EN5114 Supplementary Discourses Autumn 2013
Tutors: Declan Ryan; Joe Treasure; Susanna Jones
Welcome to EN5114. This course aims to provide you with appropriate critical
and theoretical skills for discussing your creative literary pieces in the workshop.
At MA level you will need to demonstrate familiarity with a technical vocabulary
(critical and theoretical). The course also aims to prepare you for the practical
work project and the dissertation. By the end of the course you will have
acquired a range of critical concepts and vocabulary, acquired a range of critical
and theoretical approaches to prose and poetry and acquired the necessary skills
to undertake a sophisticated reflection on the practical work project in your
dissertation. Group discussion will be a vital part of the seminar and you will be
expected to give a short presentation on a topic of your choice during the term.
Seminars take place on Mondays, 5.30 -7.00pm.
Assessment:
An essay of 3,000 – 4,000 words for Supplementary Discourses will be submitted
on the first day of the Spring Term (full-time students) or the last day of the Spring
Term (part-time students). Students should submit two copies of all work and
must also sign and attach a 'Declaration of Academic Integrity'.
Contacting us:
Susanna Jones susanna.jones@rhul.ac.uk
Contact us by email to make an appointment (or ask at the seminar).
Overview
The two strands for fiction and poetry mostly follow the same themes and similar
topics throughout the term. In weeks Two and Nine the themes are different, as
in the following schedule:
1. Introduction
2. Voice and Narration (Fiction) or Metaphor (Poetry)
3. Consciousness
4. The reader, the author and the text
5. Place
6. Identity
7. Time
8. Research for Writers
9.Character (Fiction) or Manifestos (Poetry)
10. Inspiration from other art forms.
The course aims to allow you to build a constructive relationship between critical
and creative processes. The reading list provides a range of approaches and
you are encouraged to choose your reading according to individual taste, skills
and interests. Tutors will guide you towards readings for literary criticism and
theory as they relate to fiction and to poetry. The following readers, anthologies
and introductions are likely to be useful to all students.
Readers/ Anthologies/ Introductions
Atwood, Margaret, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing Virago, 2003
Bennett, Andrew & Royle, Nicholas, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and
Theory (2nd Ed.) Prentice Hall, 1995, 1999
Culler, Jonathan, Literary Theory—A Very Short Introduction Oxford University
Press, 1997
Lodge, David & Wood (eds.), Nigel, Modern Criticism and Theory—A Reader (3rd
Ed.) Longman, 2008
Murakami, Haruki, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Vintage, 2009
Rivkin, Julie & Ryan, Michael (eds.), Literary Theory: An Anthology (2 nd Ed)
Blackwell, 2004
Pope, Rob, Creativity—Theory, History, Practice Routledge, 2005, 2008
Prose, Francine, Reading Like a Writer Harper Perennial, 2007
Week One: Introduction
Topics: Course planning: overview, allocating students’ presentations, making
use of the reading list.
The creative process: notebooks, journals, and blogs; a writer’s reference library;
inspiration, writer’s block, working routines.
What is literary criticism and theory, and why does it matter to the practising
writer? Finding your territory.
Study skills: How to approach the coursework.
Readings:
Our first discussion draw on your favourite examples of writers’ diaries and
journals, and your own key reference books.
Also, we will consider some general introductions to writing practice, and literary
criticism and theory, as above.
Suggested further reading:
Atwood, Margaret. ‘Orientation: Who do you think you are?’, Negotiating with the
Dead, Virago Press, 2003.
Brown, Clare & Patterson, Don (eds) Don’t Ask me What I Mean—Poets in Their
Own Words Picador, 2004
Week Two: Voice & Narration (Fiction) / Metaphor (Poetry)
Topics: Narration and Voice
How do we tell stories? Who speaks, who sees and why? What is 'voice' in
fiction? Forms of storytelling through history. Borrowing other forms of narrative
from other disciplines. Fragmentary and partial narratives. Point of view. The
narrator and the author as one or as two? ‘Unreliable’ narration. Polyphonic
narrative. Embodied perception.
Readings
Baxter, Charles. ‘Dysfunctional Narratives, or: ‘Mistakes Were Made’’, Burning
Down the House: Essays on Fiction. Graywolf Press, 1997
Booker, Christopher. ‘Introduction and Historical Notes’, The Seven Basic
Plots, Continuum, 2004, pp1-13
Forster, E M. ‘The Plot’, Aspects of the Novel, Penguin, 2005
Lodge, David. ‘Narrative Structure’, The Art of Fiction, Penguin, 1992
Lodge, David, ‘Point of View’ and ‘Telling in Different Voices’, The Art of Fiction,
Penguin, 1992, pp25-29 and 125-129.
