An introduction to poetry and at least one of prose fiction or drama, in conjunction with an introduction to some basic principles of writing.
English 110 is offered each semester. Topics vary depending on the professor.
This course examines the representation of the western Canadian experience in several novels and short stories written in the last forty years. Some of the concerns addressed include male and female experience, Aboriginal issues, the north, rural-urban dynamics, multicultural issues, the effects of the landscape on individual and communal life, and the relationship between region and nation.
Haunted houses, mysterious danger, brooding men and vulnerable women: these are the ingredients of the literature of Gothic Terror. In this course, we will examine literary works revolving around female terror and vulnerability. Specifically, we will explore the way that works of the Gothic genre in the terror tradition portray women in society and explore the psychology of terror. In addition to evoking fear by means of gothic villains, creepy settings and ghosts, Gothic writers uncover the terror of the familiar in the routine injustice and occasional brutality of the family. By tracing this branch of Gothic tradition through various manifestations in England and America from the early 19th to the late 20th centuries, students will also consider the universality of the human emotions – of fear, awe at the sublime, terror and horror – which permeate terror Gothic narratives. The reading list includes novellas, novels and short stories.
Monsters, vampires and bloody death: these are the ingredients of the literature of Gothic Horror. In this course, we will examine classic literary works revolving around the human fascination with abomination, abjection and the grotesque. In particular we will explore how the literature of Gothic Horror uses the psychology of horror to represent not only evil and the supernatural, but also the dark side of society. In addition to depicting the evil inherent in the individual, through themes such as madness and moral responsibility, these writers also consider societal evil by dealing with questions of justice and injustice, deception and violence. We will consider this branch of the Gothic tradition by reading classic texts from the late 18th to the 20th centuries, and will also analyze how works of Gothic horror develop and portray universal human emotions such as fear, terror and horror. The reading list includes a novella, novels and short stories.
The topic for the class is “Innocence and Experience.” We will begin with four novels— The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein, and The Collector—followed by a selection of poetry and non-fiction writing, which will be handed out. We will explore the concepts of “Innocence” and “Experience” through both psychological and social lenses and the implications of these concepts as social constructs. The composition component will follow from English 100, with a focus on essay writing, grammar, and other mechanics of writing as needed. Assignments will consist of three formal essays, a mid-term, and a final exam.
Apocalyptic fictions are pervasive in English literature. This course will examine three apocalyptic texts: Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, and Graham Swift's Waterland. These authors employ apocalyptic writing as a means for social criticism, illuminating crises which they believe threaten social unification and harmony. Catastrophe and revelation, the two main aspects of apocalyptic theory, will be discussed within the framework of the novels and from the perspective of Western ideology which is based largely on the New Testament's Book of Revelation. In addition to the thematic focus, essay writing will be an important facet of the course. Skills and strategies for successful academic writing will be developed as an extension of the abilities learned in English 100.
This course will entail an exploration of the use authors make of the journey motif in literature. In literature “a journey” can reflect the mysteries of the universe, of society, of an individual. It also can be simply a means to develop plot or character. Whether a journey in literature is mythic or simple, it is always an adventure. Texts: The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (Volume One in the Trilogy of Five), Huckleberry Finn, The Odyssey, Penguin Classics, 1991; Other selections will be handouts. Work: Students will be required to read, reflect, and be prepared to discuss the topic for each class. Grading: Short essays & tests 40%; 1 longer essay 20%; final examination 30%; class participation 10%. Method: Lectures & discussions
This course will examine a selection of popular ballads as they are found in Francis James Child's collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Filled with violence, tragedy, betrayal and rebellious lovers, the popular ballads are far from the sappy love songs usually associated with the term "ballad." We will examine both the content and form of the ballads to investigate how these supposedly primitive works are able to develop complex characters and plots in little space.
This course examines the nineteenth-century fascination with death. We will begin with a brief survey of the recent resurgence of vampirism in many books, television shows, and films. After a discussion of the Victorian patterns of mourning in Tennyson’s In Memoriam, we will venture into the science of death and cover topics such as mesmerism, vivisection, and phrenology. We will also investigate Victorian ideas about the body and sensations in Lewes’ The Physiology of Common Life and the sexuality of death in Swinburne’s “The Leper.” Stoker’s text will provide the backdrop for exploration into the nineteenth-century cemetery and death spaces, the horror of death, and fascinations with blood and revivification. Excerpts from recent vampire material, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, and Twilight, will complement our study of Dracula. We will conclude the course with Hardy’s Poems 1912-13 by examining how attitudes towards death and mourning have evolved since Tennyson’s In Memoriam. The composition component will focus on effective essay writing and research.
