Pre- and Early Modern Literature - Spring 1999

This course is a senior seminar for literature majors. The reading will be intensive. Requirements include a short in-class presentation and the production of a 20-25 page paper, to be submitted in stages.

Our focus will be the many historic collections of novellas that feature an over-arching story, or frame tale, which is itself often about storytelling. What sorts of interpretive dilemmas do frame stories present? How do they work to influence the meaning of individual tales in the collections ? What are the frame's implicit arguments about the value of storytelling and how have these arguments changed across periods and cultural locations? What are the roles of storytellers themselves in this tradition ? Why and how have postmodern writers taken up this form again?

Our texts include the ARABIAN NIGHTS, Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES, Boccaccio's DECAMERON, Italo Calvino's IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER, and Salman Rushdie's HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES.

Revised 8/3/04.