Fall 2005 Advance Course Information

This information effective for Fall 2005. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Modern Literary Studies

[LTMO-103]

103. Constructions of the Modern

Instructor: Dick Terdiman

Course Description

Modern Literary Studies 103, Constructions of the Modern, will examine the origins, substance, and significance of literary and cultural "modernism." "Modernism" is probably the most important single strand in defining literature since the late 19th century.

The course will consider the artistic development of "modernism" both in itself, and in relation to the social and political background that helped to form the doctrines and writing practices by which we still know it. Since "modernism" was a distinctly international phenomenon, the reading list for the course includes works from France, England, Germany, and the United States. All works will be read and discussed in English.

Among the texts to be read:

• Baudelaire: selected poetry from Flowers of Evil; "The Painter of Modern Life"
• Mallarmé: selected poetry and prose poetry
• T.S. Eliot: selected poetry
• Rainer Maria Rilke: selected poetry
• Flaubert: Madame Bovary
• Proust: Swann's Way
• Woolf: To the Lighthouse
• Faulkner: Light in August
  

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