English 180:
Introduction to Literature
Spring Semester 2008
Stephen C. Behrendt
319 Andrews Hall
phone: 472-1806
office: 1230-130 TR
and by appointment
sbehrendt1@unl.edu
James Gillray, Humphrey's Shop
Tentative Schedule
--- Page numbers refer to Portable Literature, eds. Kirszner and Mandell, 6th edition.
Jan 15 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 17 R Defining "literature": some problems in search of
solutions
__________
Jan 22 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading for Fiction (73-79), "Plot" (100-03), "Theme" (314-18)
Simple
stories / Simple stories?
Gildner,
"Sleepy Time Gal" (86)
Atwood,
"Happy Endings" (93)
O'Brien,
"The Things They Carried" (251)
Jan 24 R "Everyday
life" in fiction: is it really so mundane?
Kinkaid,
"Girl" (96)
Olson,
"I Stand Here Ironing" (173)
Jan 25 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 29 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading: "Character" (125-28), "Setting" (154-58)
"Growing
up" in fiction; where do we readers situate ourselves?
Updike,
"A&P" (128)
Wright, "Big Black Good Men" (191)
Alexie, "This is What it Means to Say Phoenxi, Arizona" (163)
Jan 31 R A
couple of old classics:
Poe,
"The Cask of Amontillado" (203)
Hawthorne,
"Young Goodman Brown" (302)
__________
Feb 5 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading: "Point of View" (182-91), "Style, Tone, and Language"(225-31)
A
couple of new(er) classics:
Faulkner, "Barn Burning " (209)
Baxter,
"Gryphon" (129)
Tan,
"Two Kinds" (416)
Feb 7 R Walking
around in fiction
Welty,
"A Worn Path" (319)
Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants" (79)
__________
Feb 12 T The Week's Reading
Background
reading: "Symbol and Allegory" (267-73)
Looking
inside of our experiences
Gilman,
"The Yellow Wallpaper" (372)
Joyce,
"Araby" (231)
Feb 14 R And
now for something completely different:
Jackson,
"The Lottery" (273)
O'Connor,
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (238)
__________
Feb 19 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 21 R Shelley, Frankenstein
__________
Feb 26 T Shelley, Frankenstein
Feb 28 R Shelley, Frankenstein
__________
Mar 4 T MIDTERM EXAMINATION
Mar 6 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: (441-51), "Form" (570-73)
Moore,
"Poetry" (439); Giovanni, "Poetry" (440); MacLeish, "Ars
Poetica" (685);
Shakespeare, "That time of year thou mayst in me behold" (448); Frost, "Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening"; Zukofsky, "I walk in the old street" ();
cummings, "l(a"
(449); Collins, "Introduction to Poetry" (658)
Mar 7 F Last day to change your registration to or from "Pass
/ No Pass" status
__________
Mar 11 T The
Week's Reading
Figurative
language:
Background
reading: 521-22
Shakespeare,
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (519), "Shall I
compare
thee to a summer's day?" (521); Lorde, "Rooming houses are old women"
(524);
Piercy, "The Secretary Chant" (529); Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding
Mourning" (530); Frost, "Mending Wall" (670); Hughes, "The
Negro Speaks
of Rivers," (678)
Mar 13 R Images:
the "stuff" of poetry
Background
reading: 512-13
Williams,
"Red Wheelbarrow" (531); Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"
(514);
Bishop, "The Fish" (651); Wordsworth,
"I wandered onely as a cloud" (628);
Keats, "When I Have Fears" (682); Heaney, "Mid-Term Break" (674)
__________
Mar 16 - 22 Spring Break – no classes
__________
Mar 25 T The Week's
Reading
Language
in poetry
Background
reading: 459-62, 471, 490-91
Rich,
"Living in Sin" (494), "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" (555); cummings,
"in Just-" (496), "Buffalo Bill's" (660), "anyone
lived in a pretty how town" (507);
"next to god of course america i" (660); Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
(566);
Nash, "The Lama" (559); Brooks, "We Real Cool" (504); Auden,
"The Unknown
Citizen" (484); Burns, "Oh, my love is like a red, red rose"
(526)
Mar 27 R Some
poems about art and life
Coleridge,
"Kubla Khan" (657); Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn (680);
Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts"
(616); Brooks, "Sadie and Maud" (548);
Donne, "The Flea"
__________
Apr 1 T The Week's Reading
Some
poems on the theme(s) of war and nation:
Brooke,
"The Soldier" (638); Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est" (638);
Levertov,
"What Were They Like?" (641); Szymborska, "The End and
the Beginning" (643),;
Tennyson, "Ulysses" (701); Hardy, "The Man He Killed" (472); Lowell,
"Patterns" (473)
Apr 3 R poetry
paper due in class today
Some
longer poems to work with:
Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" (697); Browning, "My Last Duchess" (465)
__________
Apr 8 T The Week's Reading
A few more long poems
Background
reading: "Symbol" (597-98), "Allegory" (605). "Allusion"
(609), "Myth" (613-14)
Yeats,
"The Second Coming" (708); Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock" (665); Mirikitani, "Suicide Note" (468)
Apr 10 R More on longer poems
Apr 11 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 15 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: "The Modern Theatre" (716-20))
Martin,
Beauty (736)
Strindberg,
The Stronger (852)
Glaspell,
Trifles (770)
Apr 17 R Martin, Strindberg, Glaspell, continued
__________
Apr 22 T The Week's Reading:
Miller,
Death of a Salesmanesman (858)
Apr 24 R Miller, Death of a Salesman
__________
Apr 29 T Dead Week / Concluding matters
May 1 R Concluding matters
__________
Final Examination: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, 6 May