ENH1230

Language, style and literature

P Groves

6 points - 2.5 hours per week - Second semester - Clayton - Prerequisite: ENH1010

Objectives On successfully completing this subject students should have developed an elementary knowledge of English syntax, some acquaintance with the sound-patterns of English speech and their functioning in literary texts, a familiarity with the workings of figurative language, some introduction to the variety of theoretical approaches to the study of literature and a degree of skill in close textual analysis.

Synopsis The subject will introduce students to discourse stylistics as a method for examining literary texts. It will begin with some necessary linguistic background in the areas of phonetics and syntax, and go on to examine the ways in which linguistic structures and patterns and choices among them function to produce different kinds of stylistic effects in literary texts. Students will be introduced to a variety of theoretical approaches to stylistic analysis, including formalism, structuralism and semiotics. Areas of particular interest will include metre and other kinds of rhythmic form; metrical style; soundpatterning and its affective and iconic potential; poetic diction; the functioning of metaphor, metonymy and other forms of figurative language; formal rhetoric; and the syntactic and discoursal analysis of texts.

Assessment Exercise in parody (800 words): 10% - Essay (1200 words): 20% - Two brief class tests (one on syntax and one on metre, 10% each): 20% - Seminar paper: 10% - Examination (2 hours): 40%

Prescribed texts

Austen J Emma Penguin
Baynton B Bush studies Angus and Robertson
Chaucer G Prologue and three tales ed. F King and B Steele, English Dept, Monash University
James H The turn of the screw Signet
Leonard J (ed.) Seven centuries of English verse
Shakespeare W King Lear Signet or Penguin

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