Middlebury

ENGL0103A-S24

Reading Literature

Towards a Poetics of Community
Why read literature? One answer: such reading is not individual but communal. It links readers to each other in aesthetic experience, in ethical and hermeneutic debate, and in appreciation for writers and fellow readers. As we read literary texts from different times, cultures, and genres, we will examine how they anticipate, create, or recreate readerly communities, and how these communities in turn help shape the texts as they are experienced. We will also strive to form our own readerly community—one that is as inclusive and as intellectually generous as possible. We will begin with close analysis of poetry in various forms from various historical periods. We will then read dramas by such playwrights as William Shakespeare, Margaret Edson, and/or Lolita Chakrabarti, as well as two works from among such prose writers as Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Marilynne Robinson, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Ian McEwan, Walter Moseley, and Jean Rhys. 3 hrs. lect./disc
Course Reference Number (CRN):
22027
Subject Code:
ENGL
Course Number:
0103
Section Identifier:
A

Course

ENGL 0103

All Sections in Spring 2024

Spring 2024

ENGL0103A-S24 Seminar (Berg)
ENGL0103B-S24 Seminar (Millier)
ENGL0103C-S24 Seminar (Billings)