English 760 E6W2
Fall 2004
Fiction in Theory and
Practice
Prof. David Richter
Syllabus
Fiction in Theory and
Practice is a seminar on theory of fiction intended for creative writers and
others interested in the art of fiction.
What we will be doing is to explicate some of the traditional concepts
critics have used in attempting to analyze fiction (genres such as novel,
novella, short story; style-systems like realism, modernism, and
post-modernism; elements such as plot, character, point of view, focalization,
pacing) and a few of the currently fashionable modes of criticism (such as
feminism and cultural critique) readers or reviewers may employ.
The immediate purpose is to
make students more sophisticated in reading other people's stories, and more
savvy about how their own may be read by others; the ultimate purpose is to
make students better creative writers by making them aware of the different
sorts of artistic choices writers of fiction have to make. To do this we will be reading critical
theory (in the Narrative/Theory book) and applying it to fiction (in the
Borzoi book). Readings will average about
two essays and two stories a week.
Students are warned that readings get re-used: a story that has been
used for teaching Plot may come up again under Language or Feminist Ideology
(or whatever).
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Required Texts:
David H. Richter: The
Borzoi Book of Short Fiction (McGraw-Hill)
David H. Richter: Narrative
/ Theory (Longman)
Texts have been ordered at
the QC Bookstore.
Used copies of these books
may be available there or may be purchased at www.bookfinder.com
(The Borzoi is available for
as little as $5 by mail.)
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Recommended website:
Those who would enjoy, a fast-and-dirty account of
contemporary narrative theory may want to have a look at Manfred Jahn’s summary
at
http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm
.
Professor Jahn, from the University of Cologne, uses
the “continental” structuralist/semiotic approach, which will offset the
prejudices of your humble servant, whose training was in the other “rhetorical”
camp.
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Required Writing:
Three short papers of
1000-1500 words on stories and novellas of the student's choice taken from the
story and novella anthologies and a final exam on the concepts learned in the
course.
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Tentative Class Schedule
Week I: September 1: Introduction to the course.
Week II: September 8: Romance
and Realism: Readings: Herman Melville: Hawthorne and His Mosses
(Narrative 22) Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown (Borzoi 444); Henry James: The Art of Fiction (Narrative
42); Henry James: The Beast in the Jungle (Borzoi 566).
Week III: September 22:
Modern and Postmodern: Readings: Virginia Woolf: Modern Fiction (Narrative 57);
Virginia Woolf: The New Dress (Borzoi 1413); John Barth: The Literature of
Exhaustion (Narrative 77); John Barth:
Lost in the Funhouse (Borzoi 46)
Week IV: September 29:
Plot. Readings: R.S. Crane: The Concept
of Plot and the Plot of Tom Jones (Narrative 105); Guy de Maupassant:
The Necklace (Borzoi 1055); F. Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams (Borzoi 349); Isak Dinesen: Sorrow-Acre (Borzoi
191).
Week V: October 6:
Character. Readings: James Phelan:
Functions of Character (Narrative 108); James Joyce: The Dead (Borzoi 648).
Week VI: October 13: Point of
View. Readings: Wayne Booth: Distance
and Point of View (Narrative 139); Isaac Bashevis Singer: Gimpel the Fool
(Borzoi 1312); D.H. Lawrence: The Prussian Officer (Borzoi 786); Hawthorne: My
Kinsman, Major Molineux (Borzoi 453).
Week VII: October 20: Voice
and Focalization. Readings: Mieke Bal: Focalization (Narrative 152); Seymour
Chatman: Voice (Narrative 160); James Joyce: Araby (Borzoi 634); William
Faulkner: Delta Autumn (Borzoi 319); Katherine Mansfield: The Garden Party
(Borzoi 1044) .
Week VIII: October 27: Time
and Pacing. Readings: Gerard Genette: Order, Duration, Frequency (Narrative
132); Frank O'Connor: Guests of the Nation (Borzoi 1217).
Week IX: November 3: The
Language of Fiction. Readings: Dorrit
Cohn: Narrated Monologue (Narrative 170 ); Ann Banfield: Written Composition
and the Emergence of a Narrative Style (Narrative 194); Imaginative Readings to
be Announced.
Week X: November 10: The
Reader in the Tale. Readings: Gerald
Prince: Introduction to the Study of the Narratee (Narrative 226); Peter Rabinowitz: Truth in Fiction: A
Re-examination of Audiences (Narrative 208); Peter Brooks: Narrative Desire
(Narrative 306). Imaginative readings
to be announced.
Week XI: November 17: Fiction
and Ideology I: Feminist approaches to theory of fiction: Readings: Susan
Sniader Lanser Toward a Feminist Poetics of Narrative Voice (Narrative 182);
Rachel Blau DuPlessis: Breaking the Sentence, Breaking the Sequence (Narrative
280); Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick: Introduction: Axiomatic (Narrative 301); Kate
Chopin: The Story of an Hour (Borzoi
135);Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper (Borzoi 382); Yukio Mishima: Patriotism (Borzoi
1121)
Week XII: December 1: Fiction
and Ideology II: Marxist approaches to theory of fiction: Reading: Karl Marx:
from The German Ideology (handout); Fredric Jameson: The Realist Floor Plan
(Narrative 313); Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of the Speckled Band (Borzoi
214); John Updike: A & P (Borzoi 1381).
Week XIII: December 8:
Fiction and Ideology III: Race and Ethnicity in the Writing and Reading of
Fiction. Readings: Ralph Ellison:
Hidden Name and Complex Fate (Narrative 71); Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:
Introduction to The Signifying Monkey (Narrative 297); Deleuze and Guattari:
What is a Minor Literature? (Narrative 273); James Baldwin: Sonny's Blues
(Borzoi 23); Richard Wright: The Man Who Was Almost a Man (Borzoi 1420)
Week XIV: December 14 (Note
that this is a Tuesday): And Just What
Do We Mean by "Realism": Conclusions and Open Questions. Readings to be announced.
December 22: Final
Examination
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Office Hours and Contact
Information TBA