Spring, 2000                                                                                                                 M.A.R. Habib,
English 56:350:573:01                                                                                                    Armitage 425.
T 6:00-8:40                                                                                                                   Tel: 856 858 4802 (h).
ATG 222                                                                                                                              856 225 6310 (w).
                                                                                                                                        mhabib@camden.rutgers.edu
                                                                                                                                        Office hrs: T 4-6.
 

A. Required Texts:

(1) David Richter, ed. The Critical Tradition. Boston: Bedford, 1998.
(2) Terry Eagleton. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
(3) G. Graff, J. Phelan, eds. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: St. Martin's, 1995.
(4) Roland Barthes, Mythologies. London: Paladin, 1973.
 

B. Course Requirements:

(1) two papers [minimum of 800 words each; one unit each]; topics and deadlines to be announced in class;
(2) one class presentation (one unit);
(3) a journal [3 units] in which students are to write regularly. This will be submitted in the penultimate week; each entry should be dated and typed. Students will be asked to read aloud from their journals in several classes;
(4) a take-home final exam [2 units], due on Tuesday, May 2.
(5) the quality of class participation counts for two units;
(6) anyone missing a reading or writing assignment, for whatever reason, should see me as soon as possible.
 

C. Weekly Class Assignments:
 

I. CLASSICAL LITERARY THEORY

Week 1: Jan 18: Why Literary Theory? Using the introduction "What is Literature?" of Eagleton's Literary Theory as a starting point, students will be asked to formulate in writing their answers to this question and to identify the crucial issues involved. We will then begin a study of Classical literary criticism, commencing with extracts from Plato's Republic and Ion. Issues: what precisely is Plato's argument for banning poetry? Is it epistemological or moral? How does it relate to Plato's theory of Forms? Does Plato contradict these arguments in his Ion? Would Plato's judgement remain the same today? Can modern censorship appeal to any version of his arguments?
 

Week 2: Jan 25: Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's Ars Poetica and Plotinus' "On the Intellectual Beauty": What can we make today of Aristotle's profoundly influential definitions and categorisations of poetry? To what extent is Aristotle's conception of poetry epiphenomenal of his quarrel, at a philosophical level, with Plato's theory of Forms? Is this conception necessarily tied to Aristotle's view of "substance" as the primary reality? What are the political implications of Aristotle's views of "substance" and "identity"? What are the implications for Feminism? Horace paints an entirely different picture of poetry, as something far more subjectively defined. Why? Does he really have a theory of poetry? Was it possible to theorise, beyond Stoicism, in a Roman world where only one man, the Emperor Augustus, was truly free? Was Horace a revolutionary or a reactionary apologist? Plotinus is the most renowned of the Neoplatonists: what use does he make of Plato's theory of Forms? How does his concept of imitation differ from that of Plato?
 

II. MEDIAEVAL AND RENAISSANCE LITERARY THEORY
 

Week 3: Feb 1: Dante's Letter to Can Grande della Scala, Christine de Pisan's Querelle de la Rose and Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie: What were the principal characteristics of Mediaeval semiotic theory, as embodied in Dante's letter? What kind of world-view is implied by a highly structured allegorical mode of writing? To what extent does Christine's assault on the Roman de la Rose undermine the very structure of allegory in this poem? Do her criticisms of male writing exhibit a continuity with those of modern feminists? Notwithstanding their differences, both Aristotle and Horace exerted powerful influences on Renaissance poetics. What were the cultural and intellectual circumstances behind Sidney's need to defend poetry? Is today's marginalisation of poetry a parallel phenomenon? Does Sidney say anything new or is he merely echoing Aristotelian and Horatian notions? Does he present arguments or mere assertions? Can we learn something from his attempt to situate poetry within a broader (Christian) scheme of things and to insist on its didactic character? Does Sidney's text belong to the Renaissance or is it anachronistic?
 

III. NEOCLASSICAL LITERARY THEORY
 

Week 4: Feb 8: Pope's An Essay on Criticism and extracts from Johnson's Rambler, Rasselas and Preface to Shakespeare: Pope's Essay, reflecting the values of neoclassical criticism, addresses a question raised by Horace: Nature versus Art. What exactly does Pope mean by "Nature"? How, moreover, do we reconcile his emphasis on Reason with his insistence on submission to Divine Revelation? How heavily does this type of Classicism rely on Aristotle? Johnson's views are also heavily indebted to Horace: does he advance beyond Horace's insights? What exactly is Johnson's notion of imitation? Why is the function of the audience in Johnson's prescriptions for literature? Does Johnson's insistence on the "universality" of poetry differ in its rationale from Aristotle's?
 

