Texts (to be read in this order)

Cowley, Malcolm, Ed.  The Portable Faulkner.  Penguin.  ISBN: 014243728X.

Porter, Katherine Anne.  The Old Order.  Harcourt.  ISBN: 0156685191.

Welty, Eudora.  The Golden Apples.  Harcourt.  ISBN: 015636090X

Wright, Richard.  Black Boy.  Harper Perennial.  ISBN: 0060929782.

Wright, Richard.  Native Son.  Harper Perennial.  ISBN: 0060929804.

Faulkner, William.  The Sound and the Fury.  Ed. David Minter.  Norton.  ISBN: 0393964817.

This seminar (English 341) offers an intensive study of authors whose work has significantly affected the traditions of literature written in English.  Faulkner and His Contemporaries focuses on four authors whose works are both historically linked and mutually illuminating.  In an important essay, "A Southern Mode of the Imagination," Allen Tate 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 representative work by Faulkner (1897-1962), and three of his contemporaries: Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980), Richard Wright (1908-1960), and Eudora Welty (1909-2001).  Our aim is to explore the South of these authors through a close reading of their novels and short stories and through some consideration of the rich historical context of the work.  Discussions in class and occasionally in Blackboard 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. 

A=90-100; B=80-89; C=70-79; D=60-69; F=0-59 

Active participation (10%).  You will be participating actively in this course if you attend class regularly (missing only for official, College-sponsored activities or for emergencies) and meet deadlines and if you demonstrate your engagement in the course by contributing valuably to in-class discussions and to occasional out-of-class Blackboard forums and by scoring consistently well on reading quizzes.  (Reading quizzes will come--when they do--at the beginning of the period.  If you are late for class, you will miss the quiz.  You may make up a reading quiz only if you are absent because of your required participation in a College-sponsored off-campus event, and then you may submit on the day of your return to class 10 objective questions and answers about the assignment that was due when you were absent.) 

Creative imitation/emulation of Faulkner (10%).  750 words.  Due Thursday, September 16.  A late assignment loses a letter grade.

Critical analysis (10%).  750 words.  Due Thursday, September 30.  A late assignment loses a letter grade.

Midterm test (10%).  Thursday, October 21.

Critical evaluation (10%).  750 words.  Due Thursday, November 4.  This essay should present a coherent overview of the artistic achievement of one of our authors based on the critical judgment of professional scholars.  This assignment requires research, which you must document meticulously, following MLA guidelines.  You should make use of online resources (http://research.centenary.edu/) as well as printed matter, but anything accessible on the Web via a search engine like Google is off limits without my prior approval.  A late assignment loses a letter grade.

Comprehensive essay (25%).  1750 words.  Topic to be announced.  Due Thursday, November 18.  A late assignment loses a letter grade.  As with essays for other English courses, these are the features that I will be evaluating: 

Thesis and introduction: Is the thesis contestable?  Is it substantial enough to merit 1750 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.)

Final examination (25%).  12-3 PM, Tuesday, December 14.

Regular attendance.  To be present, you must be on time to class; you must have the assigned text with you; and you must stay awake.  The English Department does not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences.  Miss more than six classes for whatever reason and you will fail the course. 

Honor Code.  You must write in longhand and sign the Honor Code on all work.