This course is focused on reading, analyzing, and writing about literature. What is literature? Literature is any writing, usually divided in the genres of poetry, fiction, and drama, that possesses some quality that most writing does not; for example, a literary work will usually contain one or more of these elements:
- Highly regarded by critics (a critical success)
- Highly regarded by the public (a commercial or popular success)
- Important historically, culturally, or politically (“influential”)
- Able to stand the test of time (still relevant after many years)
- Able to be interpreted and analyzed many different ways
Genre can mean multiple things, but in this class, it has two distinct meanings: the first is the traditional separation between forms of literature: poetry, fiction, and drama;
the second is more accurately called sub-genre, and sub-genre refers more to style or tone than form – comedy, romance, science fiction, horror, etc…
So the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is in the genre of “fiction,” and sub-genre of “fantasy.”
Genres follow certain conventions that are generally easy to distinguish in the form that the words take: stanzas and lines in poetry, paragraphs and chapters in fiction, and dialogue and scenes in drama.
Sub-genres also follow conventions, but these usually have to do with the content instead of the form: for example, in classical theatre, dramas end with a death and comedies end with a marriage.
| text | Sub-genre | Convention | In this case |
| Star Wars VII | Heroic Quest | The hero is instructed by a wise counselor who is eventually removed (killed, imprisoned, missing etc…) before the climax. | Rey is mentored by Han Solo, who dies before she faces the villain, Kylo Ren, on her own. |
When writing about literature, you want to keep a few things in mind:
- There may not be one “correct” interpretation of a poem, novel, or play, but a strong interpretation will be supported by strong evidence from the text or outside sources
- Avoid value judgements – whether a text is “good” or not is irrelevant to your interpretation/analysis of it
- Generally, you’ll be asked to respond to a particular aspect of a text, one of its themes, the way a certain character speaks, or the form that the words take on the page – avoid broad generalizations about the “whole thing” unless you’re writing about a very short piece
- Don’t confuse the author of a work with the “speaker” or “narrator” in terms of intention – even if the author uses “I,” you can’t assume that the “I” is the author
- Be mindful of the difference (and relationship) between form and content – form is how a text is composed, and content is what takes place within the text – for example, the events in a story and the way the author wrote the story are related, but they are not the same thing
- It’s okay (and often necessary) to make logical assumptions about a text, but you need to be explicit with the reader when you do – e.g. “the king taking off his crown can be a signal that he is trying to appear less royal in this scene.”
English 1B 