The languages of fiction
P Groves
6 points
* 3 hours per week
* Second semester
* Clayton
*
Prerequisites: ENH1010 or ENH1111/CLS1010
Objectives On successfully completing this subject students should have developed a basic understanding of the workings of English syntax, in terms of both phrase-structure grammar and functional grammar, a degree of skill in close textual analysis, a range of reading skills appropriate to a broad diversity of fictional genres and some understanding of the problematisations of questions of reading narrative that have been generated by various literary theories (including those of feminist and reader-response criticism).
Synopsis The aim of ENH1040 is to extend the student's familiarity with the working of language in literary (and other) texts. The focus of the subject will be twofold: both on the kinds of language used in fictive texts, and on the ways in which texts themselves encode narrative structures (the `languages' of narrative). The subject will commence with a study of the grammatical structure of English, and go on to examine the ways in which such structures - and choices among them - function to produce different kinds of stylistic effects in prose (specifically fictional) texts. The second half of the subject will involve study of the structures of narrative in the light of different theories of narratology (including feminist and reader-response theories). In parallel with their theoretical study students will apply their understanding of syntax and narratology to the detailed analysis of a number of fictional texts, including a Chaucer tale, novels by Faulkner, Golding, Joyce and Woolf.
Assessment Exercise (800 words): 10%
* Essay (1200 words): 20%
*
Class tests: 20%
* Examination (2 hours): 50%
Prescribed texts
Chaucer G Prologue and two tales ed. F King and B Steele, English Dept, Monash University
Faulkner W The sound and the fury Penguin
Golding W The inheritors Penguin
Joyce J A portrait of the artist as a young man Penguin
Leech G and others English grammar for today Macmillan
Woolf V Mrs Dalloway Penguin
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