1. Read, write, and think critically about the texts through discussion, analysis, and argumentation of issues in the readings.

Transcription

1 Syllabus for English (K): Epic (TR 1:10-2:25 in G 221) J. Denno jdenno9@naz.edu (w) / (h) Office: G 489 Office Hrs: MW 4-5; TR 8:30-9:20 Course Description: Our course treats a varied sampling of traditional and modern epic texts, even as we interrogate the meaning of the epic genre and of genres themselves. As opposed to a lecture, our class will be a hybrid of lecture and seminar, with students responsible to attend, contribute, and react to the readings and to each other s formal and informal arguments. To this end, you will need to record your responses to each of the readings in a dialogic journal, and to come to class ready to comment. Because of this seminar approach, your regular attendance and conscientious preparations are crucial. Course Objectives: The first end of any Perspectives I (PI) course is to acquaint you with disciplinary scope and methodology; so, our course primarily appropriates methods of literary criticism to interpret these texts within their generic, historic, and cultural contexts. While the course acquaints you with a broad selection of traditional and modern epic texts, our greater interest will be to achieve these objectives: 1. Read, write, and think critically about the texts through discussion, analysis, and argumentation of issues in the readings. Because ours is a Writing-Intensive (W) course, you will learn: 2. Learn to conceive of and to practice writing according to the process model, and to learn and practice strategies for invention, refinement, drafting, revising, and editing polished essays. Toward these ends, you will: a) maintain a dialogic journal; b) confer with me and with classmates (at least twice) about your writing-inprogress; c) employ several pre-writing techniques; d) engage in critical response to classmates writing. Also, because ours is a Global Perspectives (G) course, you will e) engage with primary and secondary readings from several different cultures; f) pay special attention to perspectives that contrast with and challenge Anglo- American, European, patriarchal, and other naturalized interpretations. Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 1

2 3. to understand the genre of epic in its tradition, and, as much as possible, to gain a sense of how these texts have been and may be read to suggest deeper cultural issues implicit in the genre and in its post-modern reception. Required Texts and Materials: 1. Gustave Dore / S.T. Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (New York: Dover, 1970) 2. The Epic of Gilgamesh. New York: Viking Penguin, 1960 [Revised Ed.] 3. R. K. Narayan. The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, Homer. The Odyssey. Robert Fitzgerald, trans. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Derek Walcott. Omeros. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, D. T. Niane. Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (New York: Longman, 1995) 8. Standard-sized, sturdy notebook or pocket folder (for journal entries) 9. *Secondary readings on e-reserve (see asterisked items in reading/writing schedule, below) *Highly Recommended: Lester Faigley, The Brief Penguin Handbook (NY: Pearson Longman, 2003) Evaluation Guidelines: Policies: Each student will write two presentation papers of one single-spaced page on given issues in the readings (roughly 30%); a comparative analysis of a single motif or issue in three different texts (roughly 15%), dialogic journal (roughly 20%); and a final examination (30%); I reserve a discretionary factor (5%) based on the student s apparent and demonstrable level of intellectual engagement with the course, as evident in prompt attendance, preparation, contributions, conferences, critical questioning, characterizations, etc 1) Students are responsible to back up all formal assignments, and to keep all informal writing (prewriting, drafts, etc.) until term s end 2) Only hard copies of assignments will be accepted; no attachments, please. 3) Students are responsible to notify me in case of emergency absence. Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 2

