Literature, Laughter, Philosophy: Tristram Shandy
ENGL 140
Spring 2015 not offered
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| Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory |
Laurence Sterne's novel, THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENTLEMAN (1759-67) has been described as a literary masterpiece, a hilarious satire, a sentimental tear-jerker, and an obscene abomination. Thomas Jefferson thought it formed "the best course of morality that was ever written"; it was a favorite of Karl Marx and Friedrich Neitzsche; and it was even heralded (in a recent film adaptation) as "a postmodern classic written before there was any modernism to be post about." The book is deeply learned--engaging texts from skeptical philosophy to 18th-century science and from Hamlet to early novels. It is also, indisputably, very odd: Though Tristram is trying to tell the story of his life, he fails to get himself born in the first hundred pages, and the text is full of doodles, blank pages, madcap digressions, and missing chapters. In this course, we will read Tristram Shandy alongside the many, many texts it references, borrows from, and mocks, as well as the many, many texts it has influenced. Throughout, we will take Tristram Shandy as our rich test case for some fundamental theoretical questions, What is literature, and why do we tell stories anyway? How is literature related to philosophy? How do our minds work? What is the meaning of human life--of laughter, learning, sex, and death? |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Laurence Sterne, TRISTRAM SHANDY
William Shakespeare, HAMLET
Francois Rabelais, GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL
Michel de Montaigne, ESSAYS
Jonathan Swift, TALE OF A TUB
David Hume, TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE
Other writings by Miguel de Cervantes, John Locke, Andrew Marvell, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Adam Smith, Virginia Woolf, and Salman Rushdie; as well as selected scholarship on the novel.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Several short papers leading up to a final research project. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
THIS SECTION IS A FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR (FYS) CLASS. |
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