Monash University Handbook 2010 Postgraduate - Unit

Synopsis

This unit will examine some ways in which imaginative experience may be reworked. Reworkings include revisions, rejoinders, amplification, reinterpretation, indirect allusion, translation and subversion. Factors in reworking, such as authorial bias, the spirit of the age, and movement from one genre or one art form to another, will also be considered. Postmodern and postcolonial factors in reworkings will receive particular attention. The large proportion of twentieth-century texts will enable students to assess how this century's literature is built upon earlier work, and to consider how contemporary sensibilities affect interpretation.

Objectives

Students successfully completing this course should have developed:

1. An understanding of the variety of ways in which literary texts may be considered as responses to precursor texts.

2. A recognition of how our own age interprets, evaluates and controls its cultural heritage by reworking it.

3. A grounding in the nature of the social circumstances and cultural conditions in which literature is produced.

4. An ability to articulate critical interpretations of the set texts in systematic written argument and in clear and confident oral presentation.

Assessment

Two seminar papers (1500 words; a literary exercise of 1500 words may be substituted for one of the seminar papers): 30%
Essay (2500 words): 30%
Essay (3500 words): 40%

Chief examiner(s)

Alan Dilnot

Contact hours

2 hours (1 x 2 hour seminar) per week