3 4) Students must attend regularly and promptly; any more than two absences will substantially lower your course grade. 5) By the second week of class, you must formally designate one of your classmates as your contact person i.e. the person who will be responsible to supply you with any missed notes, announcements, assignments, or handouts. 6) Students must be scrupulous in ascribing proper credit to sources; see below: Academic Honesty: Because your student handbook and several other readily available sources discuss plagiarism and its consequences, I will assume your understanding of the law, unless you indicate otherwise. Essentially, you must give credit when you use the ideas or even the words of a source. In our course, use MLA style for documentation. If you ever have questions about whether to cite a source, you should err on the side of caution. Also, you should consult me, the Writing Center, and/or the library Reference Desk. Presentation Papers: Each of you will be assigned to a presentation group (A, B, C, or D), meaning only that the members of each group independently prepare formal papers for the same class date. Each of you will present twice during the term, on a rotating schedule. These very short papers (one page, single-spaced) are to be written, presented, and then submitted for a grade, on the dates designated. Each student will write two, each addressing an audience of fellow scholars who are familiar with the readings. The brevity of the assignment dictates a barebones argument. In most cases, you will begin by setting forth a sharp critical position on the given issue, along with its larger implications, and follow with selected textual evidence in support of your position, and a brief conclusion. The thesis should be as pointed and controversial as your conviction allows. I strongly urge you to avail yourself of The Writing Center (G 332; X-2636) well before the due date. I will evaluate these papers for the incisiveness of the analysis and for their observance of formal criteria for essays. Comparative Analysis Essay: All students will generate, research, and synthesize a short (3-5 pages, not including documentation) critical essay on an issue, motif, image, or theoretical concern as it manifests in three of our course texts. The issue will be of your own choosing, but you will need to confer with me and with classmates about your rationale, your plan of research, and your eventual thesis and its implications. The essay is due on Wednesday, December 8, but you will be inventing, researching, drafting and revising during the weeks prior to the due date. This essay constitutes 20% of your grade. Dialogic Journal: 1) Beginning on Tuesday of week 2, you will respond critically to the week s journal prompt (see page 7, below) with an entry of approximately 300 words. Journal entries must reflect serious critical engagement with the readings, noting connections where you discern them, between readings, class Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 3

4 Characterizations: discussion, outside research, and your own knowledge and experience. Use the journal to push each other toward deeper and broader implications. Do not merely summarize the given. Bring your journal to class every day; you will be asked to share these entries with the class from time to time. Journal entries are due on the first class meeting of the week. 2) Each week, you must exchange your journal entry with your partner, who will then respond critically to your entries while you reciprocate in kind. This secondary response i.e. your response to your partner s response should likewise extend for approximately 300 words. Both entries may be handwritten, word-processed, , or instant messaging (though, if you choose these latter, you will need to print out the exchange and bring it to class each day, and collect all entries to be turned in later); your goal must be to push each other to deeper, more thoughtful insights about the readings and their implications. Do not merely praise and or confirm each other in your first impressions and interpretations. Carefully record these exchanges. You and your partner will meet with me over this journal near midterm, and I will formally review and evaluate these journals near term s end for their critical insight and substantiveness. While I generally ask for volunteers to characterize specific readings, all of you should make it a point to prepare at least two readings during the course of the term. A characterization has three parts: 1) a terse distillation of the reading s thesis, chief concern, or most salient feature; 2) your critical response to that thesis; and 3) your assessment of how that thesis or concern relates to our class study. Reading / Writing Schedule 1 T 8/29 Introduction R 8/31 Syllabus; The Epic of Gilgamesh, Intro and 1: The Coming of Enkidu; Gilgamesh, 2: The Forest Journey; Toohey, Epic: The Genre, Its Characteristics *; Aristotle, from The Poetics* 2 T 9/5 R 9/7 Gilgamesh 3 and 4: Ishtar and Gilgamesh, and the Death of Enkidu; The Search for Everlasting Life; Mandell, Liminality, Altered States, and the Gilgamesh Epic *; Bakhtin, from Epic and Novel * Gilgamesh 5, 6, & 7: The Story of the Flood, The Return, and The Death of Gilgamesh; T 9/12 Presentation A: Culture and nature in Gilgamesh; Harris, Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic * Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 4