McQuillan, Martin (ed). The Narrative Reader, Routledge, 2000
Wood, James, ‘Narrating’ Ch 1 in How Fiction Works (Vintage, 2008)
Topics: Metaphor
How does poetry do its work? What is distinctive about poetic language? In what
way is metaphor a distinctive way of knowing? What are our personal and
cultural metaphorical constructs; how are they found or made? Exploring the
relationship between image and abstraction.
Readings:
Alvarez, Al ‘Finding a Voice’ in The Writer’s Voice Bloomsbury, 2005
Culler, Jonathan, ‘Rhetoric, Poetics and Poetry’ Ch. 5 in Literary Theory—A Very
Short Introduction Oxford University Press, 1997
Doty, Mark, The Art of Description – World into Word Graywolf Press, 2010
Hirschfield, Jane, ‘The Question of Originality’ in Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of
Poetry ,Harper Perennial, 1998
Rees-Jones, Deryn, ‘Nothing that is Not There and the Nothing That Is’ Ch 10 in
Contemporary Women’s Poetry Alison Mark & Deryn Rees-Jones (eds.),
Macmillan, 2000
Ricks, Christopher, ‘The Pursuit of Metaphor’ in Allusion to the
Poets, Oxford University Press, 2002
Suggested further reading:
Kövecses, Z. , Chapter 1: ‘What is metaphor?’ Ch 1 in Metaphor: A Practical
Introduction, pp. 3-6, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. Chigago: The
University of Chigago Press, 1980, pp. 3-6
Lakoff, George. (1991) Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to
Justify War in the Gulf Parts I and II are located at:
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/Lakof
f_Gulf_Metaphor_1.html
Accessed September 2005 (You might also
be interested in Metaphors of Terror by George Lakoff, at
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/News/911lakoff.html)
Pound, Ezra. "A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste," Poetry (Chicago) 1 [1913], pp.
198-206. Also available at
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/retrospect.htm.
Accessed September 2005
Richards, I. A. The Philosophy of Rhetoric, New York: Oxford University Press,
1965 edition. (Lecture V Metaphor), 1936.
Week Three: Consciousness
Topics:
Consciousness (and the subconscious). Ideas of consciousness and the self in
science and literature. How can narrative and poetic techniques represent inner
experience? Stream of consciousness, interior monologue etc. The fragmentary
nature of memory.
Readings:
Heaney, Seamus, ‘Feeling into Words’ in Preoccupations—Selected Prose 19681978 Faber, 1980, 1984
Leighton, Angela, ‘Just a Word: On Woolf’ Ch. 6 in On Form—Poetry,
Aestheticism, and the Legacy of a Word Oxford University Press, 2007
Lodge, David. ‘Consciousness and the Novel’, from Consciousness and the
Novel, Harvard, 2004
Schwartz, Lynne Sharon (ed) The Emergence of Memory, Conversations with
W.G. Sebald , Seven Stories Press, 2010
Vendler, Helen, ‘Mapping the Air: Adrienne Rich and Jorie Graham’ Ch 19 in Soul
Says – On Recent Poetry Harvard University Press, 2005
Wood, James, ‘A Brief History of Consciousness’ Ch 6 in How Fiction Works,
Vintage, 2008, 2009
Suggested further reading:
Auerbach, Erich. ‘The Brown Stocking’, Mimesis, Princeton University Press,
2003
Bennett, Andrew, and Royle, Nicholas, ‘The Uncanny’ Ch 5 in Introduction to
Literature, Criticism and Theory (2nd Ed.) Prentice Hall, 1995, 1999
Freud, Sigmund, ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ in, Rivkin, Julie, and Ryan,
Michael (eds). Literary Theory: an Anthology. Blackwell, 2004.
Lacan ‘The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since
Freud’, in Rivkin, Julie, and Ryan, Michael, ed. Literary Theory: an
Anthology. Blackwell, 2004.
Pope, Rob. Creativity: Theory, History, Practice. Routledge: London, 2005, pp. 90
-99
Week Four: The reader, the author and the text
Topics:
What is the relationship between reader, writer and text? Which has the most
power and authority to determine literary meaning? Is the writer-critic a model for
how to engage critically with work that influences your own imagination? Literary
theory and poetics as a way of widening and deepening strategies for reading.
