Introduction to Literary Theory “There is always the risk that education may put you at odds with the tasteless, clueless philistines who run the world and whose lexicon stretches only to words like oil, golf, power, and cheeseburger.” Terry Eagleton, After Theory, p. 26 To Serve Man

Your T.A.s Your T.A.s for the semester are Ms. Sparby Ms. Jewell They are highly trained and very smart teachers, and are much nicer than I am.

Attendance sheets There will be attendance sheets for you to sign each day you come to class. We shall find an appropriate place to put them for you. Here are the rules for attendance that you will find on the class website: “More than three absences will result in the lowering of your grade; more than nine absences will result in failure. Chronic lateness will have the same result. Missing the first week of classes will result in expulsion from the class.”

Introduction to Literary Theory: Goals and Expectations Class url: On this web site you will find the syllabus, class rules, grading determinations, assignments, and all other administrative information for this class. address: Office hours: Office Hours: MW 10:00-11:30a.m. Office: Hellems 110

Final Grade Breakdown 25% of Final Grade: Midterm Examination 25% of Final Grade: Final Examination 25% of Final Grade: Final Paper 25% of Final Grade: Recitation performance

Mandatory film viewings Your first film viewing is Friday, January 23 :King Kong: HUMN 1B50, 7pm (Your second viewing is Thu, Feb 12: Vertigo)

What you will learn today and every day 1.Rigorous ambiguity: “Negative Capability” 2.Some notes on liking ideas 3.How to read a difficult essay

1. Negative Capability A term coined by John Keats: “I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”

But the sciences insist on facts. Doesn’t ambiguity make literary studies soft? Scientific certainty. Brother, are you living in the nineteenth century. Or, in your insistence on certainty, in the middle ages. Or perhaps in Colorado Springs. Riddle me this: Is light composed of waves or of particles? Good luck with the whole scientific certainty thing.

2. Get ready for some ideas you won’t like Understand, however, that your not liking them has absolutely nothing to do with their legitimacy as ideas. Put another way: no one cares whether you like an idea or not. I certainly don’t. If you haven’t understood from your first college class that the purpose of ideas is to defend or refute them to the best of your analytic ability then you do not belong in college, and certainly not in this class or in English. I understand that Oral Roberts University is looking for a few good men. You will be reading Marxist, feminist, and psychoanalytic criticism, for example. Agree or disagree – but do so in a well-reasoned and nicely articulated argument. Or get out of my life.

3. Tough reading Many of your readings are tough. Don’t always expect to understand them the first time through. Read highlights a second time. Ask your TAs and me questions. Don’t assume that you are stupid. And don’t assume the essayist is pretentious and out to get you. He would actually have to know you first.

Speaking of tough and ambiguous… Watch this film. It’s OK to laugh. Or not. Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Andalusian Dog (1929)