Office: 611 Carlisle Hall
272-2490 (leave a message) or 446-3610
Office Hours -- 9-11 MWF and by appointment
Course Description: The course will study the major literature on style, primarily literary, since Aristotle.
Goals: The goals of this course are two: 1) to introduce and evaluate the uses of the major discussions of style, particularly in the twentieth-century; and 2) to note and test the ways in which these approaches may be used by the student of literature and by the teacher of literature and writing.
Methods: The class will typically consist of brief introductory remarks by the instructor, followed by presentations of the readings by designated members of the class ("reporters"). The role of the reporter is to submit to each member of the class a 2-3 page summary of the salient points in the reading, points for discussion, important quotations.
The reporter should not read the summary to the class, but rather present the material from notes. Each reading requires a different approach. In general, I suggest:
* A brief survey of the material in the reading, and the general thesis, if any.
* Discussion of the main issues addressed, problems raised, the implied state of the debate. [Try, for example, asking, "What is the question which this is intended to answer?"]
* Detailed discussion of the quotations you have selected. Careful attention to the text is crucial in stylistics (and in any literary work). Locate crucial passages which deserve to be studied line by line.
* Relate the material to previous readings.
* Always give full bibliographic information and call numbers. Include frequent page references.
Because of the great amount of material on stylistics, we shall often have individual reports on selected articles by members of the class. The report will take 5-10 minutes, and include a distributed summary of the article.
Everyone must attend class prepared to discuss the reading, to raise points for consideration, and, most importantly, to identify things you have not understood. IN ADDITION, EACH MEMBER OF THE CLASS WILL HAVE CHOSEN THE FIVE KEY SENTENCES IN EACH ARTICLE OF CHAPTER, AND BE PREPARED TO PRESENT THEM TO THE CLASS.
Assignments:
1) A 5-6 page essay will be due 1 October 1992 addressing the question of the "style books."
2) A 5-6 page essay will be due 22 October 1992 will consider philological stylistics and/or/versus formalist stylistics.
3) The final paper, 15-20 pages long, will offer a "stylistic" reading of a text of your own choosing. The first version will be due 3 December 1992. I'll return the draft with comments at the last class. A final version will be due by noon, Tuesday, 15 December 1992.
Note: Your papers should be submitted in a manila envelope with an audio cassette (as cheap as you like). My comments will be returned on the tape.
Your grade will depend on your participation in the seminar and your written work.
Reading:
Books-- at the bookstore --
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis
Berel Lang, The Concept of Style
Richard Lanham, Style - An Anti-Textbook
Richard Lanham, Analyzing Prose -- mid-September on the Internet.
Jacques Derrida, Spurs
John Haynes, Introducing Stylistics
Bradford, Stylistics
Miscellaneous photocopied articles are found in the Fast Copy Center (FCC).
Weekly Assignments:
Meeting 1
Ancient Stylistic Theory -- Aristotle, Cicero, Longinus
Meeting 2
Style and History -- Auerbach, Mimesis.
Meeting 3
Style essays, classic (Buffon, Pater, Schopenhauer, Woellflin)
Meeting 4
Style essays, definitional ("Style," Goodman, Hirsch, Riffaterre)
Meeting 5
Period and Personal Style (on Elizabethan Conventions, Baroque Style, Emma, Dickens, James)
Meeting 6
Normative style -- Lanham, Style -- An Anti-Textbook, Strunk and White, etc.
Meeting 7
A Modern Language of Analysis -- Lanham, Analyzing Prose.
Meeting 8
The Formalist Tradition -- Shklovsky, Eichenbaum, Mukarovsky, Jakobson.
Meeting 9
Style essays: music, art, philosophy -- Meyer, Alpers, Wollheim.
Meeting 10
Style essays: philosophy, criticism, history -- Lang, Beardsley, Chatman, White.
Meeting 11
The Dream of a Science of Discourse -- Ohmann, et. al.
Meeting 12
The Attack on the Text and Style -- Fish, Sontag.
Meeting 13
A Discourse Stylistics, Contextual -- Haynes, Introducing Stylistics.
Meeting 14
A Review -- Bradford, Stylistics.
Meeting 15
Deconstructive Style - Derrida, Spurs, Rorty.
Rhetoric Seminars
Rhetoric, Composition, Critical Theory HP & Program
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