ENG 360 - A: Desire or B: British Literature Since 1945 or C: Trad/Originality

360A - Desire

Instructor
Fackler

Examines representations of sexuality, desires, and passion in British literature. This trans-historical course proceeds both from the observation that we may see sexuality as a set of scripted performances and from the theory that sexual desire has a history, even a literary one.

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric distribution requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
First-year students require permission of the instructor.

360B -  British Literature Since 1945

Instructor
Fackler

An analysis of the novels, short fiction, drama, and poetry of the postwar years in Britain, up to the present moment, with special attention to both historical context and the stylistic innovations of the period.

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric distribution requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies the Literature distribution requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
First-year students require permission of the instructor.

(Not offered Fall 2015.)

360C - Tradition and Originality
Instructor
Ingram

This course charts the shifting definitions of both “tradition” and “originality” in British literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.  The course will consider these shifting definitions in three overlapping contexts:  literary (how can a text so obviously and deeply indebted to other texts as Milton’s Paradise Lost claim to accomplish “things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme”?  how do literary artists respond as the list of “things unattempted yet” shrinks?); historical (how did changing concepts of authorship and of intellectual property both shape and reflect British literature of the period?); theoretical (who or what defines “tradition”?  to what extent is “originality” possible-or desirable?).  In a series of case studies, the course examines some origin stories, such as where the novel came from and how some writers became celebrities.  It follows those stories to the present day, with the awareness that issues of tradition and originality extend beyond any course.