This course surveys British literature from about 1800 to the present. The reading list includes a survey core, plus a number of topics which could be selected as particular areas of study. These include: nature poetry, the supernatural, Pre-Raphaelitism, industrialization, nonsense literature, Imagism, feminist themes, post-colonial themes, literary topics such as the dramatic monologue form, and others.
This course offers practice in the analysis of fiction. The emphasis is on the critical analysis of the genre as well as of a variety of fictional types from different historical periods up to the present day. Through the study of a wide range of fictional genres, such as the short story, the novella, and the novel, this course provides students with methods and a vocabulary for the formal, stylistic, cultural and historical study of both individual texts and the traditions of fiction. The course also examines how such narrative strategies as plot, character, point of view, and language construct meaning. The intent of this course is not only to survey types of fiction, but also to provide students with strategies for reading fiction, in order to help them become better readers of fictional narratives. Through their reading of a range of short and long fiction during the course, students will be 1) learning about various narrative techniques, styles, symbols, and themes available to fiction writers, and 2) developing skills of reading, evaluating, and writing about the genre of fiction.
The theory and practice of expository and persuasive writing. Each student will be expected to write several papers in a variety of modes of writing.
In this course we will test Ben Jonson's famous claim that Shakespeare was "not of an age, but for all time!" as we read A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, All's Well that Ends Will, and The Winter's Tale. By the end of the course you should feel comfortable reading and analyzing Shakespeare’s language and have a good sense of the cultural context for his work.
A study of five to seven of Shakespeare's comedies and romances.
W. B. Yeats' literary creations span a period of more than fifty years. In his youth he determined that his life's work would be primarily that of writing poetry. He became one of the foremost poets of his time as well as a playwright and a statesman. Material for the course will focus on Yeats' changing themes and styles in selected pieces of his poetry and may include a few plays and short fiction pieces. Grading will be based on a few short essays, one major essay, a presentation, and a final exam.
This course will examine primarily the works of the major Romantic poets (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats) in the context of the revolutionary literary trends of the late 18th and early 19th centuries: the focus on humanism and primal innocence, the shift to subjectivity and individuality and emphasis on the ego as catalyst to creativity, the rejection of poetic diction, the creation of new mythologies including one of nature, the use of symbolism, and the reliance on the powers of the imagination rather than reason to attain truth. This new poetics, with its emphasis on the lyric as the essence of poetry, was to affect the course and development of literature to the present day.
This course studies the elegy in English as an evolving form. We begin with an examination of the major elegies in the English tradition, from the Renaissance to the end of the Victorian era. We then turn our attention to the many shifts in elegy in the twentieth century, with particular moments of focus on topics such as war elegy, cancer elegy, AIDS elegy, elegy and anti-elegy, elegy and tradition, women’s elegy, and the elegy’s contribution to our understanding of the processes of mourning.
This course examines the major trends in Canadian and American nature poetry in the last 100 years or so, and includes such topics as nature poetry and the environment, aesthetics, gender, and poetics. We will be centrally concerned with what the major trends have been over the past century in nature poetry and in how contemporary poets relate to a larger tradition.
In this course, we will study works spanning the career of Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter: the master of menace, the crafter of the “Pinter Pause,” and the originator of the “Pinteresque.” In Pinter’s plays, the everyday innocuous rapidly degenerates to become the very strange and ominous. A woman on holiday visits the remaining members of her husband’s family, who offer her an alternative life of domestic “bliss.” A lodger at a seaside bed and breakfast is thrown a birthday party by the elderly female proprietor and two mysterious guests. A manipulative tramp is given temporary lodging by down-and-out brothers in their depressing hovel of a home. A group of friends enjoy a cocktail party while outside the army marches, arresting their family members, friends, and colleagues. *Warning: you will leave this course completely unsettled and with your faith in theatre restored.*
This course explores the nature of writing about the Holocaust through a study of literary and other texts that implicate readers in the psychological aspects of the Holocaust. Readings will include psychological studies, as well as literary and historical texts, and will highlight the complexity of studying the Holocaust.
