s
Module Description
Title
Literature and alienation
Code
LL201
Level
Two
Credit rating
10
Prerequisites
None
Type of module
Single standard
Aims
To explore the meanings and formal devices associated with the
concept of alienation in literature
Learning
outcome/objectives
By the end of the module the students will be able to:
1. Interpret the significance and meaning of isolated or
marginalized figures in selected literary texts, taking account of
the contexts as appropriate (social, political, psychological, etc.)
2. Accurately identify the formal features associated with the
depiction of such figures (narrative mode, point of view, role of
the protagonist, inter-character relations, character hierarchies,
etc.)
Content
(for contact time and
non-contact time)
1.
Different concepts of alienation in literature.
The module will examine three to six texts (depending on length),
each illustrating an aspect, or aspects, of alienation. The choice of
texts may vary from year to year. Because of the importance of the
themes of social and philosophical alienation in some non-English
literatures, a work or works in translation may be included.
Textual variety will be sought. A sample selection might be:
 The poet-genius, the visionary: selected Romantic poetry
 Class alienation: Sillitoe, The Loneliness of the Long Distance
Runner
 The private eye: a Raymond Chandler novel
 Isolated struggle: Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
 The adventurer: a novel by Defoe or Melville
 Philosophical alienation: Camus or Pushkin, Eugene Onegin,
The theme has many ramifications. Other choices of topic and texts
might include psychological alienation (Rhys Good Morning
Midnight, Ibsen Ghosts, Kafka), social alienation (Dickens,
Faulkner, Miller), anti-bourgeois texts (Flaubert, Madame Bovary,
Osborne, Look Back in Anger); philosophical alienation (Hamlet,
Camus The Outsider, Gogol Dead Soul); domestic isolation
(Moggach, Horse Sense); political and ideological alienation (works
by Orwell, Voltaire, Celine, Imre Kertesz Fateless,, Kundera The
Joke); the artist as exile.
2.
Alienation, the formal dimension
Topics such as the following may be included:
 the individual versus the group;
 the visionary or specially gifted individual versus society
 the author’s voice, the text-reader relationship
 narrative modes: the narrator, the narrative voice, point of view
etc.
 different modes of protagonist: the ingenu outsider/ detached
observer/ victim/ in works of satire; the hero
 modes of projection of the ‘I’: monologue, soliloquy etc.
Teaching and
learning strategies
 Introductory lecture.
 Workshop-based small-group activities focussing on specific
aspects of the selected texts, with follow-up mini-presentations
and debate.
 Individual projects with tutorial guidance for assessment task.
Learning support
(include full details of
up to 8 titles)
Illustrative bibliography:
Assessment task
Essay 2000 words 100%.
The topic may involve a comparative or contrastive study
Assessment criteria
 Successful identification and classification of the kinds of
alienation encountered in the texts selected for the assignment
(LO1)
 Competence in critically analysing and interpreting these (LO1)
 Successful demonstration of the functioning of relevant formal
features of the selected texts (LO2)
Brief description
AEB
This module examines the theme of alienation in literature and
formal features connected with it.
Literature/Linguistics Area Board
Module team
N. Foxcroft, G.Townsend
Semester offered
Two
Timetable slot(s)
-
Site where delivered
Falmer
Date of first approval
September 2003
Date of last revision
N/a
Date of approval of
this version
Version number
September 2003
Replacement for
previous module
N/a (module code amended from LL205 to LL201 in August 2004
for administrative purposes)
Field for which
module is acceptable
and status in that
field
BA (Hons) Language Studies Programme(English, French,
German, Linguistics) with English Literature/Media – option field
Beth Herst (1990), The Dickensian Hero: Selfhood and Alienation in
the Dickensian World (London: Weidenfield & Nicholson)
C.L.R. James (2001), Mariners, Renegades and Castaways: The
Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In, Dartmouth
College: University Press of New England
Jack Murray (1991), The Landscapes of Alienation. Ideological
Subversion in Kafka, Celine and Levison (Stanford Cal:
Stanford University Press)
David Patten (1995), Exile: the Sense of Alienation in Modern
Russian Letters (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky)
Carolyn Porter (1981), Seeing and Being: the Plight of the
Participant Observer in Emerson, James, Adams and
Faulkner, (Middletown, Conn: Weslyan University Press)
Lisa Williams (2001), The Artist as Outsider in the Novels of Toni
Morrison and Virginia Woolf (Westport Conn: The Greenwood
Press)
One
Course(s) which
module is acceptable
and status in course
Departmental home
BA (Hons) Language Studies Programme (English, French,
German, Linguistics) with English Literature/Media – option
External examiner(s)
Graham MacPhee (t.b.c)
School of Languages