ENGL 54.16 Literary Classics

Hamlet, Paradise Lost, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The Waste Land: These texts are among the cornerstones of a literary canon that still exerts enormous influence even as it is intensely contested. How does a play, a novel, or a poem become a “literary classic”? In this course, we will read a series of indisputably “great” texts in order to understand the complex forms of evaluation (aesthetic, political, moral, and commercial) that both underpin and revise notions of canonicity. Drawing on theoretical work by Gauri Viswanathan, Pierre Bourdieu, Theodor Adorno, and Pascale Casanova, we will also consider the varied institutional contexts (from the colonial civil service to the liberal arts classroom, from small presses to multinational publishers, from Masterpiece Theatre to contemporary Bollywood) that govern these processes.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:LIT; WCult:W

The Timetable of Class Meetings contains the most up-to-date information about a course. It includes not only the meeting time and instructor, but also its official distributive and/or world culture designation. This information supersedes any information you may see elsewhere, to include what may appear in this ORC/Catalog or on a department/program website. Note that course attributes may change term to term therefore those in effect are those (only) during the term in which you enroll in the course.

Department-Specific Course Categories

Course Group IV