This course explores at a senior level the development of one of the most popular, and infamous, genres, the Gothic novel, as well as its connections to Romanticism and its later transformations. In these texts, desire, violence, monstrosity, terror, and horror combine to push the boundaries of what can and cannot be represented in polite society. Beginning in the eighteenth century, we trace the development of the Gothic from Matthew Lewis’s horrors, through Radcliffe’s female gothic romance; we also examine some philosophical and aesthetic theories which shape readers’ experiences of these novels. Next, we’ll take a detour into Jane Austen’s satirical Gothic parody, before turning to one of the most famous of Gothic texts, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Then we consider some nineteenth century practitioners of the new Gothic such as J. Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, examining how they reinterpret traditional Gothic elements to expose the reader to the irrational, unknown or inexplicable in the self and in society through their fiction. Since all of these texts are interconnected in their use of Gothic conventions, this course will also be a study in intertextuality: we will be studying these novels’ responses to each other as well as to their particular period and context.
This course studies a variety of short stories, primarily of the 19th and 20th centuries, from pioneers such as Poe and Hawthorne to contemporary Canadian, including Saskatchewan, writers. The basic approach is traditional analysis of character, plot structure, setting, imagery, symbolism and theme. However, exploration of theoretical approaches is encouraged, as various stories lend themselves to feminist, post-colonial and other modes of study. Work will be: mid-term and final exams and essay writing. See the Campion web site for notes about the instructor's teaching methods.
In this course, we will examine theatrical representations of Christ’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection, from its early remembrance and re-enactment in the ritual of the Mass and the Easter liturgy to its reinterpretation and re-imagination in plays such as Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi and Adrienne Kennedy’s Motherhood 2000. As we discuss texts ranging from the early and late medieval to the postmodern, we will note and attempt to understand two apparently opposing representational impulses: to historicize the events leading to and including Christ’s death, and to transpose those events, making them contemporaneous with the time of theatrical production. Texts to be discussed will include Jesus Christ Superstar, the York Crucifixion and Death of Christ, the N-Town Passion Play, the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, Ghelderode’s The Women at the Tomb, McNally’s Corpus Christi, Kennedy’s Motherhood 2000, and the film Jesus of Montreal. Some previous experience with late medieval English literature would be beneficial but is not required.
This course examines trends in Canadian and American environmental poetry, focusing on work in the last 100 years or so, and includes such topics as nature poetry and the environment, aesthetics, gender, and poetics. We will be centrally concerned with what the trends have been over the past century and in how contemporary poets relate to a larger tradition. A key focus will be writing in the last 30 years as it relates to ecocriticism.
This course explores representations of the university in literature, considering such issues as the purpose(s) of university education and research (for example, pure knowledge as opposed to practical or commercial applications), the university as a community and the university as part of the wider community (sometimes described as the town/gown relationship). Texts include recent novels set in universities and a course-pack of shorter selections to provide some of the long historical context.
The aim of this course is to introduce students to English Literature through genre, the concept of grouping literary works together according to their forms and characteristics. Genres are not simply classifications for literary works, but sets of implicit and explicit conventions that are shared over time between writers and readers. Therefore this class encourages students to consider the role that genre plays in the reading and interpretation of literary texts. We will also look at how certain writers choose to blur or even violate generic boundaries in their explorations of a given genre since many of the best works exemplify their genre by redefining it in new or unexpected ways. This course examines selected important literary genres through representative works of lyric poetry, satire, romance, comedy, tragedy, gothic/ horror and detective fiction.
This course begins with a historical look at the long poem as form and then proceeds to an examination of several significant 20th century examples with a specific focus on book-length poems. Our reading of the texts will be supplemented by the study of several key theoretical and critical works. Authors examined will include T.S. Eliot, Donald Hall, Robert Kroetsch, Daphne Marlatt, Mary Oliver, and William Carlos Williams.
Literary critics have, for the most part, bemoaned the early death of John Keats, the “apostle of beauty”, seeing in his relatively small canon the potential of a poetic genius and a new Shakespeare. In this course, students will read Keats’ poetry, as well as his correspondence with his contemporaries, in an attempt to understand his aesthetic theories and the critics’ evaluation of his work. We will also examine his particular brand of Romanticism in the context of the literary movement which changed the course of poetry and of poetic history. Grading is based on a class presentation, a major paper, and final examination.
This is a course on the study of Holocaust Literature written in English. We will study a range of genres, including memoir, novel, short fiction, poetry, drama, and other media to seek to understand the complexity of Holocaust representation in literature.