Reading & Composition

This course will explore the interplay of drama and tedium in day-to-day life. All of the works we will read eschew a purely heroic or marvelous mode and instead focus on petty concerns or mundane experience. But these texts do so in a way that is far from ordinary or boring; each offers a distinct creative perspective on everyday life. Some of the works we’ll read highlight the intense and dramatic undercurrents of routine existence. For example, Virginia Woolf “tunnels” deep into the inner life of a middle-aged woman who views each day as a “dangerous” feat; Nikolai Gogol turns a bureaucrat’s quest for a new coat in a darkly humorous, overblown farce; and Emily Dickinson, although she hardly left her room, wrote poetry suffused with extremes of despair, exultation, passion, faith and doubt. Other texts take the opposite approach, underlining the contrast between our romantic dreams and the monotony of daily experience. Euripides, for example, will show us how a heroic quest deteriorates into bickering and jealousy; Platonov, one of the most remarkable writers of the Soviet era, portrays the tragic failure of utopian hopes; and Chekhov’s plays offer masterful depictions of lassitude and gradually fading ambition. As we read each text, we’ll discuss how it illuminates the intertwined monotony and intensity of everyday experience, but we’ll also move beyond the course topic to read each text for its own sake, paying attention to multiple prominent themes and motifs. We will also devote substantial class time to instruction in argumentative writing and research skills. As in all R&C courses, you will write several papers. The ultimate goal of the course is to develop your critical thinking and writing skills as well as your ability to enjoy the creative complexity of literary texts.

Texts:

Platonov, The Foundation Pit

Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Chekhov, The Seagull

Gogol, “The Overcoat”

Dickinson, selected poetry

Euripides, Medea