English 180:
Introduction to Literature
Spring Semester 2005
Stephen C. Behrendt
319 Andrews Hall
phone: 472-1806
office: 1-3 TR,
and by appointment
sbehrendt1@unl.edu
James Gillray, Humphrey's Shop
Tentative Schedule
Jan 11 T Introduction: What is "literature"? Who decides?
Why
do we tell stories? What sort of stories do we tell?
What
sorts of stories do we prefer, and why?
Jan 13 R Defining "literature": some problems in search of
solutions
__________
Jan 18 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading for Fiction (37-40), "Plot" (47-49), "Theme" (240-45)
Simple
stories / Simple stories?
Gildner,
"Sleepy Time Gal" (41)
Atwood,
"Happy Endings" (43)
O'Brien,
"The Things They Carried" (303)
"Everyday
life" in fiction: is it really so mundane?
Kinkaid,
"Girl" (289)
Olson,
"I Stand Here Ironing" (128)
Jan 20 R Breakout Sections Today
Jan 21 F Last day to drop this course without
it appearing on your permanent record. After today a "W" will appear
on your record
if you drop the course.
__________
Jan 25 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading: "Character" (71-74), "Setting" (98-102)
"Growing
up" in fiction; where do we readers situate ourselves?
Updike,
"A&P" (74)
Ellison,
"Battle Royal" (115)
Rios,
"The Secret Lion" (316)
A
couple of old classics:
Poe,
"The Cask of Amontillado" (153)
Hawthorne,
"Young Goodman Brown" (210)
Jan 27 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Feb 1 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading: "Point of View" (136-42), "Style, Tone, and Language"
(175-81)
A
couple of new(er) classics:
Hemingway,
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" (187)
Baxter,
"Gryphon" (84)
Tan,
"Two Kinds" (321)
Walking
around in fiction
Welty,
"A Worn Path" (270)
Achebe,
"Dead Man's Path" (279)
Feb 3 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Feb 8 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading: "Symbol and Allegory" (205-10)
Looking
inside of our experiences
Gilman,
"The Yellow Wallpaper" (102)
Joyce,
"Araby" (181)
And
now for something completely different:
Jackson,
"The Lottery" (221)
O'Connor,
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (191)
Feb 10 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Feb 15 T short story paper due in class
today
The
Week's Reading
Novels
are long, but what else are they, and why aren't they just very long short stories?
Shelley,
Frankenstein
Feb 17 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Feb 22 T Shelley, Frankenstein
Feb 24 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Mar 1 T MIDTERM EXAMINATION
Mar 3 R Reading and thinking about Poetry.
How
do we know what is a poem? DO we?
How
do poems work? What do poems do?
The
Week's Reading
Background
reading for Poetry: (342-43, 345-47), "Form" (478-81)
Moore,
"Poetry" (339) Giovanni, "Poetry" (340); MacLeish, "Ars
Poetica" (341);
Shakespeare, "That time of year thou mayst in me behold" (343);
Zukofsky, "I walk in the old street" (344); cummings, "l(a"
(344)
Mar 4 F Last day to change your registration to or from "Pass
/ Np Pass" status
__________
Mar 8 T The
Week's Reading
Figurative
language:
Background
reading: 431-32, 442
Shakespeare,
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (357), "Shall I
compare
thee to a summer's day?" (431); Lorde, "Rooming houses are old women"
(434);
Piercy, "The Secretary Chant" (438); Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding
Mourning" (439); Frost, "Mending Wall" (551); Hughes, "The
Negro Speaks
of Rivers," (558), "Park Bench" (559)
Images:
the "stuff" of poetry
Background
reading: 422-23
Williams,
"Red Wheelbarrow" (423); Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"
(424);
Chitwood, "Division" (427); Bishop, "The Fish" (531); Wordsworth,
"I wandered
lonely as a cloud" (587); Keats, "When I Have Fears" (565);
Heaney, "Mid-Term Break" (557)
Mar 10 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
13 - 20 Spring Break – no classes
__________
Mar 22 T The Week's
Reading
Language
in poetry
Background
reading: 455-60, 464, 466
Rich,
"Living in Sin" (402), "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" (463); cummings,
"in Just-" (403), "Buffalo Bill's" (539), "anyone
lived in a pretty how town" (415);
"next to god of course america i" (540);Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
(474);
Nash, "The Lama" (467); Brooks, "We Real Cool" (536) Auden,
"The Unknown
Citizen" (389); Burns, "Oh, my love is like a red, red rose"
(436)
Some
poems about art and life
Coleridge,
"Kubla Khan" (537); Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn (563); Sexton,
"Cinderella" (391) Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts"
(523), Brooks, "Sadie and
Maud" (456); Djanikian, "Immigrant Picnic" (542)
Mar 24 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Mar 29 T The Week's Reading
Some
poems on the theme(s) of war and nation:
Brooke,
"The Soldier" (359); Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est" (428);
Levertov,
"What Were They Like?" (362), Szymborska, "The End and
the Beginning" (362),
Tennyson, "Ulysses" (581), Hardy, "The Man He Killed" (376)
Some
longer poems to work with:
Lowell,
"Patterns" (378); Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" (574),
Browning,
"My Last Duchess" (370)
Mar 31 R Breakout Sections
Today
poetry
paper due in class today
__________
Apr 5 T The Week's Reading
And
other long poems
Background
reading: "Symbol" (506-8), "Allegory" (511). "Allusion"
(515-16),
"Myth" (519-21)
Yeats,
"The Second Coming" (591); Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock" (546); Mirikitani, "Suicide Note" (373)
Apr 7 R Breakout Sections Today
Apr 8 F Last day to withdraw from this course and still
have a "W" appear on your permanent record instead of a conventional
letter grade.
__________
Apr 12 T Reading and thinking about Drama
What
is drama? Is drama the same as theatre?
What
does drama do? How does it work
The
Week's Reading
Background reading for Drama: (595-610)
Martin,
Beauty (617)
Strindberg,
The Stronger (612)
Glaspell,
Trifles (627)
Apr 14 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Apr 19 T The Week's Reading
Miller,
Death of a Salesman (829)
Apr 21 R Breakout Sections Today
__________
Apr 25 T Dead Week / Concluding matters
Apr 27 R Concluding matters
__________
Final Examination: 10:00 - noon, Thursday, 5 May