2017-2018 University Catalog 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
2017-2018 University Catalog archived

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ENGL 393 - Topics in Literature in English from 1700-1900


Credits: 3 in fall or winter, 4 in spring


Prerequisite: ENGL 299. Enrollment limited. A seminar course on literature written in English from 1700 to 1900 with special emphasis on research and discussion. Student suggestions for topics are welcome. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Fall 2017, ENGL 393A-01: Moby Dick: Its Origins, Legacy, and Environmental Context (3). Prerequisite: ENGL 299. This course centers upon Melville’s famous quest narrative, which many critics regard as having the best claim to the title of “Great American Novel”. We first look to such major British influences as Romantic poet S.T. Coleridge, Victorian prose master Thomas Carlyle, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, and Spielberg’s Jaws. The literary and theoretical emphasis, however, stresses Moby Dick’s generic status as both an epic and a georgic, that is, a heroic tale of humankind’s effort to conquer the natural world through technological prowess—and the tragic results of that (in)glorious aspiration for both humanity and the environment. In this regard, both genre theory and eco-criticism are central to this course’s effort to contextualize and comprehend the larger achievement of Melville’s masterpiece. (HL) Adams.




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