English 666 / FLL 639
Fall 2006
Charles Ross
Boiardo.com
This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of Comparative Literature. Since the class is an international and diverse group, we will use texts suggested by you, reflecting your interests. The theme of the course is that Comparative Literature is necessary, because by studying literature, we learn how to read a great fiction, the world.
Required text (available at Von’s)
Suggested text:
Syllabus
August 24: Introduction to Comparative Literature
August 31: First Lines: A Project in Global Diversity
September 7: Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Buffy Turner
September 14: Ariostotle’s Poetics and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (Jason Lotz)
September 21: Euripedes, Bacchae (Lu Liang)
September 28: Class trip to see The Black Dahlia
October 5: Matthew, and Pier Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew
October 12: C. S. Lewis, An
Experiment in Criticism
October 19: no class (papers due): Pretend you are writing a Comparative Literature M.A. exam that wants to cover all the works we have covered so far. Compose a question and answer it, 5-10 pages, touching each of the works we have read.
October 26: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Ed Plough) (Acts 1-4, Act 5)
November 2: Stephen Greenblatt, Chapter 3, “Marvelous Possessions” and Greenblatt’s prose
style
November 9: [Marjory Garber:
November 16: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Hundred
Years of Solitude (
November 23: Thanksgiving
November 30: Old Liu by Lao She (Yin Cong), an overview of theory approaches to
literature, and Elder
Olson on Empson’s Seven Types of Ambguity
December 7: James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia (Anna Fluegge) and Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”