What you'll learn
- learn to analyze literary language
- Produce close critical analyses of prose
- Understand elements of literary and stylistic craft
- Know and understand ways in which the use of language creates meaning
- Understand the effect of word choices and language style
- Understand use of major literary devices in classic fiction
Requirements
- Anyone who wants to study literature
- Interest in studying literature
Description
This course is for anyone who wants to study literature and/or wants to understand literary analysis The course will introduce you to key literary terms and devices and give you the skills necessary for a close reading of text. By drawing on examples from 19th and 20th century classic fiction, the course is designed to help you go beyond the plot of a novel, so that you can see and appreciate the the art and craft of literary language and the effect it produces on the reader.
Who this course is for:
- Anyone who wants to study literature
- IB or GCSE students of English literature
- High School or Undergraduate college students
Instructor
As an educationist I have spent over 10 years in academia – studying and teaching literature. The opportunity to touch the many - sidedness of human sensibility through the act of reading and literary understanding drives my teaching.
For me, reading literature is like what Keats described in his sonnet 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' - the striking and arresting moment of reading something so important. I share these moments of discovery with my students by showing them how literary language shapes and animates deep and profound truths about human nature, inspiring them to see the depth and richness in their own human experience. My course is designed to help you see the power of literary language and to remind us that the reason we get absorbed in a novel, or the reason we still study classic novels, is not for what these novels are about, but how they are written - which holds the capacity to create a sense of wonder for us.
In my teaching the focus is mostly on the style, art, and craft of literary language and the effect it produces on the reader. This way of studying literature is called Poetics and that’s what shapes my rigor and enthusiasm for English literature.