Forms of western narrative

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

This is a HASS-D / CI-H class requiring substantial work in analytical writing and in oral presentation. More detail about this will be given below, but here are the basics:

Each student will write 3 essays, minimally 7 double-spaced pages apiece; one of these must be revised after consultation with me.

Each student will deliver 2 ten-minute reports on subjects pertinent to our readings. More details below.

Homer. The Odyssey of Homer. Translated by Richmond Lattimore. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1999. ISBN: 9780060931957.

de Troyes, Chrétien. Arthurian Romances. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1991. ISBN: 9780140445213.

de Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote. Edited and translated by John Rutherford. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 2003. ISBN: 9780142437230.

Brothers Grimm. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1976. ISBN: 9780394709307.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 2003. ISBN: 9780141439471.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York, NY: Penguin Modern Classics, 2000. ISBN: 9780141182438.

Chandra, Vikram. "Kama." In Love and Longing in Bombay. New York, NY: Back Bay Books, 1998. ISBN: 9780316136778.

The following schedule shows the reading you should have done by a given day; it's designed to spread your reading fairly evenly across the semester (for example, if four class sessions are devoted to a novel, you should read at least a quarter of the work for each of those sessions). In class, however, I'll go slower over some parts, faster over others. The schedule is subject to change, so if you miss a class, check to make sure what's coming next.

The day before Ses #14, the novelist and short-story author Vikram Chandra will be visiting MIT for a late afternoon seminar and an evening public reading. Students of 21L.012 will read Chandra's story "Kama" (from his collection Love and Longing in Bombay) and are strongly encouraged to attend the seminar and reading.

End-of-term exercises

Student presentations

As a HASS-D / CI-H class, 21L012 requires substantial practice in analytical writing and speaking.

I expect written work of the same caliber as the work required in your other MIT subjects. This means carefully composed and proof-read (no sloppy errors), thorough, well thought-out, sufficiently supplied with supporting material quoted or paraphrased from the text(s). I make no distinctions between "content" and "quality of writing." How you decide to state something, how you assemble an argument, how you construct each and every sentence – these things constitute your argument and are thus indistinguishable from its "content." Also, more richly detailed essays, those that take the trouble to respond very fully to the text and to the questions posed in the assignment, will receive higher marks than those that give minimal or very general responses. I will distribute a sample "A" paper (from another class, of course!) to illustrate the qualities I have described above.

On oral presentations, students will be judged on pertinence, clarity, and organization of the information presented, as well as on delivery style (the "professional demeanor and authority" mentioned above).

Plagiarism—use of another's intellectual work without acknowledgement—is a serious offense. It is the policy of the Literature Faculty that students who plagiarize will receive an F in the subject, and that the instructor will forward the case to the Committee on Discipline. Full acknowledgement for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. All ideas, arguments, and direct phrasings taken from someone else's work must be identified and properly footnoted. Quotations from other sources must be clearly marked as distinct from the student's own work. For further guidance on the proper forms of attribution, consult the style guides available at the MIT's Writing and Communication Center and useful citations links located here.

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