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Course Description
Academic Year 2023-2024 • Grade 12 and above • Literature Sequence
For reference only; see current year course listing for course availability and details.Senior English (Literature)
This is possibly the toughest course you will ever take. So people tell me after college. It’s not hard to pass; it’s just a lot of continuous and serious work, including a huge amount of writing — thirty papers, give or take one or two. I grade those brutally and then scale the results generously. Overall, my plan is to stretch your capacities and challenge your assumptions. The class is partly a composition course, partly a course in literary theory, partly an exploration of propositional logic, and a little left over that’s pure fun.
In terms of content, the course fills some of the gaps left by the other courses in the literature sequence, and revisits older authors and topics of particular importance, while helping to build a greater synthetic understanding of literary operations and theory, and enhance proficiency in writing. Accordingly it includes some French classicism, the Russian novel, early German romanticism, and the English gothic as well as more Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, Hawthorne, Melville, and Austen.
We primarily read modern literature in the western tradition, with a few excursions into areas that seem too important to ignore — some of which are also specially noted as relevant in the College Board's AP materials, since the other point of this class is to address the requirements of the College Board Advanced Placement English program, leading to the AP exam. It is not an officially approved AP course; meeting the College Board’s qualifications would, I am persuaded, require me to dumb the course down. Taking the AP Exam is not required.
Senior English (Literature)
This is possibly the toughest course you will ever take. So people tell me after college. It’s not hard to pass; it’s just a lot of continuous and serious work, including a huge amount of writing — thirty papers, give or take one or two. I grade those brutally and then scale the results generously. Overall, my plan is to stretch your capacities and challenge your assumptions. The class is partly a composition course, partly a course in literary theory, partly an exploration of propositional logic, and a little left over that’s pure fun.
In terms of content, the course fills some of the gaps left by the other courses in the literature sequence, and revisits older authors and topics of particular importance, while helping to build a greater synthetic understanding of literary operations and theory, and enhance proficiency in writing. Accordingly it includes some French classicism, the Russian novel, early German romanticism, and the English gothic as well as more Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, Hawthorne, Melville, and Austen.
We primarily read modern literature in the western tradition, with a few excursions into areas that seem too important to ignore — some of which are also specially noted as relevant in the College Board's AP materials, since the other point of this class is to address the requirements of the College Board Advanced Placement English program, leading to the AP exam. It is not an officially approved AP course; meeting the College Board’s qualifications would, I am persuaded, require me to dumb the course down. Taking the AP Exam is not required.
In terms of content, the course fills some of the gaps left by the other courses in the literature sequence, and revisits older authors and topics of particular importance, while helping to build a greater synthetic understanding of literary operations and theory, and enhance proficiency in writing. Accordingly it includes some French classicism, the Russian novel, early German romanticism, and the English gothic as well as more Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, Hawthorne, Melville, and Austen.
We primarily read modern literature in the western tradition, with a few excursions into areas that seem too important to ignore — some of which are also specially noted as relevant in the College Board's AP materials, since the other point of this class is to address the requirements of the College Board Advanced Placement English program, leading to the AP exam. It is not an officially approved AP course; meeting the College Board’s qualifications would, I am persuaded, require me to dumb the course down. Taking the AP Exam is not required.
Course Website: Senior English (Literature)
Sections and Teachers
Section 1:
Instructor: Bruce McMenomy
Starts: September 5, 2023
Ends: June 1, 2024
Tuesday 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM ET • Thursday 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM ET
Tuition: $850.00
Prerequisites
To be admitted to Senior English, a student should: (a) be a senior; (b) have completed English and American Literature or their equivalents; (c) secure permission from the instructor. I am willing to consider exceptions to either of the first two, but they tend to be fairly rare.
Recommended background
While it is possible to waive one or another of the various prerequisites, the course presumes serious commitment to literature and literary thinking, and should not be undertaken without some solid background. Some solid writing preparation is also strongly advised.
Textbooks and Materials
This item is required:
An Experiment in Criticism , Authors: C. S. LewisISBN: 1107604729
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Any edition of this book will do.
This item is required:
Anton Chekhov's Selected Plays (Norton Critical Editions) [Edition or Version: 2], Authors: Anton Chekhov, Laurence Senelick (Translator)ISBN: 0393924653
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities. Cited in some places as "Second revised edition"
This item is required:
Billy Budd and Other Tales , Authors: Hermann Melville, Joyce Carol OatesISBN: 0451526872
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
Copenhagen , Authors: Michael FraynISBN: 0385720793
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
Emma (Norton Critical Edition) [Edition or Version: 4], Authors: Jane AustenISBN: 0393927644
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities.
