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Literary Criticism

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Course description

Any judgment about what constitutes good or bad literature assumes a definition of what literature is or should be. The primary aim of this course, then, will not be to judge the quality of particular literary works, but rather to reflect on the nature of literature as such. Why do we tell stories, write poems, perform plays? What is the relationship between “literary” and “ordinary” language? How does literature reveal, or conceal, truth?

As our guides in this inquiry, we will call upon a tradition of philosophers, writers, critics, and theorists beginning in classical Greece and extending through contemporary approaches to literary criticism, including psychoanalysis, Marxism, deconstruction, and feminist and gender studies. One of the primary challenges of this course of study will be to master the concepts introduced by the writers we study. By studying these concepts within the context of their particular cultural contexts, we will develop an understanding of literary history and the history of literary criticism (i.e. how literary practices and ideas of literature have changed over time). As crucially, we will seek to discover the relevance of this history to the present and to our own lived experience. To what extent do the questions and problems posed by earlier writers concern us? How might these writers help us understand our particular cultural moment? What new questions and problems do we face, and how might we address them?

For more information, please e-mail Prof. Jared Stark at starkjl@eckerd.edu.

For more information on studying literature at Eckerd, click here to visit our web site