5 3 R 9/14 The Odyssey: Introduction and Book 1 4 T 9/19 The Odyssey 2 and 3 R 9/21 The Odyssey: Books 4, 5, 6; Hainsworth, Greek Primary Epic * 5 6 T 9/26 Presentation B: Identity in The Odyssey; The Odyssey, 7, 8, 9 R 9/28 Odyssey: 12, 13, 14; Schein, Female Representations and Interpreting The Odyssey T 10/3 Presentation C: Cultural degeneracy in The Odyssey; The Odyssey, 18, 19, 20 R 10/5 Semester Reading Day: No Classes 7 T 10/10 The Odyssey, conclude; Zeitlin, Figuring Fidelity in Homer s Odyssey *; Presentation D: The Female in The Odyssey R 10/12 Library Class: Meet in Library Instruction Room 8 T 10/17 R 10/19 The Mahabharata, Introduction & 1, 2, 3; formal proposal due Mahabharata, 4,5, 6; Arbeitel, Traditional Epics * 9 T 10/24 Mahabharata, 7,8, 9; Lukács, Integrated Civilizations * R 10/26 Mahabharata, 10,11, 12; T 10/31 Mahabharata, conclude; Presentation A: Mortality in epic R 11/2 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (All); draft of comparative analysis due, with three copies; sign up in pairs for draft conference. T 11/7 Presentation B: Irrationality in The Rime R 11/9 Sundiata, Introduction through p.40 Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 5

6 12 T 11/14 Sundiata, conclude; Belcher, Sunjata and the Traditions of the Manden *; sign up for journal conferences (dialogic pairs) R 11/16 Presentation C: Epic and nationalism; Omeros, Book 1 ***Thanksgiving Recess October 20-24*** 13 T 11/28 Omeros, Books 2, 3; Zoppi, Omeros, Derek Walcott and the Contemporary Epic Poem * R 11/30 Omeros, Books 4, 5 14 T 12/5 Omeros, Books 6, 7; Presentation D: Epic and homecoming R 12/7 Last Class; journals due; comparative analysis due Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 6

7 Denno / English (K) Comparative Analysis Essay: All students will generate, research, and synthesize a short (3-5 pages, not including documentation) critical essay on an issue, motif, image, or theoretical concern as it manifests in three of our course texts. The issue will be of your own choosing, but you will need to confer with me and with classmates about your rationale, your plan of research, and your eventual thesis and its implications. The essay is due on Wednesday, December 8, but you will be inventing, researching, drafting and revising during the weeks prior to the due date. This essay constitutes 20% of your grade. Formal Proposal for Comparative Analysis 1. By Tuesday, October 17, turn in a formal proposal for your comparative analysis essay, including the following: a) An introductory explanation of the issue, motif, image, or concept, or theoretical concern you intend to study; the three texts you intend to use in the study; a rationale for the study; and an explanation of how and why it provokes your intellectual curiosity. b) Your tentative thesis newsworthy, concise, and provocative clearly asserted. c) The wider implications of your thesis for our understanding of the issue, the specific epic texts under study, the epic genre, and/or the cultural significance of these texts. d) Annotated citations, in MLA style, of at least two refereed journal sources that bear upon your issue and to which you will respond in your essay. 2. On Thursday, November 2, you and your peer reader will sign up for a brief conference with me so that we can vet your proposal. 3. The final version, edited and polished, is due on Thursday, December 7. ***I strongly urge you to avail yourself of The Writing Center (G 332; X-2636) for each phase of the assignment, well before its due date. Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 7

