Paper Topics: 3pp. Due March 18th; Expanded 10 pp. paper due May 6h

Shorter Paper: Topics (focused on different types of literary criticism)
Length: 3 pp.
Expectations: A well-organized essay with attention to thoughtfulness, support of views with quotations from the text, originality, correctness, proofreading.

Please follow MLA guidelines for quotation. You are not expected to consult critical sources for this paper but rather reveal your own literary thinking and interpretation. The longer paper will require conversation with the critics.

Please consider the shorter paper as a preparation or an exploration of a topic that may develop and continue into the longer essay. We should have a conference during the time you're writing your paper.

1. Reader Response

F. R. Leavis posed the question, “why study literature?” He has argued that the study of literature makes us better people because it engages us in a discussion of human values and complexities, and refines our moral sense. Harold Bloom states that this is untrue. Great writers, he says, undermine important humanist values:

The Iliad teaches the surpassing glory of armed victory, while Dante rejoices in the eternal torments he visits upon his very personal enemies. ...Dostoevsky preaches anti-semitism, obscurantism and the necessity of human bondage…Milton’s ideas of free speech and free press do not preclude the imposition of all manner of social restraints. Spenser rejoices in the massacre of Irish rebels, while the egomania of Wordsworth exalts his own poetic mind over any other source of splendor. (The Western Canon)

Take a position for or against Leavis or Bloom’s position. “Why study literature?” Use the books read in the early part of the semester—Proust’s Combray , Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse or Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland—as part of your argument.

2. Narrative Techniques

The queen died. Story
The queen died of grief. Plot
The queen died; no one knew why. Mystery

Discuss either Proust’s Combray or Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in relation to the elements of plot, story, and mystery as suggested above. Or you may explore notions of character development or narrative techniques for capturing consciousness (stream of consciousness, free indirect discourse, quoted monologue).

Given that this is a short paper, it might be useful to focus on one or two elements of narration, and what you observe in Proust or Woolf’s writing.


3. Genetic Criticism: criticism that is based on sources like diaries, mss. drafts, holographs, and transcripts that precede the work. See sources and web link in another post on this blog "Virginia Woolf Diary & Time Passes in TL"

A more open-ended topic, suitable to continue into the longer paper (or even a thesis). See www.woolfonline.com for this assignment and the sources provided below:

What kinds of literary questions might you generate after reading on-line some of the Virginia Woolf diary entries and the historical information on the 1926 General Strike of Miners—written during the time she was writing To the Lighthouse? Relate any aspect (a few entries of the Diary or historical information) to the text of To the Lighthouse?
Focus on what interests you.

What are the connections between the private life of Virginia Woolf and public historical events that swirl around her? What is the relation between the private and public in the life and writing of an author?

This assignment is for those who feel comfortable working with materials on-line.

4. Exploring the Term, Modernism

A. Define the terms, “modernism” and “modernity” in terms of your reading of Proust’s Combray , or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse or Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. What was the literary movement of Modernism about compared to Victorian literature that Virginia Woolf said was about "getting from lunch to dinner"?

B. Relate the literary movement of Modernism and Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. You might explore the multiple incarnations of Alice in cinematic, dramatic or literary versions or some aspect.

If you're interested in children's literature, you could compare different versions (Disney etc.) and discuss differences and values using the methods of Cultural Studies.



5. Reading:
Compare the passages on reading in Proust’s Combray to the first 8-9 pages in “The Window” section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (up to the passage “For they were making the great expedition…”) or Alice’s reading. Choose one or two passages to explore the sites and meaning of reading in these literary works.


6. Themes and Narrative Methods

Potential topics:
time
space
the city, women's roles and images
children (Proust, Woolf, Carroll, Salinger-given that he's under discussion because of
his recent death)
idea of the "carnival" (Read Russian formalist critic, M.M. Bakhtin)
madness, derangment
rooms & houses
war
race
identity
religion
illness
love
class/society
subjectivity
history
homosexuality
marriage
gender relations
dreams, hallucinations, nightmares
adultery, masturbation, prostitution
famine
popular culture (theater, songs, ads)
Music, rhythm
mind/consciousness
self (concepts of)
the "other"