Course Outline

University of Kairouan
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Department of English
First Year: Key Concepts in Literature
Academic Year: 2008-2009 Coordinator: Rachid AMRI

Course Outline
First Semester


Course description:
The course is an introduction to the language of literature through a study of the three literary genres: poetry, drama, and fiction, with a particular emphasis on the short story. (The short story is used as an axis for analysis in the first semester because it is the most concise form of literary prose as well as the most accessible for first year students). There is emphasis on the key concepts in literature and the essential elements of fiction to give students the necessary tools to produce a well-reasoned interpretative response to a literary text in class, on tests, and on exams.

Learning outcomes:
Upon completion of the course, the successful student will have mastered the following skills:
• He/she will know the background and basic elements of poetry.
• He/she will know the background and basic elements of drama.
• He/she will know the background, form and characteristics of short fiction.
• He/she will be able to read poetry, drama, and fiction in an informed and analytical manner.
• He/she will be able to respond orally and in writing to poetry, drama, and short fiction in a critically astute fashion.

Means of assessment:

In order to measure the progress of students toward successful completion of the course, the semester will include one test (devoirs sur table) in addition to the final exam.

I General introduction:
• What is Literature? What is not?
• The role of the writer.
• The role of the text.
• The role of the reader (a very brief introduction to New Criticism vs. Reader Response theories).

II Poetry:
1) Reading a poem:
• What is poetry?
• What is “analysis”?
• What does “critical” mean?
• Lyric Poetry.
• Narrative Poetry.
• Dramatic Poetry.
• Didactic Poetry.

2) Listening to a voice:
• Tone.
• The person in the poem.
• Irony (verbal irony, sarcasm, dramatic irony, tragic irony, cosmic irony).

3) Literal meaning: What a poem says first
• Poetic Diction: Levels of diction (informal, middle, and formal diction).
• The value of a dictionary.
• Denotation and Connotation.
• Imagery (visual imagery, auditory imagery, tactile imagery).

4) Figures of Speech:
• Simile.
• Metaphor /implied metaphor/mixed metaphors.
• Overstatement and understatement.
• Synecdoche/ transferred epithet.
• Paradox

III Drama:
• Etymology and background (Greek origin, ancient connection to rituals of hunt and harvest; connection to enactment of myths).
• Comedy (characteristics). Satiric comedy, comedy of manners, Slapstick comedy, romantic comedy.
• Tragedy (characteristics).
• Aristotle’s concept of Tragedy. Hamartia, tragic flaw, hubris, purgation or catharsis.
• Realism.
• Theatre of the absurd.
• Speech/delivery (prologue, dialogue, declamation, monologue, soliloquy.
• Differences between classical and modern drama (speech, setting, theme, realism, method acting…)

IV Fiction:
• Background and origin (rise of the middle class in early 18th Century).
• Types (short story, novella, novel).
• “Great” fiction and “popular” fiction (the canon vs. ethnic/minority fiction, westerns, detective fiction…)
• Formula fiction.
• Romance vs. realism.

1) The Short Story:
• Definition and characteristics.
• Background and development (roots in serialization, Russian and French influences, “Americanization” of genre).

2) The elements of a story:
• Theme/central idea.
• Characters (personae, dramatis personae, actants.
• (Character types: rounded, flat, stereotype, archetype, static and dynamic.
• Characterization: direct, dramatic, and mixed.
• Plot vs. narrative sequence.
• Elements of fiction: exposition, conflict, rising action/complication, climax, falling action, resolution, open end, closed end, foreshadowing/prolepsis, flashback/analepsis.
• Point of view/narrative voice: first person, omniscient, dramatic/objective.
• Setting: specific, general.
• Language/diction: imagery, tropes, irony.
• Tone

i want +information about short story please

hello Sir Rchid im your neigbor and your student i'd like u 2 publish some courses about short story,it's guarentted that we'll have an exam about it in january so don't let us down
Othmen looking 4ward 2 hearing 4om u.

Hello Mr Rachid , can i ask you please for more information about drama and fiction because we didn't have enough course about it, that's why it isn't clear for us what must prepare for the exam .

hi,Mr Rchid in the page it's writting "links" and i think links means an adress when u click on it leads you 2 a page but unfortunaly those link lead 2 nothing (it doesn't work) so they're not links,just adresses we should copy and paste'em (Error on the page creation) thx 4 understanding

hi,Mr Rchid on the page it's writting "links" and i think links means an adress when u click on it leads you 2 a page but unfortunaly those link lead 2 nothing (it doesn't work) so they're not links,just adresses we should copy and paste'em (Error on the page creation) thx 4 understanding