Reading & Composition

“To look at a thing is not the same as seeing a thing.” – Oscar Wilde

Taking our cue from Wallace Stevens’ poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” we will be exploring how different ways of looking, seeing and observing are portrayed through narrative point of view in literature and film.  How does point of view shape, control and manipulate the narrative structure of a given text?  What is the difference between looking and seeing?  Is there a right and a wrong way of looking at something, or are there infinite ways of looking that are all equally valid? We’ve all heard the expression “I know it when I see it,” but is seeing the same thing as knowing?  Can the gaze be purely objective, or is it always (at least in part) subjective and biased?  In this course, we will take up these questions of the gaze through a comparison of various forms of narrative point of view, from the covert exchange of gazes in Princesse de Cleves, to the multiple shifts in perspective in To The Lighthouse, to the unreliable first-person narration in Lolita. In our discussion of narrative perspective in film, we will look at how point of view is presented visually through techniques such as camera shots, framing devices, and lighting.  Throughout the course, we will examine the relationship between ways of looking and ways of knowing, and ask ourselves whether seeing really is believing.  In addition, this class requires active student participation and places a strong emphasis on improving student writing skills through weekly worksheets, in-class workshops, and two formal papers.

Required Texts:

Madame de La Fayette, La Princesse de Cleves

Caspary, Laura

Woolf, To The Lighthouse

Nabokov, Lolita

Sebald, Austerlitz

Films:

Kurosawa, Rashomon

Bergman, Persona