This item is required:
Ethan Frome: Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Contexts Criticism (Norton Critical Editions) [Edition or Version: 1], Authors: Edith Wharton, Kristin O. Lauer, Cynthia Griffin WolffISBN: 0393966356
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities.
This item is required:
Fathers and Children (Norton Critical Edition) [Edition or Version: 2], Authors: Ivan Turgenev, ed. Michael R. KatzISBN: 0393927970
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: It is essential to get this edition of the book. Other versions are not going to provide the correct critical material for our class discussions.
This item is required:
Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Editions) [Edition or Version: 2], Authors: William ShakespeareISBN: 0393929582
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities. For reasons passing understanding, it's not billed as the second edition, but as the New Edition. That's still the one we want, though.
This item is required:
Heart of Darkness (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) [Edition or Version: 3], Authors: Joseph Conrad, Ross Murfin (Editor)ISBN: 0312457537
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities.
This item is required:
Henry IV, Part 2 (Folger Shakespeare Library) , Authors: William ShakespeareISBN: 074348505X
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials for various class activities.
This item is required:
Henry IV, Part I (Folger Shakespeare Library) , Authors: William ShakespeareISBN: 0743485041
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials for various class activities.
This item is required:
Henry V (Folger Shakespeare Library) , Authors: William ShakespeareISBN: 0743484878
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials for various class activities.
This item is required:
Ibsen's Selected Plays (Norton Critical Editions) , Authors: Henrik Ibsen, Brian Johnston (Editor)ISBN: 0393924041
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities.
This item is required:
Iphigenia; Phaedra; Athaliah (Penguin Classics) , Authors: Jean Baptiste RacineISBN: 0140441220
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Any complete text of this play in a reasonable translation will suffice.
This item is required:
Measure for Measure (Folger Shakespeare Library) , Authors: William ShakespeareISBN: 0743484908
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
Perrine's Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry [Edition or Version: 15], Authors: Thomas R. Arp, Greg JohnsonISBN: 1337097616
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: It is imperative that you get and use this edition only. It is signficantly changed from previous editions.
This item is required:
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (Anniversary Edition) , Authors: Tom StoppardISBN: 0802126219
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Any complete edition of this play will suffice.
This item is required:
Ten Greek Plays in Contemporary Translations , Authors: Levy Lind (ed.)ISBN: 0395051177
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
The Cid, Cinna, The Theatrical Illusion (Penguin Classics) , Authors: Pierre Corneille, John CairncrossISBN: 0140443126
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Any complete edition of this play will suffice.
This item is required:
The Complete Greek Tragedies: Euripides I , Authors: David Grene (Editor), Richmond Lattimore (Editor)ISBN: 0226307808
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
The Great Gatsby , Authors: F. Scott FitzgeraldISBN: 0743273567
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
The House of the Seven Gables (Norton Critical Edition) [Edition or Version: 2], Authors: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert S. Levine (Editor)ISBN: 0393924769
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities.
This item is required:
The Life of the Drama , Authors: Eric BentleyISBN: 1557831106
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
The Misanthrope and Other Plays (Signet Classics) , Authors: Jean-Baptiste Moliere, Donald M. FrameISBN: 0451529871
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Any complete edition of the play will suffice.
This item is required:
The Remains of the Day , Authors: Kazuo IshiguroISBN: 0679731725
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
The Rhetoric of Fiction [Edition or Version: 2], Authors: Wayne C. BoothISBN: 0226065588
Publisher's website: The Rhetoric of Fiction
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: A reasonable search online or through Amazon’s secondary dealers can often turn up inexpensive used copies of this volume.
This item is required:
The Sorrows of Young Werther (Penguin Classics) , Authors: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Michael Hulse (Translator)ISBN: 014044503X
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
This item is required:
The Waste Land (Norton Critical Editions) [Edition or Version: 1], Authors: T. S. Eliot, Michael North (Editor)ISBN: 0393974995
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities.
This item is required:
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold , Authors: C. S. LewisISBN: 0062565419
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Any edition of this work is fine.
This item is required:
War and Peace , Authors: Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, tr.ISBN: 1400079985
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Any complete version will suffice, but I strongly recommend this version or the Dunnigan version (from Signet) for readability. The Maude translation is very dated and rather painful to read.
This item is required:
Wuthering Heights (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) [Edition or Version: 2], Authors: Emily Bronte, Linda H. PetersonISBN: 0312256868
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Please get this edition specifically. We will be using the unique critical materials in the back for various class activities.
This item is recommended but not required and its use is optional:
100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses , Authors: Editors of the American Heritage DictionariesISBN: 0618493336
Best sources: Scholars Online Bookstore
Other information: Highly recommended for writing guidance on questions of usage. Not strictly required.
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