ENG 250 - Lecture notes for ENG 250 PDF

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Lecture notes for ENG 250...

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ENG 250: Notes to accompany first Kaltura talk on Literary Study (see Module 3) Note: any terms in bold or underlined are key terms that should be explored and understood. Such terms may appear in different ways (short answer and/or essay questions) on tests or quizzes. Some of these terms are in your Broadview Pocket Glossary, but the glossary should only be a starting point for learning, as these terms have deeper meanings and implications that you should explore through reading and research.

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Literary study is fluid and evolving, just like other disciplines. Changes in the ways we study literature are not always rapid or accelerated, but incremental changes in the way literature is taught, written about, and studied are occurring all the time.

More traditional ways of studying literature might include: 

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Literary history (the study of how literature has evolved over time and on specific continents). For example, someone writing a history of the Romantic period in British literature would write about the key authors and texts from the late 18the century to about 1950. Author studies (studies of major authors) Studies of a movement or a period in literature. (I’ll distinguish bet movement and period in the talk posted in the course Module. Source study (study of a particular texts sources and/or influences) Textual analysis / exegesis / hermeneutics / “close reading”: I’ll talk more online about what this entails and how it dominated the way literature was studied in the 20th century U.S. college classroom. These methods are tied to what is called New Criticism, which is still very much practiced, just not as exclusively as it was from about 1945-1980.

New Criticism (You’ll read more about it in the assigned article.) 

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Close attention to the language used within a work. Pays attention to words and syntax, examines patterns of sound, imagery, symbolism, irony, tone, thematic centers, “truth” and “beauty” “Objective” reading (the so-called disinterested reader who can approach a text in a scientific manner and examine its parts in a way to better understand it whole makeup) “Universal” themes “Greatness” (there are certain qualities that make a work great or an author a major figure) Canon

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“Meaning” (If we pay close enough attention to a work we can come to a consensus on the work’s meaning.) T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) Famous poet born in the U.S. became English citizen and in addition to his poetry published important essays that inaugurated what we think of as modern literary criticism. Two pieces very important for the establishment of New Criticism were the essays “Tradition and the Individual Talent” as “The Metaphysical Poets.”

The Theory and Canon Revolution 

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While New Criticism is very much with us, and making a contribution, it began to be displaced or at least revolutionized (as in, changed in a big way) by what we call Literary Theory. Has lots of roots in writers and thinkers from other continents, but also indebted to the major social changes beginning in the 1960s. Literature is a product of the culture in which it was produced, and we should pay attention to issues of race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and more when we consider author’s, their texts and characters Much more about Theory and Canon in next talk...