Discussion Focus &
Primary Literary Texts
(Complete these BEFORE class!)

Starting Points

Discussion Leaders

Longus, Daphnis and Chloe. Determine discussion leader pairings.

Northrup Frye, from The Secular Scripture (end of ch. 1 and ch. 2, "The Context of Romance")

Royal Tyler, "Marriage, Rank and Rape in The Tale of Genji," Intersections 7 (March 2002).

Northrup Frye, "The Myth of Summer: Romance," from The Anatomy of Criticism

Northrup Frye, "The Recovery of Myth," ch. 6 of The Secular Scripture

Here's a nice, brief summary of the role of allegory in the Middle Ages.

Harry Veléz Quiñones, "Barefoot and Fallen: Dorotea, Athena, Cervantes, and Homer." Romance Quarterly 52.4 (Fall 2005): 281-293.

From Daniel Couégnas, "Forms of Popular Narrative in France and England: 1700-1900," in The Novel ed. Franco Moretti (vol. 1, Princeton, 2006).

Joanne Spiegel, "The Construction of Romance in Jane Eyre." Readerly/Writerly Texts 9.1 & 9.2 (Spring/Summer 2001 and Fall/Winter 2001): 133-146.

Please note change!!!!

Angela Mills, "'The Sweet Word' Sister: The Transformative Threat of Sisterhood in The Blithedale Romance." American Transcendental Quarterly [ATQ] 17.2 (June 2003): 97-121.

This might be time to read the preface to The American, from which the title of the seminar is taken. Or not.

Please note change!!!!

George Eliot, from Silly Novels by Lady Novelists (1856)

Pamela Regis, A Natural History of the Romance Novel (Phila.: U of Penn P, 2003): 19-50.

Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (rev. ed. 1991), ch. 1, "The Institutional Matrix"

If you want to see a great, farcical example of genre confusion caused by publisher interference, read Thurber's "The Macbeth Murder Mystery." It's good for a laugh.

Dr Jones' handout on Annotated Bibliographies: http://faculty.winthrop.edu/jonesg/
ENGL300/AnnotatedBibGuidelines.htm

Germaine Greer, from The Female Eunuch (1970)

Marghanita Laski, "The Appeal of Georgette Heyer," The Times (London) 1 October  1970: 16;

Lillian S. Robinson, "On Reading Trash," Sex, Class, and Culture (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1978): 202, 207-22.

Jayne Ann Krentz, "Trying to Tame the Romance: Critics and Correctness," in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women ed. Jayne Ann Krentz (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992): 107-114.

Jackie Buxton, "What's Love Got to Do With It? Postmodernism and Possession," English Studies in Canada 22.2 (June 1996): 199-219.

Mark Hennelly, "'Repeating Patterns' and Textual Pleasures: Reading (in) A.S. Byatt's Possession," Contemporary Literature 44.3 (Autumn 2003): 442-71. [JSTOR]

If I had had access to Harold Bloom's collection Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera (NY: Chelsea House, 2005) before April 13, I would have probably used these selections from it instead of Columbus:

Michael Bell, "Not Flaubert's Parrot: Love in the Time of Cholera"

Michael Wood, "Reading Dazzle"

Jimmy's PowerPoint: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2556066/LOVE-IN-THE-TIME-OF-CHOLERA

Claudette Kemper Columbus, "Faint Echoes and Faded Reflections: Love and Justice in the Time of Cholera," Twentieth Century Literature 38.1 (Spring 1992): 89-100.

David Buehrer, "A Second Chance on Earth': The Postmodern and the Post-Apocalyptic in García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction,32.1 (Fall 1990): 15-26.

You may be interested in reading a non-Western critic's take on Heat and Dust. I've posted part of I. H-Shihan's Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust, published in New Delhi in 2006. I'd suggest skimming it so that you get a sense of a non-Western male critic's response to the book.

D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke, "Disillusionment with More than India: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust," Towards a Transcultural Future: Literature and Society in a 'Post'-Colonial World. Ed. Geoffrey V. Davis et al. (NY: Rodopi; 2005): 249-57.