Literature Foundation 2009
Week 1
Register
Detailed instructions about the register, absence, and so on, are here.
Small groups
Names
What Literature Foundation is about
term 1: theory and close reading
term 2: set texts and chronological periods
Essays: assessed and formative
the seminar course and the lecture course
the end product
Literature Foundation Paper 1: Close Reading
Three hours
Answer THREE questions, ONE from each section.
Section A: Unseen
Comment closely on ONE of the following texts. Your answer should include detailed discussion of form, content and style.
EITHER OR
Section B: Focal Authors
Comment closely on ONE of the following texts. Your answer should include detailed discussion of form, content and style, applying contextual and theoretical knowledge where relevant.
EITHER OR
Section C: Focal Texts
Comment closely on ONE of the following texts. Your answer should include detailed discussion of form, content and style, applying contextual and theoretical knowledge where relevant.
EITHER OR
Literature Foundation Paper 2: Wider Reading
Three hours
Answer THREE questions, TWO from Section A and ONE from Section B. Credit will be given for appropriate breadth of reference. You must not write on the same text in more than one answer on this paper.
Section A: Answer TWO of the following questions:
Section B: Answer the following question, supporting your argument with reference to AT LEAST TWO texts, which should NOT be among the focal texts for the course. Your answer should show how your understanding of literary texts has changed and/or been challenged as a result of what you have learnt during Literature Foundation. You must not refer substantially to a text that you have discussed in section A:
for the following week:
Please meet in your small groups and discuss the following:
1. The Literature Foundation lectures: did you understand them? Is there anything that needs clarifying?
2. What is the point of literature? What does it do? Why does the English Department study it?
The first part of the seminar will be devoted to a short discussion of these issues. In the second part, I will give you a text to look at.
