II. Course description
‘Literature is common ground. It is ground not managed wholly by commercial interests,
nor can it be strip-mined like popular culture…There’s a lot of talk about the tame world versus the wild world. It is not only a wild nature that we need as human beings; it is the untamed open space of our imaginations. Reading is where the wild things are.’
Jeannette Winterson
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal (2012:144)
The course is an introduction into practical criticism and literary interpretation. It explores some basic issues of literary study starting from the questions: what is literature, and why do we read it and why do we study it? The course familiarises students with formal properties of a literary work, makes them aware of a constructed character of literature, and starts to instruct them about literary value. It is based on the classic division into three major genres (fiction, poetry and drama), supplemented by contemporary non-fiction and rudiments of film narration.
The goal of the course is to provide students with basic critical terms, tools and techniques that will make them sensitive readers and enhance their appreciation of a literary work.
- Teacher: Ewa Tak-Ignaczak