| Unit name | Henry James |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ENGL29011 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Lyon |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None. |
| Co-requisites |
None. |
| School/department | Department of English |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Henry James, someone once said, exerts a high admission price. This prolific writer is undoubtedly challenging and demanding, though his much remarked 'difficulty' is confined to his later, and perhaps greatest, period. This course aims to treat the entire range of James's writing career, considering eight novels and a selection of short works. Particular attention will be paid to James as an international writer, as an American and in relation to European influences; to James's complex and changing relation to realism and to modes of writing other than and opposed to realism; to James's portrayal of the life of the artist; to the relation between James's novels and his shorter fiction; to James and the First World War; and to the negotiations between James's writings and photography and film. A further aim of the course is to enhance participants' reading skills to their benefit in other parts of the course.
Aims:
The Unit aims to afford participants sustained experience of the writings of a major novelist, story teller, and critic. It thus aims to educate participants in the benefits, including rethinking and shifts in emphasis, which immersion in one body of writing can afford. It also aims to look beyond James himself to other writers, and to Jamess varied and changing literary contexts. A further aim of the course is to enhance participants reading skills to their benefit in other parts of the course.
Students will have encountered a substantial part of the writings of a major writer, and will have had experience of the potential for rethinking which sustained and prolonged study of one writer affords. They will also have knowledge of some of the major debates and issues confronted by English and American prose writers in the later 19Th Century and in the early 20th. They will have experience of the demands and possibilities of writing at length and coherently. Their reading skills will be enhanced, to their benefit in future courses they undertake.
One x 2 hour seminar per week, plus 1-to-1 discussion in consultation hours where desired.
(These may be read in any of the modern, annotated paperback editions eg. Penguin, Oxford Worlds Classics, Everyman)
