OLT 321: EUROPEAN LITERATURE
This course is designed to give the learners a general insight and artistic appreciation
of European Literature in both prose and poetry forms. Please go to the moodle to
find many support materials, as well as digital copies of the novels you will need to
read.
The approaches to be used included making descriptions, meaning formulation,
analysis of various key areas, etc., as are stipulated in the subtopics below:
FICTION
Topics studied include:
1. Realism: its definition and background, the use of figurative language in realism,
realism’s relationship with reality and history in Daniel Defoe’s
Moll Flanders
and Robinson Crusoe.
2. The French Revolution as the historical content of Balzac’s novel Old Goriot.
Examining Eugene Rastignac as the point of view character in
Old Goriot. The
structure and style of Balzac’s Old Goriot.
3. The reflection of the industrial revolution in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.
4. Character development, structure and use of symbolism in Great Expectations.
5. The impact of declined hopes in Great Expectations.
6. Tracing the feministic aspects in g Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
7. Making a literary analysis of the importance of the structure and style, plot and
point of
view of Madame Bovary.
8. The background and consequences of Emma Bovary’s tragic flaw
9. Describing the search for happiness of meaning of life in Madame Bovary and
Camus’ The Outsider.
10. The criminal mentality, marriage and family in Dostoyevsky: The double, Notes
from the Underground, and Tolstoy’s Happy ever after.
11. Outline the background and effects of moral decline in The Death of Ivan Ilyitch
(Tolstoy).
12. Tracing modernism (as a movement) in Kafka’s The Trial.
13. Literary trends: modernism, social realism and post-modernism in Barnes’
Flaubert’s
parrot, Gorky’s Mother and Kafka’s The Trial on issues like
definitions,
features, and their contributions to European prose
fiction.
FICTION LECTURES:
Lecture 1: Realism and the rise of the European Novel
Lecture 2: Honoré de Balzac’s Old Goriot
Lecture 3: Balzac’s Old Goriot
Lecture 4: The theme of Fatherhood in Old Goriot
Lecture 5: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
Lecture 6: The structure and style of Madame Bovary
Lecture 7: Emma Bovary’s romantic quest
Lecture 8: Dostoyevsky: His life and work
Lecture 9: Dostoyevsky’s The Double and Notes from the Underground
Lecture 10: The life and work of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Lecture 11: Tolstoy’s Happy ever after, The Cossacks and The Death of Ivan
Ilych
Lecture 12: The life and work of Charles Dickens
Lecture 13: Dickens’ Great Expectations
Lecture 14: Trends in 20th century fiction Kafka’s The Trial, and Orwell’s Nineteen
eighty-four
POETRY
Topics studied include:
1. Distinguishing narrative and lyrical poetry in the European poetic tradition.
2. Tracing the emergence of the romance as a literary artistic form in European
poetry.
3. Discussing the major thematic concerns of metaphysical and romantic poetry
basing on
areas like love, man and God, etc. in the works of William
Blake, P. B. Shelley, J.
Keats, Bertold Brecht, Wordsworth, etc.
4. Realism in Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Prophet
5. The relationship of Vladimir Mayakovski to the revolution of 1917 as shown in his
poems:
-To answer
-My soviet passport
6. Artistic concerns of W. B. Yeats as shown in:
-Down by the Salley Gardens
-Words
7. Making a critical appreciation of Yeats’ poetic style in the poem No Second Try
8. Identification of style in:
-T. S. Eliot’s poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The
Wasteland
The Wasteland and Ash Wednesday, and Portrait of a Lady on areas such
as
language use, sound patterns imagery and use of allusion
9. Examining form and content in B. Brecht’s poems
-Ballad of the pirates
-A bed for the night
POETRY LECTURES:
Lecture 1: Background to European Poetry
The Epic
The Romance
The Sonnet
The Renaissance Lecture 2: Metaphysical Poetry
Thematic Concerns
Lecture 3: Metaphysical Poetry
Theme of Love
Theme of Man and God
Paradox
Imagery
Rhythm and Rhyme
Lecture 4: Romantic Poetry- the background
What is Romanticism?
Lecture 5: Romantic Poetry- English Romantics
William Blake
Lecture 6: Romantic Poetry- English Romantics (part 2)
William Blake (part 2)
William Wordsworth
Samuel Coleridge
P. B. Shelley
John Keats
Lecture 7: Alexander Pushkin
Romanticism and Realism
Poems on the Decembrists
Love lyrics
The Role of the Poet
Lecture 8: Willam Butler Yeats
Life and work
Traditional sources
Stylistic Aspects
Lecture 9: W. B. Yeats (part 2)
Love poems
Nationalistic concerns
World civilization concerns
Lecture 10: Bertold Brecht: Life and work
Phase One: poems ‘Song of the Fort’ and ‘Donald Railroad Gang’
Phase Two: ‘Ballad of the Pirates’ and ‘A Bed for the Night’
Phase Three: ‘Pride’
Lecture 11: T. S. Eliot
Life and work
Poems:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Style
Language
Sound Patterns
Imagery
Allusion
Portrait of a Lady
Lecture 12: Vladimir Mayakovsky Russian futurism
His life and work
Lecture 13: V. Mayakovsky
Poems:
What about you?
Kindness to horses
Order No. 2 to the Army of Ants
Contagious Cargo
My Soviet Passport
Assessment: Students are evaluated by two examinations.
Works (MOST OF THESE ARE AVAILABLE FOR FREE ONLINE; YOU
MAY ALSO FIND THEM IN THE MOODLE FOR THE COURSE, WHERE
YOU MAY DOWNLOAD THEM AS WELL. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
ARE AVAILABLE ON THE MOODLE FOR OLT 321).
Balzac, Honoré de Old Goriot
Barnes , Julian Flaubert’s parrot Pan Books 1985
Brecht, Berthold Ballad of the pirates; A bed for the night
Camus, Albert The outsider Penguin 1973
Defoe, Daniel Moll Flanders; Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles Great Expectations Penguin 1980
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Notes from the underground and The Double Penguin 1973
Eliot, T.S. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; The Wasteland; Ash Wednesday
Flaubert, Gustave Madame Bovary
Gorky, Maxim Mother 1974
Kafka, Franz The Trial Penguin 1971
Mayakovski, Vladimir To answer; My soviet passport
Tolstoy, Leo Happy ever after Penguin 1980
The death of Ivan Ilych Penguin 1971
Yeats, W. B. No Second Try; Down by the Salley Gardens; Words
Watson, George The story of the novel Macmillan 1979
Watt, Ian The rise of the novel Berkeley 1971