SYLLABUS FOR E491 TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH LITERARY CRITICISM
CSU FULLERTON, FALL 2005

*2023 Note. Most links and procedural information have been removed from this archival copy, leaving mainly the assigned editions and the reading list.

COURSE INFORMATION. English 491, Course Code 12839. Th. 7:00 – 9:45 p.m., McCarthy Hall (MH) 463. Office hours: Th. 10:00 – 11:00 p.m. in University Hall (UH) 329. Email: e491_at_ajdrake.com. From the Catalog: “(Covers) the major English critics, from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century, in relationship to the classical theories of criticism. Units (3).” Prerequisite: ENGL 300 or equivalent.

REQUIRED TEXTS AT TITAN BOOKSTORE

Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393974294.

Shaftesbury, Earl of. Sensus Communis excerpt (etext). From Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times.

QUESTIONS FOR JOURNALS AND PRESENTATIONS

*2023 Note. Visitors may download the following questions in PDF format: E491 COMBINED 2003-2007.

Gorgias | Plato | Aristotle | Horace | Longinus | Augustine | Aquinas | Boccaccio | de Pizan | Giraldi | du Bellay | Sidney | Pope | Johnson | Corneille | Shaftesbury | de Staël | Kant | Hegel | Wordsworth | Coleridge | Emerson | Poe | Marx | Baudelaire | Arnold | Nietzsche | de Saussure

SCHEDULE: WORKS DISCUSSED ON DATES INDICATED

WEEK 1

08/25. Introduction to class.

WEEK 2

09/01. Gorgias of Leontini, Plato. Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen” (29-33). Plato’s Republic, from Books II, III, VII, X (49-81), Phaedrus (81-86).

WEEK 3

09/08. Aristotle. Poetics (86-117).

WEEK 4

09/15. Horace and Longinus. Horace’s Ars Poetica (121-35). From Longinus’ On Sublimity (135-55).

WEEK 5

09/22. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Giovanni Boccaccio, Christine de Pizan. From Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine (185-92); from The Trinity (192-96). From Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (240-46). From Boccaccio’s Genealogy of the Gentile Gods (253-263). From de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies (263-71).

WEEK 6

09/29. Giambattista Giraldi, Joachim du Bellay, Sir Philip Sidney. From Giraldi’s Discourse on the Composition of Romances (273-79). From du Bellay’s Defence and Illustration of the French Language (281-90). Sidney’s “An Apology for Poetry” (326-40, 348-50).

WEEK 7

10/06. Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson. Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” (438-58). Johnson’s The Rambler No. 4 “On Fiction” (458-66); from Rasselas (466-68); “Preface” to Shakespeare (468-80).

WEEK 8

10/13. Pierre Corneille, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Germaine de Staël. Corneille’s “Of the Three Unities of Action, Time, and Place” (363-79)/ Shaftesbury’s “Sensus Communis Etext.” De Staël’s “Essay on Fictions” and “On Women Writers” (594-610).

WEEK 9

10/20. Immanuel Kant. Critique of Judgment, from Book I: “Analytic of the Beautiful” (499-518); from Book II: “Analytic of the Sublime” (519-36).

WEEK 10

10/27. Georg Hegel. “Master-Slave Dialectic” from Phenomenology of Mind (626-36); “Introduction” from Lectures on Fine Art (636-45).

WEEK 11

11/03. William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge. Wordsworth’s “Preface” to Lyrical Ballads, 1802” (645-68). From Coleridge’s The Statesman’s Manual (668-74); from Biographia Literaria (674-82).

WEEK 12

11/10. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe. Emerson’s “The American Scholar” (717-21); “The Poet” (724-39). Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition” (739-50).

WEEK 13

11/17. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (759-67); from The German Ideology (767-69); from The Communist Manifesto (769-73); from Grundrisse (773-74); from “Preface” to A Contribution…” (774-76); from Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 1 “Commodities” (776-83).

WEEK 14

11/24. Thanksgiving holiday; no classes all week.

WEEK 15

12/01. Charles Baudelaire, Matthew Arnold. From Baudelaire’s The Painter of Modern Life (789-802). Arnold’s “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (802-25).

WEEK 16

12/08. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ferdinand de Saussure. Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (870-884). De Saussure’s “Introduction” to Course in General Linguistics and Part One, Chapter I (956-77).

FINALS WEEK

Final Exam Date: Thurs. Dec. 15, 7:30 – 9:20 p.m.