IV. ENLIGHTENMENT LITERARY THEORY
 

Week 5: Feb 15: Hume's Of the Standard of Taste and extract from Kant's Critique of Judgment: Do Hume's views on taste imply that there is no escape from subjective assessments of art? Is his appeal to "human nature" valid? How does his focus on the reader anticipate reader-response theories? Hume is conventionally viewed as a major figure in the empiricist category of Enlightenment thought: are his views on art subsumable under this denomination? How effectively does Kant develop Hume's aesthetics? Does he treat adequately the question of the subjectivity or objectivity of artistic judgment? How are his aesthetics connected to his epistemology in general? What are his views on the autonomy of art? How does Kant's philosophy lay the groundwork for much Romanticism?
 

V. FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ROMANTICISM
 

Week 6: Feb 22: Extract from Schiller's "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry," Germaine de Stael's "Essay on Fictions" and "On Women Writers," Hegel's Introduction to the Philosophy of Art and Coleridge's Biographia. What were the political causes of the Romantics' extreme reaction against the neoclassical tradition? Is their movement towards subjectivity part of a broader historical movement? Why did the Romantics exalt the status of the poet? If Classicism has its roots in Aristotle, does Romanticism trace its genesis to Plato? Was it an accident that Coleridge imported German philosophical ideas into English letters? Coleridge's argument for the autonomy of poetry --its freedom from religious, moral or political constraint -- is still influential today, even in our English Department. Why? Is our age underlain by a continuation of Romantic predispositions? Is it even meaningful to talk of a Classical ideal, as T.S. Eliot did? While Hegel's philosophy itself is not Romantic, it shares certain crucial elements with Romantic aesthetics.
 

VI. LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY HUMANISM
 

Week 7: Feb 29: James' "The Art of Fiction," Arnold's "The Study of Poetry" and extract from Leavis' The Great Tradition. In James' essay the principle of poetic autonomy is taken even further, and fiction is given the licence to undermine conventional moral and artistic notions. Is James'vehement recalcitrance from didacticism a good thing? Why does he take the principle of subjectivity to such an extreme?On the other hand, Arnold attempts to replace religion altogether with poetry. Is it conceivable that poetry could somehow rescue civilisation from the tyranny of technology, intellectual relativism and moral chaos? Or was this merely a symptom of a despairing Victorian humanism? Which elements does Leavis bring to the analysis of literature? Is his position articulable and coherent or does it mere rely on an ineffable refining of a reader's sensibility?
 

By this stage of the course, all students should have read the stipulated edition of Huckleberry Finn.
 
 
 

VII. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
 

(A) FORMALISMS
 

Week 8: March 7: T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Shklovsky"s "Art as Technique" and Wimsatt/Beardsley's "The Intentional Fallacy."Cleanth Brooks' "Irony as a Principle of Structure." Why does Eliot situate creativity in a traditional context? Did he redefine the meaning of tradition? What does his own influence on literary criticism tell us about literary traditions and the social structures which sustain them? The essay by Wimsatt and Beardsley is one of the primary documents of the "New Criticism," still pervasive today. Was Eliot a forerunner of this approach? The New Critics' focus was "the word on the page." What were the motives behind their rejection of interpretative recourse to factors such as an author's intention, biography, moral purpose and historical circumstance. Is the "intentional fallacy" argument valid? New Criticism has been under fire for over twenty years but does it have any redeeming features? Can we accommodate its focus on ambiguity, irony and paradox into more comprehensive schemes of reading? We will also read essays on Huckleberry Finn by Lionel Trilling, T.S. Eliot and Leo (not Karl!) Marx.
 

Mar 11-19: Spring Break
 

(B) PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM
 

Week 9: March 21: Freud's "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming," Jung's "The Principal Archetypes," Lacan's "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious." Can we "explain" the process of artistic creation, as Freud attempts to do? Is art a sublimation of repressed wish-fulfilment? Are Freud's psychoanalytic accounts individualistic or social? What is their political resonance? How do Jung's basic assumptions about the human mind differ from those of Freud? Does Lacan's inscription of Freudian concepts within language usefully extend their application? In general, can psychoanalytic principles and models be used to organise the form and content of literary criticism? Is this discipline categorisable in a "scientific" fashion? Or is the refusal to categorise it yet another genteel mystifying impulse? To explain particular texts, don't we need universal archetypes?
 

