “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” (51-57).

W. 10/08. Special Focus: English Romanticism. From English Romantic Poetry: an Anthology (Dover): Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (63-81); “Frost at Midnight” (100-01); “Kubla Khan” (105-06); “Dejection: An Ode” (106-10).

WEEK 8 POETRY

M. 10/13. Special Focus: English Romanticism. From English Romantic Poetry: an Anthology (Dover): Percy Bysshe Shelley. “Ozymandias” (147); “Ode to the West Wind” (151-53); “To a Skylark” (157-59).

W. 10/15. Special Focus: English Romanticism. From English Romantic Poetry: an Anthology (Dover): John Keats. “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” (189); “To Autumn” (222-23); “Ode to a Nightingale” (216-18); “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (218-20).

WEEK 9 POETRY

M. 10/20. Special Focus: Modernist Poetry. W.B. Yeats. William Butler Yeats: an Album (Norton 955-965).

W. 10/22. Special Focus: Modernist Poetry. Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot. Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (Norton 1102), “The River Merchant’s Wife: a Letter” (Norton 753). T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Norton 1087-90).

WEEK 10 POETRY

M. 10/27. Poetry as Form and Foregrounded Language. Norton Chapters 13-16, etc. Emily Dickinson: “Because I could not stop for Death” (Norton 807); Edgar Allan Poe: “The Raven” (Norton 838); W.C. Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow” (Norton 796), “This is Just to Say” (Norton 797); Gerard Manley Hopkins: “Pied Beauty” (Norton 798), “God’s Grandeur” (Norton 1094), “The Windhover” (Norton 1095); E.E. Cummings: “in Just” (Norton 1081); “The Twenty-Third Psalm” (Norton 810).

W. 10/29. Poetry as Form and Foregrounded Language. Norton Chapters 13-16, etc. Wilfred Owen: “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Norton 1101); Robert Frost: “Design” (Norton 898), “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (Norton 1091); Shakespeare: “Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame” (Norton 868); Archibald MacLeish: “Ars Poetica” (Norton 700); Alfred Tennyson: “Ulysses” (Norton 990); Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess” (Norton 1078).

WEEK 11 DRAMA

M. 11/03. Sophocles. Antigone (Norton – read “Elements of Drama” 1180-89 and as much of the play from 1563-97 as possible). Today we will watch a film production.

W. 11/05. Sophocles. Antigone (Norton 1563-97). Discussion of the text.

WEEK 12 DRAMA

M. 11/10. William Shakespeare. Introduction to Shakespeare’s life, times, language and craft as a playwright. No assigned reading — I may bring in a few sonnets and other brief texts as examples. In the following meetings, I will also show brief clips of selected scenes from the play.

W. 11/12. William Shakespeare. Hamlet Act 1 (Norton 1363-85).

WEEK 13 DRAMA

M. 11/17. William Shakespeare. Hamlet Acts 2-3 (Norton 1385-1424).

W. 11/19. William Shakespeare. Hamlet Acts 4-5 (Norton 1424-58).

WEEK 14 DRAMA

M. 11/24. Thanksgiving Holiday, No Classes.

W. 11/26. Thanksgiving Holiday, No Classes.

WEEK 15 DRAMA

M. 12/01. Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest (Dover 1-54). Today we will watch a film production.

W. 12/03. Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest (Dover 1-54). Discussion of the text.

WEEK 16 DRAMA

M. 12/08. Lorraine Hansberry. A Raisin in the Sun (Norton). Today we will watch part of a film production.

W. 12/10. Lorraine Hansberry. A Raisin in the Sun (Norton Cultural and Historical Context” Intro 1460-70; Acts 1-3, Norton 1470-1534). Discussion of the text.

FINALS WEEK

Final Exam Date: Wednesday December 17 from 5:00 – 6:50 p.m.