English 302: Literary Studies
Dr. Donna Campbell
357 Avery Hall
335-4831. Email is the best way to reach me: campbelld@wsu.edu
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/index.html

August 30-September 15, 2011
Printable syllabus
Paper Assignment

During the literary studies portion of English 302, we’ll be reading carefully and looking closely at the style, characterization, structure, and other features of poetry and prose. Above all, we’ll look at the language used in each piece, since the analysis of literature—and indeed all forms of writing—depends on understanding the denotative and connotative meanings of words and their context. Broadly speaking, we’ll look at the “what,” the “who,” and the “how” of selected literary works.

To get a sense of how language use changes over time, we’ll begin with several pieces written about the same subject: the Civil War. We’ll first discuss in class a very well-known piece of nineteenth-century writing—“The Gettysburg Address”—and a portion of its less well-known counterpart, a speech given just before Lincoln’s. Our second segment looks at the ways in which speakers create a voice and context for themselves within their work, first through three poems about different wars and then with two stories written by women writers. Our last segment looks at questions of style and structure—the means that authors uses to create their effects, including endings that may surprise the reader.