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11/20 Required reading for next week: One of the best known pieces of modern criticism of Jane Eyre, the article jointly written by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar later became part of their well-known book, The Madwoman in the Attic. This short section of a contemporary review of Jane Eyre conveys the contrasting opinion of one of the novel's 19th-century readers. Optional reading: You can read the entire Rigby review, which includes analysis of Thackery's contemporary novel, Vanity Fair, as well as of a charitable report regarding the situation of governesses, see Peter Friesen's website: http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/peter.friesen/default.asp?go=252 Friesen has also posted images and text from Bewick's History of British Birds, if you wish to explore these. http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/peter.friesen/default.asp?go=276 10/24 Two of the poems you are reading for 10/26 directly allude to medieval poems within their titles. 10/4 This short article by Stephen Orgel address the nature of a dramatic work, in a way that reopens the questions of authorship we have already been considering with relation to a work crafted for the Renaissance stage. Here are the additional materials that should have been included in your edition:
9/20 This article (translated from French) contains Roland Barthes's 1968 announcement of the 'death of the author'. Barthes's theorectical approach is thus a rewarding one to consider as we think about how authorship, its nature and its dangers, is presented in the Canterbury Tales this week.
9/19 This short extract comes from Gayle Rubin's article "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex," in the 1975 Toward an Anthropology of Women edited by Rayna Reiter. 157-210. It's not a literary article but it suggests a perspective that might shape how we read literary texts; this piece offers a chance to think about the connection between the studies of anthropology and literature. 9/15 This short extract from Judith Butler's 1990 Gender Trouble opens questions about gendered identity. It's less than a page long but very theorectially dense--be sure to use the Oxford English Dictionary (see our Resources page for the on-line listing from Healey Library) for any unfamiliar words. 9/14These short extracts give two perspectives on the nature of language. The first extract consists of a little more than three pages (translated from Latin), from St. Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana [On Christian Doctrine]. Augustine's work dates from the fourth century, but was still being read in the time of Chaucer. (Begin reading at "All doctine concerns either things or signs..." End at "...he attempted to translate it") The second extract consists of about five pages (translated from French), from Ferdinand Saussure's early twentieth-century Course in General Linguistics and represents a perspective key to modern analysis of language. (Begin reading as "To summarize, these are the characteristics of language..." End at "it actually has no natural connection with the signified") Note: These extracts are made available as .pdf files. To open these extracts, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. The program can be downloaded for free--alternatively, you can use a campus computer. Class Slide Images are available here in PDF format. These images are provided for the individual use of our class and should not be copied or distributed. Day 1 Introduction to our course Day 2 Introduction to the Canterbury Tales Day 3 Historical and Fictional Chaucer Day 4 Heroic and Comic Love Triangles Day 5 Body and Text Day 6 Exchange Values Day 7 The Deadly Danger of Authorship Day 8 Day of Discussion Day 9 Introduction to Twelfth Night Day 10 Playing Misrule Day 11 Are Plays Literature? Day 12 Page, Stage, and Screen Day 13 Writing on Stage Day 14 Day of Discussion Day 15: MidTerm Day 16 Introduction to Keats’s Poetry Day 17 A Creepy Capability Day 18 The Prosody of Sensation? Day 19 Day of Discussion Day 20 Introduction to Jane Eyre Day 21 Chapters and Scenes Day 22 ‘No Medium’ Day 23 Seeing and Sightless ‘I’s Day 24 ‘A Vulgar-Minded Woman’ Day 25 Day of Discussion Day 26 Introduction to Time’s Arrow Day 27 Tod, Odilo, Martin Day 28 Last Day of Discussion
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