Books:

Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
Lais (Marie de France)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
Classic Fairy Tales (ed. Marina Warner)
Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare)
Turn of the Screw (Henry James)
Coursepack available at Cal Copies

Grades:

Midterms (3) 300
Paper 100
Other Assignments 100 (roughly)
(Including quizzes, in-class work,
oral reports, etc.)
Participation 100

Midterms:

The midterm exams will include multiple choice items, short answers, and longer essay questions, and will include all the material covered in the reading assignments and class lectures. Questions will range from the historical to the literary; you will be expected to know titles, authors, and (approximate) dates of composition, as well as main characters, themes, major issues and concerns. You may also be asked to identify major passages and to comment upon them. Essay questions will generally require a passage analysis, asking you to not only explain what's going on in the passage, but also to show its relevance to the larger work, its significance to the larger contextual themes and issues at work in the text, etc. Exams may not be made up, unless advance notice and an acceptable, documented excuse are provided.

Paper:

A short paper (5 pages) will be due during week twelve of the semester. The paper will deal with the aspects of a single text we have studied in class, and you will be given approximately two weeks to write it. Details will be handed out in class. The paper should be formal in composition (that is, it should have an arguable thesis, an introduction, supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion). It must be typed, double-spaced, and grammatically and structurally sound. Any papers not adhering to these basic standards will be penalized.

Grading will be based on the depth and quality of your interpretation/analysis. These papers are expected to be thoughtful and analytical, and should provide ample details and examples. Specific guidelines will be provided later in the course.

Participation and Attendance:

Participation is worth approximately 15% of your grade, and consists of your oral/discursive ability to work with the materials. In other words, have you read the text assigned for discussion that day, and are you familiar with the pertinent issues? Are you prepared to talk about those issues intelligently in class?

The basic set of expectations assumes that you will be in class and contribute to the discussion every day. You are expected to have read in advance all materials to be covered that day in class, and to be ready to discuss core problems or issues relevant to the materials assigned.

A letter grade will be assigned for this portion of the class at the end of the term. Please note that excessive absences will seriously affect your grade. Late arrivals and early departures will be counted as absences, because I FIND THEM VERY ANNOYING.

I. The Building-Blocks of Fiction

Week One: M: Introduction
(Aug 28) W: Ovid: "Daedalus and Icarus," "Pyramus and Thisbe,"(in coursepack)
F: Ovid: "Echo and Narcissus," "Pygamalion" (bottom of p. 241, coursepack)
Week Two: M: HOLIDAY
(Sept. 4) W: Ovid: "Orpheus and Eurydice," "Midas" (coursepack)
F: Topic: The development of the oral tradition. Reading: "Little Red Riding Hood" chapter from Classic Fairy Tales
Week Three: M: "The Pig King" and "The Frog King" (Classic Fairy Tales pp. 42-50)
(Sept. 11) W: Cinderella chapter from Classic Fairy Tales.
F: Beauty and the Beast (Classic Fairy Tales)

Week Four: M: Topic: The development of Western fiction. Reading: Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, Part I and II
(Sept. 18) W: The Knight's Tale," Part III, AND Freud: Interpretation of Dreams (xerox)
F: The Knight's Tale," Part IV

Week Five: M: The Miller's Tale
(Sept. 25) W: The Franklin's Tale
F: Midterm

II. Literary Psychology and the Craft of Characterization

Week Six: M: The Wife of Bath's Prologue
(Oct. 2) W: The Wife of Bath's Tale
F: The Merchant's Tale

Week 7: M: Turn of the Screw
(Oct. 9) W: Turn of the Screw
F: "Bluebeard" chapter from Classic Fairy Tales

Week Eight: M: "Hansel and Gretel" and "The Juniper Tree" (Classic Fairy Tales)
(Oct. 16) W: Browning: The Bishop Orders His Tomb (coursepack)
F: Browning: My Last Duchess (coursepack)

Week Nine: M: Things Fall Apart
(Oct. 23) W: Things Fall Apart
F: Things Fall Apart

III. Reading Closely: Metaphor and Symbolism, Allegory and Parable

Week Ten: M: Midterm
(Oct. 30) W: Kafka: some parables (xerox to be handed out in class).
F: some sonnets: Wyatt, Shakespeare, John Donne, Shelly (coursepack: NOTE these are out of order)

Week 11: M: Garcia Marquez: "A Very With Enormous Old Man Wings" (coursepack)
(Nov. 6) W: Class cancelled
F: Class cancelled

Week 12: M: Paper Due. Herrick poems, Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress," Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn" Yeats poems
W: Guigemar (in Lais of Marie de France)
F: Guigemar (in Lais of Marie de France)

Week 13: M: La Fresne (in Lais of Marie de France)
(Nov. 20) W: Lanval (in Lais of Marie de France)
F: HOLIDAY

Week 14: M: Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream Act I
(Nov. 27) W: MSN Acts II and III
F: MSN Act IV

Week 15: M: MSN Act V
(Dec. 4) W: Take-home final distributed (cumulative)
F: ?