LIT111 Texts and Meanings (8)
CSU Discipline Area: English (ENGLI)
Duration: One session
Abstract:
An introduction to key concepts of contemporary critical debate (e.g. the gendering of reading positions; postcolonial reading strategies, the reading of poetry) through structural and stylistic study of selected 'popular classics'.
+ Subject Availability Modes and Locations
| Session 1 | |
|---|---|
| Internal | Bathurst |
Continuing students should consult the SAL for current offering details: LIT111
Where differences exist between the Handbook and the SAL, the SAL should be taken as containing the correct subject offering details.
Enrolment restrictions:
Not available to students who have completed LIT105
Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this subject, students should:
-become equipped to approach new texts and research topics with an increased understanding of historical context; contemporary critical debate, structural and stylistic analysis and research techniques.
Syllabus:
The subject will cover the following topics:
A section (3 weeks) on the construction of gendered reading positions in versions of folk tales; Jane Eyre; and Treasure Island. .the construction of a poetic 'voice' in C19th England with special reference to the question of gender. This section comprises 3 classes, each of which examines a male and a female poet: William Wordsworth and Emily Brontė; Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Christina Rossetti; Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. .the issue of how literary genres arise and operate. A special study is made of the horror and detection genre with reference to the tales of Poe and Conan Doyle; Dracula; and the contemporary American author Sara Paretsky. .a section which takes up the question of empire implicit in two texts from the first section (Jane Eyre and Treasure Island) and addresses the issue of postcolonial reading perspectives. The Tempest is studied within this context followed by the novel Wide Sargasso Sea which can be read as a postcolonial reinterpretation of Jane Eyre.
The information contained in the 2013 CSU Handbook was accurate at the date of publication: 24 April 2013. The University reserves the right to vary the information at any time without notice.