LIT092 CM - Close Reading

Close reading is what students and scholars of literature do, and have always done. This course will present an overview of the history of textual interpretation, from its roots in Biblical study and ancient philosophy to more modern approaches such as Marxist literary criticism, psychoanalytic literary criticism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, and deconstruction. To this end we will read theoretical texts by Erich Auerbach, Roland Barthes, William Empson, I. A. Richards, Jacques Derrida and others. The main focus of the class, however, will be individual readings of poetic texts. Poets studied include, but are not limited to, Shakespeare, Keats, Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, and Yeats.

Offered: Occasionally

Credit: 1

Course Number: LIT 092 CM