Literary Criticism in English
Code: 106326 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2504212 English Studies | OT | 3 |
| 2504212 English Studies | OT | 4 |
Contact
- Name:
- Joan Curbet Soler
- Email:
- joan.curbet@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
An essential requirement is a C2 level of English in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment.
A level of English at C2 allows students to understand with ease virtually everything heard or read; to summarise information from distinct spoken and written sources; to reconstruct arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation; and to express themselves spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations.
Students who register for this subject should have passed the obligatory literature subjects of our degree.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The main aim of the subject is to bring up the question “How can we read literature?” to final year students, so that they can answer by considering all the elements acquired during their degree.
However, a further purpose is that of introducing the students to literary theory applied to the critical reading, thus providing advanced critical tools for the analysis and comprehension of literary texts.
The course starts with a revision and analysis of several especially relevant theoretical approaches, their origins, their objectives and drawbacks. At a second stage, three contemporary novels in English will be read, in order to understand how these texts can be read in a constructive way through a better understanding of the theory.
At the end of the course, the students will have acquired practical and efficient skills on how to apply the fundamental literary theory to the analysis and discussion of literature.
Competences
- English Studies
- Apply scientific ethical principles to information processing.
- Apply the methodology of analysis and critical concepts to analysing the literature, culture and history of English-speaking countries.
- Critically evaluate linguistic, literary and cultural production in English.
- Demonstrate skills to develop professionally in the fields of linguistic applications, teaching and literary and cultural management in English.
- Demonstrate skills to work autonomously and in teams to fulfil the planned objectives.
- Develop arguments applicable to the fields of literature, culture and linguistics and evaluate their academic relevance.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Understand and produce written and spoken academic texts in English at advanced higher-proficient-user level (C2).
- Use current philological methodologies to interpret literary texts in English and their cultural and historical context.
- Use digital tools and specific documentary sources for the collection and organisation of information.
- Use written and spoken English for academic and professional purposes, related to the study of linguistics, the philosophy of language, history, English culture and literature.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse the contexts of application of literary and interpretative criticism in the different areas of literary and cultural production in English.
- Demonstrate comprehension of specialist and non-specialist texts in English of high difficulty and interpret these critically.
- Describe critically and in detail the set of stylistic and cultural elements that affect a literary text in English.
- Express oneself in English orally and in writing in an academic register, using terminology appropriate to the study of the texts and contexts of English literature.
- Identify the stylistic and cultural elements that make up the interpretation of different literary genres in English.
- In an effective manner, organise the autonomous component to learning.
- Incorporate ideas and concepts from published sources into work, citing and referencing appropriately.
- Locate specialised and academic information and select this according to its relevance.
- Plan work effectively, individually or in groups, in order to fulfil the planned objectives.
- Produce written and spoken academic texts at a higher-proficient-user level (C2) on the concepts and skills relevant to the study of English literary texts and contexts.
- Understand and differentiate adequately between the concepts of literature and culture in English, as well as their mutual relations and interactions.
- Understand and reflect on literature and culture in English, situating these in their contexts and historical circumstances.
- Understand and reflect on the different critical and interpretative contexts of the teaching of literature in English.
- Understand specialised academic texts on research into the texts and contexts of English literature.
- Understanding and reflecting on relatively specialised authentic texts in English in various academic and professional fields.
Content
1) Structuralism and Post-structuralism
2) Deconstruction
3) Marxism and Formalism
4) Reader-response criticism
5) Psychoanalytic criticism
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Critical debate | 5 | 0.2 | |
| Lectures | 50 | 2 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Bibliographical research | 10 | 0.4 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Individual reading and study | 60 | 2.4 |
1 crèdit ECTS = 25 hs teaching x 6 credits = 150 h.
- Directed activities
- Supervised activities
- Autonomous activities
- Assessment activities
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Critical text Commentary | 35 % | 3 | 0.12 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15 |
| Exam | 50% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 |
| Participation in in-class debates | 15% | 20 | 0.8 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 |
All the exercises are COMPULSORY. An exercise not handed in or an exam the student has not taken will count as ‘NP’ (‘no presentat’ or ‘no evidence’), i.e., 0. This means that all activities are compulsory and that submission of the essay (35%) automatically excludes the possibility of obtaining “No avaluable” as a final grade.
- The minimum mark for an exercise or exam to be considered for the average final mark is 4, although the minimum pass mark for the whole subject is 5.
- The student’s command of English will be taken into account when marking all exercises and for the final mark.
- On carrying out each assessment activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
- Re-assessment conditions:
- Only those students who have fulfilled all coursework requirements and have obtained between 3.5 (FAIL) and 4.9 (FAIL) as a provisional final grade and have passed either the exam or the essay have a right to re-assessment.
- Re-assessment will be through a written examination on a date and time established by the Faculty. This exam will synthesise the essential contents of the subject as a whole.
- This examination will allow the lecturer to determine whether the re-assessment candidate has merited the pass grade of 5.0.
- The ONLY re-assessment pass grade that will be awarded, therefore, is 5.0 (PASS).
- Specific items of course work will NOT be re-assessed, except where a student may have a justified absence (e.g., through illness, accredited by a doctor's note).
- Re-assessment is ONLY available to students who have failed initial assessment; it is NOT available to pass students simply wishing to improve their grade.
Single assessment
Single assessment will consist of the following activities:
A written exam which will include all the theoretical perspectives offered in the course (50 %).
An oral commentary on a chosen text, based on all of the critical perspectives offered in the course. (50 %)
The same re-assessment method as continuous assessment will be used.
IMPORTANT (PLAGIARISM and IRREGULARITIES)
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Irregularities refer, for instance, to copying in an exam, copying from sources without indiacting authorship, or a misuse of AI such as presenting work as original that has been generated by an AI tool or programme. These evaluation activities will not be re-assessed.
Bibliography
Theory:
Rivkin, Julie & Ryan, Michael, Literary Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell; 2nd Revised edition, 2004.
An anthology from this book will be given to the students via Moodle.
Literary Materials:
Edgar Allan Poe, Poems (1830-49)
Lev Tolstoi, The Death of Ivan Ilich (1886)
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (1815)
James joyce, Fragments from Ulysses (1922)
Software
No specific software will be used.
Language list
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 1 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |