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CS92PROD
Practical Criticism for the Novel
WRCT 262
Spring 2025
Section: 01  
This course may be repeated for credit.
Crosslisting: COL 267, ENGL 297

The novel has always posed a special challenge to critics. Whether one thinks of it as a "a large loose baggy monster" (Henry James) or "an exemplary artwork" (Theodor Adorno), the novel is an amalgam of many ideas, styles, voices, and genres. How do we understand the relationship between its parts and its whole? How do we evaluate and interpret it as a total work of art? This course stages a radical experiment in novel reading and criticism. Students will read three novels simultaneously, in twelve installments that will be distributed to them in class, alongside important essays in narrative theory. They will write short, comparative papers considering five different scales or levels of novel reading: the word, the sentence, the paragraph, the chapter, and the novel.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (COL)(ENGL)(ENGL-Creative W)(ENGL-Literature)
Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74%

Last Updated on DEC-06-2024
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