Addressing the reader: how an understanding of the work’s reception influences
its creation. What licence is permitted for the translator in their attempt to carry
the literary work over into another language?
Readings:
Atwood, Margaret, ‘Communion—Nobody to Nobody’ Ch 5 in Negotiating with the
Dead: A Writer on Writing Virago, 2003
Barthes, Roland ‘The Death of the Author’ Ch 17 in Modern Criticism and Theory:
A Reader (Longman, 1998, 2008)
Benjamin, Walter ‘The Task of the Translator’ Ch 4 in Modern Criticism and
Theory: A Reader (Longman, 1998, 2008)
Bryan & Olsen (eds) Planet on the Table—Poets on the Reading Life Sarabande
Books, 2004
Cunningham, Valentine ‘Touching Reading’ Ch 46 in Modern Criticism and
Theory: A Reader (Longman, 1998, 2008)
Eco, Unberto Mouse or Rat: Translation as Negotiation Weidenfield & Nicolson,
2003
Hirsch,Jr, E.D. ‘In Defence of the Author’ Ch 14 in Modern Criticism and Theory:
A Reader, Longman, 1998, 2008
Josipovici, Gabriel, ’Thirty-three Variations on a Theme of Graham Greene’ in
Real Voices on Reading, Philip Davis (ed.), Macmillan, 1997
Smith, Zadie ‘Re-reading Barthes and Nabokov’ Ch 4 in Changing My Mind ,
Hamish Hamilton, 2009
Stockwell, Peter. 'Cognitive Deixis', in Cognitive Poetics, Routledge, London,
2002, pp. 41 – 57
Week Five: Place
Topics:
What place has place in literature? How is place bound up with feeling and
experience? The devil is in the detail. Writing about real places in fiction:
entering into and keeping an agreement with the reader. What techniques does
the writer use to represent a real or fictional world? Place as familiar and as
exotic. Place as character. Ecological and cross-cultural perspectives on
language, homeland and mother tongue.
Readings:
Alvi, Moniza,‘The Least International Shop in the World’ in Contemporary
Women’s Poetry Marks & Rees Jones, (eds.) Macmillan, 2000
Bate, Jonathan, ‘The Place of Poetry’ Ch 8 &9 in The Song of the Earth Picador,
2000
Boland, Eavan. 'The Woman The Place The Poet' in Object Lessons,
Vintage, London, 1996, pp. 154 – 174
Buell, Lawrence, ‘Place’ Ch 41 in Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader
(Longman, 1998, 2008)
Eco, Umberto. ‘Possible Woods’, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, Harvard,
2001
Rushdie, Salman, ‘Imaginary Homelands’ Ch 1 in Imaginary Homelands ,Vintage
2010
Jo Shapcott ‘Confounding Geography’ in Contemporary Women’s Poetry Marks
& Rees Jones, (eds), Macmillan, 2000
Welty, Eurdora. ‘Place in Fiction’, On Writing. Modern Library 2002.
Suggested further reading:
Griffiths, Terry Pastoral Routledge, 1999
Said, Edward. ‘Jane Austen and Empire’, Ch 11 in Literary Theory: an Anthology
(2nd Ed.) Blackwell, 2004
Week Six: Identity
Topics:
How do aspects of the writer’s personal, sexual, and cultural identity relate to the
literary work they produce? Is it easy to say who we are if the self is understood
to be neither fixed, nor unified nor stable? Which literary works are most effective
at questioning and complicating everyday assumptions about the human subject?
Readings:
Bennett, Andrew, and Royle, Nicholas, ‘Me’, ‘Queer’, ‘Racial Difference’ Chs 14,
20, & 22, (and others according to interest) in Introduction to
Literature, Criticism and Theory (2nd Ed.) Prentice Hall, 1995, 1999.
Boland, Eavan. 'The Woman Poet: Her Dilemma' in Object Lessons, Vintage,
London, 1996, pp. 239 - 254
Lorca, Federico Garcia , ‘Play and the Theory of Duende’ pp48-62 in In Search of
Duende (New Directions, 1998)
Marks, Alison ‘Writing About Writing…’ in Contemporary Women’s Poetry Marks
& Rees Jones, (eds), Macmillan, 2000
Rivkin, Julie, and Ryan, Michael (eds). Literary Theory: an Anthology. Blackwell,
2004. See essays in Parts 8, 9, & 10 according to your interests.
Smith, Zadie, ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God: What does Soulful Mean? in
Changing My Mind Hamish Hamilton, 2009
Woolf, Virginia, from ‘A Room of One’s Own’ Ch 5. (and others according to
interest) in Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, Longman, 1998, 2008
Week Seven: Time
How does time get into prose and poetry? Clock time versus fictional time. The
relationship between time and narrative structure. The relationship between time
and rhythm. Before the beginning, after the end. Lyric and narrative poetic forms.
