SLA2910

The novel in Eastern Europe

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

M Pavlyshyn

8 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton
* Prerequisites (for the third-year level): Any second-year language or literature subject.

Objectives Students who complete this subject should have a knowledge of East European nineteenth and twentieth-century novels. They should have an understanding of the role of literature in East European societies with a tradition of authoritarian state control.

Synopsis A selection of novels from Russian, Czech, Polish, and Ukrainian literature will be studied to disclose shared literary features and the special social, political and cultural role of the novel in Eastern Europe. There will be an introduction to the theory of the novel as a genre, with special emphasis on the work of M Bakhtin. Texts will be studied in English.

Assessment Essay (2500 words): 35%
* Class paper (1500 words): 25%
* Examination (2 hours): 40%

Prescribed texts

Andrukhovych Y Recreations (supplied)
Dostoevsky F M The idiot Penguin
Hasek J The good soldier Svejk Heinemann and Penguin, 1973
Kundera M The unbearable lightness of being Faber
Lem S Solaris Penguin
Tolstoy L N War and peace Penguin

Recommended texts

Bakhtin M The dialogic imagination Texas U P, 1981