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COURSE SCHEDULE
Harasztos Ágnes
BBN-ANG-112/q Introduction to Literature (Fri 12:30–14:00, R414, DES)
requirements:
 regular attendance (3 absences tolerated)
 active participation in class: regular preparation, copies of set texts brought into the class, read in
full and in English (vocabulary explored) at home, your remarks and ideas are an absolute must,
they contribute to the success of our course!
 10-minute short presentation on a set critical text, handouts are welcome, you should present your
chosen topic only on the assigned date!
 end term test, a minimum of 50% is required (everything uttered in class forms a subject to the
test, don’t miss taking notes!)
 home paper (min 2500 words), it should deal with one of the literary pieces discussed in the course,
it should be a piece of academic writing , therefore no essay without references (min 5) will be
accepted, only published or reliable internet resources (e.g. Jstor, or Projectmuse) can be used (see:
http://seaswiki.elte.hu/research/OffCampus_Access_to_ELTE%E2%80%99s_Licensed_Web_Resources )
 evaluation will be based on the in-class performance (20%), the presentation (20%), the end term
test (20%) and the home essay (40%)
set texts:
 Week 1 – 11 Sept: Introduction, sign up for presentations, discussion of requirements
 Week 2 – 18 Sept: M. H. Abrams: ‘Orientation of Critical Theories.’ In: Lodge, David:
Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. A Reader (copies at SEAS Library)
 Week 3 – 25 Sept: handout 1
(http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/HarasztosAgnes/index.html) , William Shakespeare:
Sonnet 129, John Donne: To His Mistress Going to Bed
 Week 4 – 2 Oct: W. B. Yeats: ‘The Symbolism of Poetry’ (In: Lodge), S. T. Coleridge: Kubla
Khan, W. B. Yeats: Leda and the Swan, Sailing to Byzantium
 Week 5 – 9 Oct: handout 2
(http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/HarasztosAgnes/index.html), William Shakespeare:
Hamlet
 Week 6 – 16 Oct: J. M. Synge: The Playboy of the Western World
 23 Oct – NATIONAL HOLIDAY
 26 Oct – 30 Oct – AUTUMN BREAK
 Week 7 – 6 Nov: handout 3
(http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/HarasztosAgnes/index.html ), Joseph Conrad: The Heart
of Darkness
 Week 8 – 13 Nov: E. M. Forster: ‘Flat and Round Characters’ (In: Lodge), Kazuo Ishiguro: A
Family Supper (http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/HarasztosAgnes/index.html), literary
essay guidelines
 Week 9 – 20 Nov: Michel Foucault: ‘What is an Author?’
(http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/HarasztosAgnes/index.html), John Fowles: Poor Koko
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Week 10 – 27 Nov: DEADLINE FOR ESSAYS, W. H. Auden: Musée des Beaux Arts, Ted Hughes:
Crow’s First Lesson, Seamus Heaney: Death of a Naturalist
Week 11 – 4 Dec: end term test
Week 12 – 11 Dec: evaluation, farewell
Secondary literature (material for the student presentations)
1) 25 Sept –
a) Shankar Raman: Can't Buy Me Love: Money, Gender, and Colonialism in Donne's Erotic Verse
In:
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420046294&v=2.1&u=clelu&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid
=94927a48902381138491d0825f9d9caa (!)
b) Anthony Low: Donne and the Reinvention of Love In:
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420112898&v=2.1&u=clelu&it=r&p=LitRG&
sw=w&asid=d05f0a59de33c000244dbbb3a8f49caa (!)
c) Laurel J. Brinton: The Iconic Role of Aspect in Shakespeare's Sonnet 129 In:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771905
d) J. Bunselmeyer: Appearances and Verbal Paradox Sonnet 129 and 138 In:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2868887
2) 2 Oct –
a) Fred L. Milne: Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”: a Metaphor for the Creative Process In:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3199754
b) Charles I. Patterson, Jr.: The Daemonic in Kubla Khan: Toward Interpretation In:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/461375
c) Hoyt Towbridge: “Leda and the Swan”: A Longinian Analysis In:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/435083
d) W. C. Barnell: The Rapist in “Leda and the Swan” In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3199055
3) 9 Oct –
a) Stephen Greenblatt: Eating of the Soul In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928612
b) Caralyn Bialo: Popular performance, the broadside ballad, and Ophelia's madness In:
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA335842888&v=2.1&u=clelu&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=
820b4201715f3ae39cba8c254b159f8a (!)
c) Andrew Foley: Heaven or havoc? The end of hamlet In:
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA312403151&v=2.1&u=clelu&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=
688d018474b89e63d42ecc501153d134 (!)
4) 16 Oct –
a) David Butler: Hamlet, carnival, and The Playboy of the Western World In:
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA311291479&v=2.1&u=clelu&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=
1b4e89a124db5e2e726d7429e31311fb (!)
b) Warren Akin IV: “I Just Riz the Loy” The Oedipal Dimension of “The Playboy of the Western
World In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3198869
c) James F. Kilroy: The Playboy as Poet In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1261197
5) 6 Nov –
a) Edward Said: “Two Visions in Heart of Darkness” In: Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations:
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. New York, Infobase Publishing: 2008. p 5-18,
downloadable at: http://bookfi.org/book/1296266 (click on “скачать” /’download’/)
b) Birgit Maier-Katkin and Daniel Maier-Katkin: At The Heart of Darkness: Crimes Against
Humanity and The Banality of Evil In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20069746
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c) Garett Stewart: Lying as Dying in Heart of Darkness In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461876
d) J. Hillis Miller: “Should We Read Heart of Darkness?” In: Bloom’s Modern Critical
Interpretations: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. New York, Infobase Publishing: 2008. p
115-130, downloadable at: http://bookfi.org/book/1296266 (click on “скачать”
/’download’/)
6) 13 Nov –
a) Rebecca L. Walkowitz: Ishiguro’s Floating Worlds In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30032004
b) Rebecca Karni: Kazuo Ishiguro's reflective signs In:
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA290417684&v=2.1&u=clelu&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=
b098f538f700e3810931737ca6ff8852 (!)
7) 20 Nov –
a) Kerry McSweeney: John Fowles’s Variations in the “Ebony Tower” In:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3831235
b) Carol M. Barnum: The Quest Motif in John Fowles’s The Ebony Tower: Themes and Variations
In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40754638.pdf
8) 27 Nov –
a) Max Bluestone: The Iconographic Sources of Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts In:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3040513
b) Paul Bentley: Depression and Ted Hughes’s Crow or through the Looking Glass or What Crow
Found There In: http://www.jstor.org/stable/441861
INTRODUCTION
Mymistress’eyes are nothing like the sun(Sonnet130)
William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
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This Is Just To Say
William Carlos Williams, 1883 1963
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
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Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other
name!
What's in a name? that which we call a
rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Lord Byron: Don Juan /fragment/
(1788-1824)
I would to heaven that I were so much clay,
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling Because at least the past were passed away And for the future - (but I write this reeling,
Having got drunk exceedingly today,
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I say - the future is a serious matter And so - for God's sake - hock and soda water!