Title: LITERARY TOPICS

PRQ:

Topic:  Literature of Fantasy 

Works belonging to the fantasy genre or fantasy subgenres have been very popular in recent times--for example, Tolkien, Lovecraft, the Harry Potter franchise, and numerous films, graphic novels, and games. Despite the fact that, throughout the whole history of literature, fantasy writing has regularly been denounced or dismissed, it has remained popular with readers and writers. This is because fantasy is built into the very concept of literature. Fantastic stories, characters, and worlds are (so to speak) a permanent possibility of literature, beginning with myths and folktales. This course will survey some of the many forms and modes fantasy literature has taken over the past two centuries. Lecture-discussion format.

Weekly reading quizzes; final exam; essays (three short, one longer [in two installments])

Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories (selections); G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday; Robert Holdstock, Mythago Wood; E. T. A. Hoffmann, Tales (selections); Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist and Other Stories; Ursula K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea; David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus; George Macdonald, Phantastes; Edgar Allan Poe, Tales (selections); J. R. R. Tolkien, “Smith of Wootton Major” --plus one book of your choice (for the longer essay)