| Lecturer: Marta Puxan |
| email: marta.puxan@upf.edu |
| Office: 20.283 Bis Campus Ciutadella. Office hours: Mondays, 11 am-1 pm. |
OBJECTIVES
This course aims to offer a comparative analysis of well-established narrative texts in the light of four main theoretical approaches in today's literary criticism. Though the texts come from two different literary traditions, they are studied in their treatment of particular topics that allow building up very suggestive interpretations that expand their projection throughout their contrast. Students will read all the texts in English and will have the opportunity to contrast their own American and English literary tradition with that of the Hispanic world, at the same time that they will be provided with an overview of narrative theory in order to acquire technical skills very useful not only to analyze individual works but to overcome the limitations of national literatures.
COURSE SYLLABUS
1. Course introduction (sessions 1, 2)
- General aspects of comparative literature
- The theory of narrative and the analysis of literary works
- A new critical perspective: transatlantic studies and the Americas
2. Colonial and postcolonial narratives
- Colonialism and postcolonialism as a literary theory (session 3)
- Reading and discussion I: Herman Melville, Benito Cereno (sessions 4 and 5)
- Reading and discussion II: Alejo Carpentier, El reino de este mundo (in English translation: The Kingdom of this world) (sessions 6 and 7)
3. Literature within literature and the limits of fiction
-Metafiction and the limits of fiction (session 8)
-Reading and discussion II: Henry James, The figure in the carpet (sessions 9 and 10)
-Reading and discussion III: Ricardo Piglia, Nombre falso (English translation: Assumed name) (sessions 10 and 11)
1st Assignment due: Week March 8-14
4. Modern female perspectives
- Female voices in literature and in the modern novel (session 12)
- Reading and discussion I: Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (sessions 13 and 14)
- Reading and discussion II: Mercè Rodoreda, La plaça del diamant (English translation: The Time of the Doves: a novel) (sessions 15 and 16)
5. The mythical territory as a narrative strategy
-The myth in Literature, an introduction (session 17)
- Reading and discussion II: William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (sessions 18 and 19)
- Reading and discussion I: Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo (English translation) (session 20 and 21)
Final Exam (session 22): Monday, April 19
2nd Assignment due, April 19
COURSE DIRECTIONS
-This course will be conducted in English and all the readings will be also in English if they are originally in this language and in English translations when they are originally in Spanish. Reading in translation will make those students who are beginners in Spanish familiar with Hispanic literatures when they are not ready to read such long texts in Spanish yet. In this sense, the course is focused as an introduction to Hispanic literatures in discussion with the great names of English literatures.
-Students do not have to read entirely all the texts discussed in class. Each student will be assigned two of the listed topics which texts he/she will read entirely. When we treat these two assigned topics in class the students in charge of their readings will have to intervene more in the debate. When we discuss the other two not assigned topics, the students will read excerpts of the texts posted in the course website to be able to follow the class and to participate in it. In this way, students will have a deep knowledge about two of the blocks and a more general one of the other two.
- Instead of a reader, the course has a website where all excerpts of the novels for those that have to read partially will be posted in PDF format, including some theoretical texts - to introduce the students to each of the general topics. The theoretical texts from the reader are selected from the course bibliography.
-The bibliography is provided to students as a helping tool, they are not required to read it, but they can use it when needed for writing their essays.
-Evaluation:
•Two short essays on the assigned topics from the syllabus: 50%
•Class participation: 20%
•Final Exam on the two blocks not assigned to read completely: 30%
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
AUERBACH, Erich. Mimesis: the representation of reality in Western literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.
ASHCROFT, Bill; Gareth GRIFFITHS, and Helen TIFFIN, The Empire Writes Back. 1989. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
BARTHES, Ronald. Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana, 1977.
BHABHA, Homi. The location of culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
SAID, Edward W. The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1983.
- Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
CAMPBELL, Federico (ed.). La ficción de la memoria. Juan Rulfo ante la crítica. Ciudad de México: Ediciones Era, 2003.
CHATMAN, Seymour. Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.
CHEVIGNY, Bell Gale and Gari LAGUARDIA. Reinventing the Americas: comparative studies of literatures of the United States and Spanish Amercia. New York: Colombia University Press, 1986.
COHN, Deborah N. History and Memory in the two Souths. Recent Southern and Spanish American Fiction. Nashville and London: Vanderbilt University Press, 1999.
COX, Thymothy J. Postmodern tales of slavery in the Americas: from Alejo Carpentier to Charles Johnson. New York: Garland Publishing, 2001.
ECO, Umberto. Six walks in the fictional woods. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1994.
GATES, Henry Louis, Jr. (ed.). 'Race', writing, and Difference. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
GENETTE, Gérard. Narrative Discourse. An essay in Method. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.
GILBERT, Sandra M., and Susan GUBAR (eds.). Feminist literary theory and criticism: a Norton reader. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.
KAPPELER, S. Writing and reading in Henry James. London, MacMillan, 1980.
KARCHER, Carolyn. Shadow over the promised land: slavery, race, and violence in Melville's America. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
LANSER, Susan Sniader. Fictions of authority: women writers and narrative voice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
LODGE, David. The Art of Fiction. London: Penguin Books, 1992.
LÓPEZ LÓPEZ, Mariano. El mito en cinco escritores de posguerra: Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Juan Benet, Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, Álvaro Cunqueiro, Antonio Prieto. Madrid: editorial Verbum, 1992.
PIGLIA, Ricardo. Crítica y ficción. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2001.
PRATT, Mary Louise. Imperial eyes. Travel writing and transculturation. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.
RUBENSTEIN, Roberta. Boundaries of the self: gender, culture, fiction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
SALVADOR, Álvaro, y Ángel ESTEBAN (eds.). Alejo Carpentier: un siglo entre luces, Madrid: Editorial Verbum, 2005.
TOWNER, Theresa. Faulkner on the Color Line: Late novels. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2000.
WAUGH, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and practice of self-conscious fiction. London and New York: Routledge, 1984.