Studies in Literary Criticism

In this seminar, we will combine three inquiries, whose relations we will hope to discover over the course of the semester. One inquiry will be organized around the question: what kinds of things can be said about Henry James’s relation as a novelist to Balzac? (We’ll also take a look at a novel by Zola, another novelist James studied closely.)  Our second inquiry will deal with questions such as: how do Balzac and Zola’s ambitions as novelists relate to the critical tradition of French sociology and anthropology that developed in the late nineteenth century? We will trace that tradition forward as far as thinkers such as Foucault and Bourdieu. Our third inquiry will address Henry James’s place (as a theorist as much as a novelist) within a certain strand of Anglo-American criticism whose interests tend to try to relate the study of fictional character to the study of moral character and ethics. Finally, we’ll look at some examples of recent criticism in the American context that is influenced both by the Anglo-American “moral” or “ethical” current and by the French “sociological” or “cultural” current, and we will wonder how or if such divergent critical practices can be brought into productive relation with each other. (We’ll look at queer literary criticism in particular in this regard.) Novels to be read: Balzac, César Birroteau, Cousin Pons. Zola, L’Assommoir. James, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors. Theorists and critics to be read may include Durkheim, Mauss, Dumézil, Lévi-Strauss, Vernant, Foucault, Bourdieu, Arnold, James, Leavis, Trilling, Booth, Nussbaum.

Required texts:

Honore de Balzac, Cesar Birotten (Gallimard-Folio and Penguin)

Balzac, Cousin Pons (Livre de Poche and Penguin)

Emile Zola, L’Assomoir (Livre de Poche and Penguin)

Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

James, The Ambassadors