Thursday, November 2nd
Finish Mrs. Dalloway
Banfield, from Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the Language of Fiction (McKeon 515-535), published 1983
Terms and Concepts: “represented speech and thought“; difference between oral (SPEAKER and PRESENT) and literate (SELF and NOW) culture
Hite, “Tonal Cues and Uncertain Values: Affect and Ethics in Mrs. Dalloway.” Narrative 18.3 (2010): 249-275. (.pdf accessible through Galileo; the file is too large for me to link to it. If you’re on campus, you’ll be able to immediately link to it. If you’re off-campus, you’ll have to login to the library site. The pdf has a stable URL is http://www.jstor.org/stable/40856413)
Terms
Defamiliarization: a term derived from Russian formalism, which stressed the aesthetic power of literary language as opposed to language of the everyday. Formalists stress the “literariness” of aesthetic linguistic endeavors. “The primary aim of literature in thus foregrounding its linguistic medium, as Victor Shklovsky put it in an influential formulation, is to estrange or defamiliarize; that is, by disrupting the modes of ordinary linguistic discourse, literature ‘makes strange’ the world of everyday perception and renews the reader’s lost capacity for fresh sensation” (Abrams, “Formalism,” The Glossary of Literary Terms)
Defamiliarization “opens up spaces for ethical questioning without necessarily guiding readers to a definitive conclusion” (Hite 250)
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Tuesday, November 7th
Ian McEwan, Atonement (Part One, 3-175)
Thursday, November 9th
Atonement, (Part Two, 179-250)
Discussion Question:
McEwan is interested in the experience and representation of Perception and Time in this novel, both at the level of theme and at the level of narrative technique. Focusing on either perception or time, choose one or two scenes and discuss how it is represented in the text on the level of both theme and narrative technique.
Saturday, November 11th
*Second Writing Assignment due at 8:00 pm via electronic submission*
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Tuesday, November 14th
Atonement (Finish Novel, Part Three and “London, 1999”)
Hutcheon, from Historiographic Metafiction (McKeon 830-850), published 1988
Terms: Historiographic metafiction (844); event vs. fact (843)
D’Angelo, “‘To Make a Novel’: The Construction of a Critical Readership in Ian McEwan’s Atonement,” Studies in the Novel, vol. 41, no. 1, 2009, pp. 88-105. (pdf)
In-Class Writing
Kathleen D’Angelo argues that Briony seeks “atonement” for her crimes through fictionalizing the events of June 1935, and finds some degree of
self-forgiveness in doing so. However, D’Angelo also points out that “the overpowering effect of the epilogue is its exposure of her narrative deceit,” and furthermore that the “deceit” has ultimately been perpetuated by McEwan.Your question today is one posed by D’Angelo herself: “Why does McEwan utilize such a reversal in concluding his novel?” (100). I’d like you to both answer D’Angelo’s question and simultaneously consider whether or not you agree with D’Angelo’s own answer, which she elaborates on in the final pages of the article.
Thursday, November 16th
Individual conferences with Dr. Eberle, Park 240: 10:30 (Hannah), 10:45 (Andrea), 11:00 (Johnny), 11;15 (Laura), 11:30 (Brianna), 12:30 (Carina), 12;45 (Rachel), 1;00 (Paige), 1:15 (Kayla), 1:30 (Shailey), 1:45 (Sara)
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Thanksgiving Break: November 20th – November 24th
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Tuesday, November 28th
Please have Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn read by today’s class
Translation of “Casadh an tSugain” (“Twisting of the Hayrope”); scene from the film
*Abstract of Long Essay Due: Please send me your abstract via email (eberle@uga.edu) by 11:00am today. I’ll print up multiple copies to bring to class for peer review and discussion.*
In-Class Writing: (a) How would you describe narrative voice in Brooklyn? Support your assertions with specific evidence from the text. (b) What connections can you make between Brooklyn and at least one another we’ve read this semester? In your response, you may choose to discuss how Tóibín’s novel is different from another text rather than how it is like something else that we’ve read.
It’s time to evaluate English 4864! 1 course evaluation = 1 donut
You don’t have much time since donut day is Thursday!
Thursday, November 30th: Last Day of Class
Conclude discussion of Brooklyn
Final Scene from Brooklyn
Iser, “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach.” New Literary History, vol. 3, no. 2, 1972, pp. 279-299. (pdf)
Late Addition: If possible, please read Section I (764-765) of Iser’s The Implied Reader (1974), where he introduces the term “implied reader.”
Definition of Reader-Response Criticism: “a type of literary criticism that focuses on reading as an active process and on the diversity of readers’ responses to literary works. Reader-response critics raise theoretical questiosn about whether our responses to a work are the same as its meaning(s), whether a work can have as many meanings as we have responses to it, and whether some responses are more valid than others” (The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms 425)
Terms and Concepts from Iser: “the implied reader,” concept of reading as a “creative” and dynamic process dependent upon the “gaps” and “indeterminacy” of a literary text
Guidelines for Peer Reviews of Final Essay Abstracts
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