ENG 120-02 & 03 - Literary Analysis

4 credits (Fall)

In his essay “Literature as Equipment for Living,” Kenneth Burke proposes that works of literature can help guide us through everyday life by providing readers with “strategies for dealing with situations.” Taking Burke’s pragmatic approach as the spirit and model for this course, we will explore the literary strategies and genres writers have adopted, invented, and deployed to confront perplexities and risks. A central question will be: What can literature do differently from other kinds of writing or art forms? The course will equip you to better read, write, and talk about literary works through the practice of close reading and introduction to key theoretical methods. Readings will include Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior, essays by Michel de Montaigne, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, and David Foster Wallace, as well as a generous selection of modern and contemporary poetry.

Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Phan