Descriptive prose as ‘not a thought, but the mind thinking’ (Elizabeth Bishop).
Where are we in time when we are reading?
Baxter, Charles. ‘Stillness’, Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction.
Graywolf Press, 1997
Blanchot, Maurice, ‘Time and the Novel’ in Faux Pas, Stanford University Press,
2001
Eco, Umberto. ‘Lingering in the Woods’, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods,
Harvard, 2001.
Holub, Miroslav. 'The Dimension of the Present Moment', The Dimension of the
Present Moment and other Essays, Faber and Faber, London, 1990
Muldoon, Paul, ‘All Souls’ Night—W.B. Yeats’ Chapter 1 in The End of the Poem,
Faber, 2006
Paulin, Tom, ‘Writing to the Moment: Elizabeth Bishop’ in Writing to the Moment—
Selected Critical Essays 1980-1996 Faber, 1996
Welty, Eudora. ‘Some Notes on Time’, On Writing, Modern Library, 2002.
Suggested further reading:
Tarkovsky, Andrey, 'Imprinted Time' and "Time, Rhythm and Editing' in
Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema, Houston, University of
Texas Press, 1989, pp. 57 - 69 and pp. 113 - 124
Week Eight: Research for Writers
Topics:
This session is open to influence according to the interests of the group. We will
explore the extra-literary interests of individual students, and examine techniques
and procedures for making the most of your curiosity about those other fields of
knowledge.
Readings:
We will examine how writers have produced single author works or anthologies
around their particular area of interest in, for example, history, medicine, science
and technology.
This session may also be used for a library/ research trip.
Week Nine: Character (Fiction) / Manifestos (Poetry)
Topics: Character
How do we create character and personality in fiction? Consciousness and
character. Essential versus existential. Broad strokes versus fine detail. Do
characters have to be believable? Sympathetic? Forster’s ‘round’ and ‘flat’
characters. What are the differences between major and minor characters?
Traits, tags and tics. ‘The reversal of the obvious’ (Graham Greene).
Readings:
Richardson, Samuel. ‘Letter to Joseph Stinstra’, (June 2, 1753), Correspondance
(1804), [Hence Sprung Pamela].
Forster, John. Charles Dickens, The Life of Charles Dickens (1874), Vol 1,
Chapter v, [‘I thought of Mr Pickwick’]
James, Henry. Preface to The Portrait of a Lady (1881), [L’image en
disponibilite]
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. from 'Who are We?” in Philosophy in the
Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, New
York: Basic Books, 1999, pp.3 –4
Trollope, Anthony. Autobiography (1883), Chapter xii [‘The Novelist’s Characters
must be Real to Him’]
Topics: Manifestos
How can we make use of other poets’ statements about what poetry can be and
do? How can we protect a place for the implicit whilst being able to articulate our
own interests, impulses and procedures? ‘Poetry is hindered as well as helped
by manifestos’ (Andrew Motion). ‘I’m in it for the discovery’ (Michael Donaghy)
Readings
Cook, Jon (ed) Poetry and Theory: An Anthology 1900-2000, Blackwell, 2004.
Donaghy, Michael The Shape of the Dance—Essays, Interviews and Digressions
Picador, 2009
Gluck, Louise, ‘Against Sincerity’ in Proofs and Theories, Carcanet, 1993
Heaney, Seamus, ‘The Redress of Poetry’ in The Redress of Poetry, Faber,
1995
Herbert, W.N. & Hollis, Matthew, Strong Words—Modern Poets on Modern Poetry,
Bloodaxe, 2000
Moore, Marianne, ‘Humility, Concentration, and Gusto’ in Predilections, Faber,
1956
Rich, Adrienne, Poetry and Commitment – An Essay, Norton, 2007
Week Ten: Inspiration from other art forms, and review of the course
Topics
As in week Eight, this session is open to development according to interests of
the group. We will celebrate the possibilities for collaboration with other art
forms. Also, we review the term’s work formally and informally.
Readings
How do prose fiction and poetry relate to one another and to other art forms such
as the visual arts, music and dance? This meeting is followed by an end of term
social event.
Additional reading
Attridge, Derek. Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP, 1995. .
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1964.