8 Journal Prompts Week 1: How should we define epic as a literary genre? What features do all epics share? Is the category useful or needlessly restrictive? Week 2: What constitutes heroism in epic? Can epic heroes transcend the cultures that produce them? Explain and exemplify. Week 3: Analyze the double-ness of Gilgamesh and Enkidu: What is the nature of their bond? Why does a hero-king like Gilgamesh require this complementary twin? Week 4: At what point in a cultural cycle does epic seem to arise? Is epic focused on past, present, or future? With what implications? Week 5: What can we infer about the original audiences of various epics? Does epic demand to be read respectfully? Is there tragedy in epic? Comedy? Explain. Week 6: What s the significance of heroes journeys to the underworld, or their contemplations of mortality? Week 7: What s the relationship between epic and myth? Can an epic be read as a holy book i.e. as scripture? Week 8: Compare the categories of human and divine in The Mahabharata with The Odyssey: What commonalities and contrasts can you discern? What implications? Week 9: How strictly gendered is epic? Do these texts always suppress the female? Are women always other in epic? How important is patrilineage? Week 10: Does the meaning of the term epic remain stable across cultures? How similar are Sumerian, Greek, and south Asian epics? How different? Week 11: How important is the journey motif to epic, and why? Are journeys always allegorical? How should we interpret them? Week 12: What s the importance of the poet or the singer of tales in these texts? Do we need to know anything about Homer? Vyasa? Do these names serve any purpose for readers? Week 13: How does Walcott reinvent epic for his post-colonial culture? Explain. Week 14: Conceive, outline, and draft Book 1, Episode 1, Page 1 of a contemporary epic. Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 8

9 English 141 E-reserves for Fall Peter Toohey, Epic: The Genre and Its Characteristics from Reading Epic: An Introduction to the Ancient Narratives. London and New York: Routledge, s. 2. J. B. Hainsworth What Is An Epic? from The Idea of Epic (Chapter 1) Berkeley: U of CA Press, 1991, J. B. Hainsworth The Form of Epic from The Idea of Epic (Chapter 7) Berkeley: U of CA Press, 1991, Butcher, S. H., ed. and trans., from Aristotle s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art (NY: Dover, 1951), From Mikhail Bakhtin. Epic and Novel. from The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: U of Texas, 1981, Schein, Seth L. Female Representations and Interpreting the Odyssey from Beth Cohen, ed. The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer s Odyssey (Chapter 2). NY: Oxford, 1995, Froma I. Zeitlin. Figuring Fidelity in Homer s Odyssey. from Beth Cohen, ed. The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer s Odyssey (Chapter 7). NY: Oxford UP, 1995, Arbeitel, Alf. Traditional Epics from The Ritual of Battle. Albany: SUNY Albany Press, Hammond, Dorothy and Alta Jablow. Gilgamesh and the Sundance Kid: The Myth of Male Friendship from John Maier, ed. Gilgamesh: A Reader (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997) Mandell, Sara. Liminality, Altered States, and the Gilgamesh Epic from John Maier, ed. Gilgamesh: A Reader (Wauconda, Il: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997) Harris, Rivkah. Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic from John Maier, ed. Gilgamesh: A Reader (Wauconda, Il: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997) Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. The Marginalization of the Godesses from John Maier, ed. Gilgamesh: A Reader (Wauconda, Il: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997) Zoppi, Isabella Maria. Omeros, Derek Walcott, and the Contemporary Epic Poem Callaloo 22.2 (1999), Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 9

10 Some Important Terms and Concepts in the Study of Epic: *Accumulate definitions relevant to epic for the following terms by midterm from your readings, research, and from discussions with classmates. We will doubt add terms as we go. I reserve the option of quizzing you on these terms, from midterm on, with the grade used to informally adjust your journal grade. 1. folk epic / oral epic / primary epic 2. literary epic / secondary epic 3. mythological epic 4. dactyllic hexameter 5. nostalgia 6. eulogy 7. hybris 8. kleos aphthiton 9. formula / formulae / formulaic verse 10. parataxis / paratactic 11. intertextuality / allusion 12. exile 13. liminality 14. rite of passage / rite of purification / baptism 15. catalogue 16. invocation 17. muse 18. Calliope 19. preliterate culture 20. underworld journey Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 10

11 21. bardic tradition 22. in medias res 23. divine council 24. genre criticism 25. mock epic 26. patrilineage 27. eschatology 28. set speeches Denno / English (K) Syllabus / Fall 2006 / Page 11