General Education: English
Literary Genres
(ENG-102)
603-102-04 (2-2-3) 2.33 credits
- 4 hours of class;
- 3 hours of homework
In this category of courses, students are introduced to the study of one particular literary genre—for example, poetry, short fiction, essay or drama—with a view to not only studying the literature itself, but also identifying the characteristics of the particular genre studied, and the relationship of the texts to their historical and literary period.
These courses also continue the development of students' reading and writing skills with an emphasis on providing guidance and practice in writing a well-crafted essay (1000 words).
Sample courses from the ENG-102 category are listed below. These courses may also be available as discipline courses to students in Creative Arts, Literature and Languages (CALL).
Diaries and Letters
This course focuses on two often neglected, but widely-practiced, literary forms: diaries and letters. Letters are generally written to someone; diaries tend to address the self or the future self. Yet both letters and diaries may move from the Aprivate to the public domain.
Detective Fiction
This course explores the development, conventions and features of the formal detective story. Through the examination of works representative of key periods in the history of the genre, students explore the relationship between a story's particular use of the formal characteristics and the beliefs and anxieties of the historical period in which it was written.
Principles of Drama
A survey of the principles of dramatic tragedy that define the works of three playwrights: Sophocles, Shakespeare and Ibsen. These principles are explored within the evolving cultural context of Classical Greek mythology, Renaissance idealism and Modern existentialism.
20th-Century Poetry
This course examines the American, British and Canadian poetry of the twentieth century in relation to a historical period. Students are taught to apply a critical approach to the different forms of poetic discourse representative of this period through the study of specific literary movements like imagism, formalism, Beat, confessional, projective and feminist verse.
Cinema and the Novel
This course explores the challenges inherent in adapting novels in general, and the novels considered in class, in particular, for the feature film. The history of the relationship between the novel and the feature film is considered, as are the similarities and differences of these two media.
Fairy Tales
This course introduces students to fairy tales as a literary genre. The course initially focuses on folk tales in some of their earliest written forms and on their development in written versions by authors such as Charles Perrault, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and Joseph Jacobs. In addition, students examine some twentieth-century versions of these traditional folk tales and then focus on original literary fairy tales by authors such as Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde. Different critical interpretations (Freudian, Jungian, feminist, historical) of the significance of fairy tales are also explored. Finally, the fairy tale elements are analyzed in the film version of Frank Baum's American tale, The Wizard of Oz and in the recent satirical DreamWorks film, Shrek.
19th-Century Gothic Novel
Students study the formal characteristics of Gothic literature, a genre that manipulates fear and mystery in order to probe spiritual, psychological, and social concerns that may be too disturbing to be openly examined. The course also makes generic and cultural comparisons of this Victorian genre with a twentieth-century film version of one of the texts.
Novel History: Historical Fiction After World War II
In the historical novel, documented versions of the past serve as the seeds of fictional narrative. In the last fifty years, this novel form explores, in three post-war novels, the relationship between fact and fiction; the political implications of representing the past in works of art; and the gathering skepticism toward stories that claim to establish definitive, universal truths.
Short Fiction
Students learn to recognize the formal characteristics of the short story and the use of literary conventions within the short story, and to produce literary analysis and oral presentations demonstrating their understanding.
The Graphic Novel
This course introduces the student to the graphic novel and to the academic study of comics in general. It provides a vocabulary with which to analyze both the visual and textual aspects of comics, as well as background information on this relatively new medium's history, developments and conventions. The course focuses primarily on the structural components and thematic concerns of three key genres: autobiographical comics, superhero comics and science-fiction comics, looking at what they share, how they differ, and what strides each has made in the past two decades.
Canadian Poetry
Like music, poetry is everywhere, does everything, is enjoyed by everyone; we are continually surrounded by poetry, be it in chants, prayers, nursery rhymes, advertisements, songs, or poems. In this course, students study a variety of Canadian poems, and a few from other cultures for contrast, to explore how poets communicate their concerns. The course begins with a study of short poems by a variety of writers, moving towards a closer study of selected major figures such as Margaret Atwood, Al Purdy, and Leonard Cohen.
Contemporary American Drama
The tragicomedy of contemporary American life is thematically explored through Contemporary Drama's early roots in the traditions of the Theatre of the Absurd, postmodernism, and existentialism, to its more political, social, and experimental aspirations in the Off-Off Broadway and performance art movements. Students also explore the implications of race, class, identity, gender, and AIDS in the various plays from this period.
The Contemporary Novel of Identity
This course explores one of the conventions of the novel: theme as related to the concept of identity. In all three novels, the question arises how individuals create their identities – parents being a major influence; this course, then, explores the parent-child relationship and the process by which the protagonists aim to construct their own identity.