-- On Poetic Imagination and Reverie. Trans. Colette Gaudin. Dallas:
Spring Publications, 1987.
Barfield, Owen. Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning [1928]. Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan University Press, 1973.
Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto, 1997.
Bartlett, Pyllis. Poems in Process. New York: OUP, 1951.
Bernstein, Charles (ed). The Politics of Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy.
New York: Roof Books, 1990.
Borges, Jorges, Luis. Conversations, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi,
1998.
Brooks, Peter. Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative. Harvard
University Press, 1992
Brotchie, Alastair and Gooding, Mel (eds), A Book of Surrealist Games,
Shambhala Publications, New York, 1995
Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. Addison Wesley,
2002.
Brooke-Rose, Christine. A Grammar of Metaphor. London: Secker &
Warburg, 1958.
Calvino, Italo. The Literature Machine. Vintage, 1997.
Casterton, Julia. Creative Writing: A Practical Guide. London: Palgrave, 2005.
Cuddon, J.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Oxford:
Blackwell, 1991.
Curran, Stuart. Poetic Form and British Romanticism. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.
Curtis, Tony (ed). How Poets Work. Bridgend: Seren, 1996.
Davie, Donald. Purity of Diction in English Verse. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1952; 1967.
—-Energy: An Inquiry into the Syntax of English Poetry. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955.
Da Vinci, Leonardo. The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci: Selections, Oxford,
Oxford World's Classics, 1998.
Deutsche, Babette. Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms. New York:
Grosset and Dunlap, 1957;1962.
Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel: an Introduction. Blackwell, 2005.
Genette, Gerard. Narrative Discourse: an Essay in Method. Cornell
University Press, 1983.
Ferguson, Margaret Mary, Salter, Jo and Stallworthy, Jon (eds). The Norton
Anthology of Poetry. Fourth Edition. W. W. Norton, 1996.
Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. New York: Random House, 1965.
Hartman, Charles O. Free Verse: An Essay on Prosody. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1980.
Hawthorne, Jeremy. Studying the Novel. Arnold, 2001.
Heaney, Seamus and Hughes, Ted. The Rattle Bag. London: Faber, 1982.
Heaney, Seamus, The Government of the Tongue, Faber and Faber: London,
1998
Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper & Row, 1976
Hobsbaum, Philip. Metre, Rhythm, and Verse Form. London: Routledge,
1996.
Hollander, John. Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1981.
—-The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Allusion in Milton and After. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981.
—-Vision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1985.
Hoover, Paul The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, 1994.
Jarrell, Randall. Poetry and the Age New York: Vintage Books, 1955
Kinzie, Mary. A Poet’s Guide To Poetry. Chicago: University of Chicago,
Kundera, Milan. The Art of the Novel, Faber and Faber, London, 1986
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors we Live By. Chigago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1980
Kundera, Milan. The Art of the Novel. Perennial, 2003
Leader, Zachary. On Modern British Fiction. OUP, 2002.
Marks, Emerson, R. Taming The Chaos: English Poetic Diction Since The
Renaissance. Detroit: Wayne State U of P, 1998.
1999.
May, Charles (ed). The New Short Story Theories. Ohio University Press,
1994
Nabokov, Vladimir. Notes on Prosody and Abram Grannibal. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press/Bollingen, 1964.
Padgett, Ron. The Straight Line: Writings on Poetry and Poets. Ann Arbor,
University of Michigan, 2000.
Pinsky, Robert. The Situation of Poetry: Contemporary Poetry and Its
Traditions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Preminger, Alex, with Warnke, F. J. and Hardison, O. B. Jr., (eds). Princeton
Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics. Enlarged ed. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1965; 1974.
Riley, Denise. Poets On Writing: Britain 1970-1991. Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1992.
Rilke, Rainer Maria, Letters to a Young Poet. New York: Vintage Books, 1986
Royle, Nicholas. The Uncanny. Manchester University Press, 2003.
Said, Edward. Beginnings: Intention and Method. Columbia University Press,
2004.
Shapcott, Jo and Sweeney, Matthew (eds). Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange
Times. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
Shapiro, Karl, and Robert Beum. A Prosody Handbook. New York: Harper &
Row, 1965.
Shipley, Joseph T. The Origins of English Words. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1984
Spahr, Juliana and Claudia Rankin. Where Lyric Meets Language. Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002.
Stein, Gertrude. How To Write. New York: Dover, 1975.
Stewart, Susan. Poetry and the Fate of the Senses, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2002.
Tuma, Keith. Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Oxford:
OUP, 2001.