ENGL 54.16 Literary Classics
Hamlet, Paradise Lost, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The Waste Land: These texts are among the cornerstones of a literary canon that still exerts enormous influence even as it is intensely contested. How does a play, a novel, or a poem become a “literary classic”? In this course, we will read a series of indisputably “great” texts in order to understand the complex forms of evaluation (aesthetic, political, moral, and commercial) that both underpin and revise notions of canonicity. Drawing on theoretical work by Gauri Viswanathan, Pierre Bourdieu, Theodor Adorno, and Pascale Casanova, we will also consider the varied institutional contexts (from the colonial civil service to the liberal arts classroom, from small presses to multinational publishers, from Masterpiece Theatre to contemporary Bollywood) that govern these processes.
Instructor
Not being offered in 2022-23
Department-Specific Course Categories
Course Group IV