(C) STRUCTURALISM
 

Week 10: March 28: Saussure's "Nature of the Linguistic Sign," Levi-Strauss' "The Structural Study of Myth," Roland Barthes' Mythologies. What were the enormous implications of Saussure's redefinition of the sign? How radical was this definition? Towhat extent was the notion of formal structure a continuation of, or a reaction against, liberal humanist methodology? Using Barthes' book and Eagleton's chapter on Structuralism, we will ask: how does Structuralism advance beyond previous methods of analysis? What are its philosophical assumptions about identity, authorship and language? Is it indeed ahistorical, as Marxist theorists argue? Is it radical? What explains its apparent neglect in contemporary academia?
 

(D) DECONSTRUCTION
 

Week 11: April 4: Extract from Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.., Heidegger's "Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry," Jacques Derrida's "Structure, Sign, and Play...". Extracts from Derrida's work and Eagleton's chapter on deconstructive thought will help us to consider: is deconstruction capable of definition or summary? What is its historical and philosophical genesis? Is it a philosophy? Is it original or merely a superficial rehashing of the ideas of Hegel and other philosophers? Is it revolutionary or simply the latest phase of reactionary withdrawal from political concerns? Can Marxism and Deconstruction be reconciled? To what extent does deconstruction develop or undermine the ideas and methodological strategies of Nietzsche and Heidegger? We will look at Earl F. Briden's analysis of Huckleberry Finn.
 

(E) MARXISM
 

Week 12: April 11: Extracts from Marx's German Ideology and A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy; extracts from Williams' Marxism and Literature and Habermas' The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Did Marx and Engels have a theory of literature? What are the basic predispositions of Marxist literary analysis? What is the Marxist conception of the "human": scientific, humanist, fatalistic? Must literary value be related to a particular ideological stance? If not, how do Marxist aesthetics accommodate political commitment? Do Marxist notions of "ideology" overlap with those of other areas of literary theory, such as Feminism?
 

(F) FEMINISM
 

Week 13: April 18: De Stael's "On Women Writers," Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Elaine Showalter's "Toward a Feminist Poetics," Helene Cixous' "The Laugh of the Medusa." Is there a cohesive philosophy behind the various branches of Feminism? What are the main issues of contention between Feminist critics themselves? Are there a set of "male" philosophical assumptions uniformly to be assailed? Why is Feminism necessarily politically conscious? Is Feminism basically a middle class, liberal and individualistic movement? What is at stake in a revision of the literary canon? Can the Bible and the Qur'an survive a Feminist reading? Is the vocabulary of Feminism obliged to compromise with the conceptual frameworks it sets out to impugn? We will look also at Eagleton's concluding chapter "Political Criticism," as well as essays by Myra Jehlen and Frederick Crews on Huckleberry Finn.

(G) LITERARY POLITICS: THE ISSUE OF RACE:
 

Week 14: April 25: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Writing, 'Race,' and the Difference it Makes." How do social-political issues such as race affect our reading of literature? Can race be used as a category of analysis? Is it external or intrinsic to literary evaluation and canon formation? We will examine Gates' views on these issues; we will also look at two contrasting views on race in Huckleberry Finn, written by Julius Lester and Justin Kaplan.
 

(H) READER-RESPONSE THEORY AND NEW HISTORICISM:
 

Week 15: May 2: Wolfgang Iser's "The Reading Process..," Foucault's "Las Meninas," Hayden White's "The Politics of Historical Interpretation." If the meaning of a literary text is "open" and "filled in" by the reader, how do we escape a bottomless relativism, where a text can mean anything to anybody? If a "text" is defined institutionally by a cumulative historical process, does it make sense to defer to meanings "created" by individual readers? Does Reader Response theory condemn itself to a quietist acceptance of the status quo? Can/must it be used in conjunction with other theories?

Is New Historicism, which insists on blurring the boundaries between literature, history and the social sciences, really new or is it in fact the most recent flowering of a method born in the nineteenth century? How does this type of historicism differ from that of Hegel and Marx? Does its concern with history and power overlap with that of Marx?