Texts to be purchased

• Agee, James.  A Death in the Family.  1957.  New York: Vintage, 1998.
• Faulkner, William.  Go Down, Moses.  1942.  New York: Vintage, 1991.
• Komunyakaa, Yusef.  Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems.  Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1993.
• O'Connor, Flannery.  A Good Man Is Hard to Find.  1955.  San Diego: Harvest, 1983.
• Porter, Katherine Anne.  The Old Order.  San Diego: Harvest, 1972. 
• Warren, Robert Penn.  All the King's Men.  1946.  Orlando: Harvest, 1996. 

The Seminar in Major Authors (ENGL 341) offers, as the Catalogue puts it, "an intensive study of authors whose work has significantly affected the traditions of literature written in English."  Major Southern Authors focuses on work, prose fiction and poetry, by Southern writers "whose works are both historically linked and mutually illuminating."  In "A Southern Mode of the Imagination," an important essay by Allen Tate (1899-1979), this erstwhile Fugitive poet and Southern Agrarian maintains that the literature of the modern South, being "dialectical" rather than "rhetorical," reveals the "inner strains, stresses, tensions, the shocked self-consciousness of a highly differentiated and complex society."  In this course we'll examine the Southern imagination as it reveals itself in novels by William Faulkner (1897-1962), Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), and James Agee (1909-1955); short fiction by Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) and Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), and poetry by John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974), Allen Tate, James Dickey (1923-1997), and Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947).  Our aim is to explore the South of these authors through a close reading of their novels, short stories, and poetry and through some consideration of the rich historical context of the work.  Discussions in class as well as formal written assignments will facilitate this aim.  In the process, we should all become better informed and more attentive and creative readers, whose analytical and interpretive skills manifest an ever greater sophistication and whose writing displays an ever finer clarity of expression. 

Active participation (10%).  You'll be participating actively in this course if you attend class regularly (missing only for official, College-sponsored activities or for emergencies), meet all deadlines, and demonstrate your engagement in the course by contributing valuably to in-class discussions and by scoring consistently well on reading quizzes.  It is unlikely that you will receive full credit for participation if you miss more than two weeks of class.  It is the Department's policy that anyone missing more than three weeks of class (six classes) for any reason will fail the course.  Understand that the Department does not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences.

Short essay on Porter or Faulkner (20%).  This essay of 4-5 pages will examine Porter's "stories of the South" or Faulkner's Go Down, Moses through the lens of Tate's essay, "A Southern Mode of the Imagination" (due Tuesday, September 19).  A late assignment loses at least a letter grade.

With this essay and the other two below, bear in mind these elements:

• Thesis and introduction: Is the thesis contestable?  Is it substantial enough to merit the specified number of words of development?  Is the thesis, along with the introduction of which it is a part, specific to the essay at hand, or is it merely a generic one that could be pasted onto any other essay on the general subject? 
• Overall structure (macro-organization): Do the paragraphs have topic sentences that relate to the thesis?  Is the arrangement, the order, of the paragraphs sensible and effective?  How well do the paragraphs cohere one with another?  Are there transitions, signposts, that smooth the reader's journey from one topic to another? 
• Micro-organization: Do the individual paragraphs have unity, order, coherence? 
• Content: Is there ample evidence to elucidate or otherwise demonstrate the validity of the topic ideas?  What is the quality of that evidence?  To what degree does it display a depth or an originality of thought on the part of the author, or the thoroughness of his or her research?  Has the author employed appropriate rhetorical modes? 
• Style: Is the expression of the ideas clear?  Does the syntax flow?  Is the tone appropriate to the subject?  Are there errors in grammar, diction or usage, spelling, or mechanics that impede effective communication?  (Especially serious are "sentence level" errors: comma splices, sentence fragments, and fused sentences.)

Essay on two critical articles (25%).  You are to write a coherent essay of 4-5 pages in which you discuss two articles accessed through JSTOR about any one of the works we've studied (due Thursday, October 19).  A late assignment loses at least a letter grade.

Final essay (30%).  This essay of 5-7 pages will examine work by three of our authors.  You must refer to "A Southern Mode of the Imagination" and draw on secondary critical sources such as articles available through JSTOR (due Tuesday, December 5).  A late assignment loses at least a letter grade.

Final exam (15%).  More on this later--time TBA!

Active participation (10%)
Essay on Porter or Faulkner (20%)
Essay on articles (25%)
Final essay (30%)
Final exam (15%)