المحور الأول:Critical Theory, Poetry, Fiction and Research Methods 2020/2021
- Charles E. Bressler, Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, 5th ed., Longman, 2011.
- Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, A User-Friendly Guide, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2006.
*The emphasis of the comprehensive exam will be on the following theoretical approaches of criticism:
1. The Historical Survey of Criticism since Plato until the Modern times (In Charles E. Bressler, Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, 5th ed., Longman, 2011)
2. Russian Formalism and New criticism:
(Historical development and theoretical assumptions)
3. Structuralism:
a. Its historical development (Saussure's linguistic
revolution, the structure of language, Saussure's
redefinition of word, langue and parole)
b. Methodologies of Literary Structuralism:
1. The structure of literary genres
2. The Structure of narratives (Narratology)/Vladimir
Propp and Claud Levi-Strauss
3. The Structure of Literary interpretation (Jonathan
Culler)
2. Semiotics (Roland Barthes)
4. Post-structuralism and Deconstruction.
a. (Deconstructing language, deconstructing our world, deconstructing human identity, deconstructing literature);
b. Read "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" by Jacques Derrida, in
Charles E. Bressler, Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, 5th ed., Longman, 2011, (pp 256-271).
c. Assumptions of deconstruction: (Transcendental Signified, Logocentrism, binary oppositions, phonocentrism and metaphysics of presence)
d. Deconstructive suppositions for textual analysis: (Acknowledging binary operations in western thought, supplementation, difference and Arche-writing)
5. Psychoanalytic Criticism:
a. Sigmund Freud (models of human psyche, the significance of dreams, the interpretation of dreams and literature)
b. literature and psychoanalysis:
c.Carl G. Jung, Northrop Frye, Jacques Lacan)
d. Lacan and textual analysis
6. Reader Response and Reception Theories:
a. Historical development (I. A. Richards, Louise M Rosenblatt)
b. Structuralism (Gerald Prince)
c. Phenomenology (Hans Robert Jauss, WolfganfIser)
d. Subjective Criticism (Norman Holland, David Bleich)
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- Enani, M. Theories of Comparative Literature. South Valley University.
- Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men.
- Wells, H.G. The Time Machine.
- James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw.
- Any translation of Ibn Tufail'sThe History of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan.
- Any translation of TayebSalih'sSeason of Migration to the North.
- Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness.
- Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
- Fitzgerald,F. S. The Great Gatsby.
- Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter.
- Any book or article on dystopian fiction.
- Fowles, John. The French Lieutenant Woman.
- Mohammad Shaheen's article "TayebSlih and Conrad." Comparative Literature Studies. Vol. 22, No. 1, East-West Issue (Spring, 1985), pp. 156-171
- Poetry:
- A. E. Housman: Is My Team Ploughing, When I was One and Twenty, Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries.
- Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est.
- Thomas Hardy: The Darkling Thrush, The Ruined Maid, Ah, Are you Digging on My Grave? I Look into My Glass, The Man He Killed.
- William Butler Yeats: Leda and the Swan, The Second Coming, Sailing to Byzantium.
- Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken, Stopping by Woods, Not to Keep, Out, Out, Acquainted with the Night, Nothing Gold can Stay, Mending Wall, After Apple Picking.
- T. S. Eliot: The Hollow Men, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.
- Elizabeth Bishop: The Fish, Filling Station, One Art.
- Sylvia Plath: Mirror, Tulips.
- Rudyard Kipling: If--.
- John Donne: The Flea , Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star, Death Be not Proud, Valediction: Forbidding Morning.
- Any article on the meaning and characteristics of metaphysical poetry.
- Wallace Stevens: The Death of a Soldier, Poetry Is a Destructive Force, Anecdote of the Jar, The Snow Man.
- e. e. cummings: Me up at does, a like a, Tumbling hair.
- Billy Collins: My Hero.
- Philip Larkin: Church Going.
- Browning, Robert: My Last Duchess.
- Lawrence, D. H.: Piano.
- Any article or book on the characteristics, features and stylistic elements of modern poetry.
-المحور الثاني:Drama and Shakespeare
- Sophocles. Oedipus the King.
- Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman.
- Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot.
- Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House.
- Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard.
- Arthur Miller's article "Tragedy and the Common Man."
- Hamlet
-Othello
-Macbeth
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Merchant of Venice
*Further readings on Shakespeare:
- Stanely Wells & Lena Cowen Orlin, Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Juliet Dusinberre, Shakespeare and The Nature of Women, Macmillan Press LTD, 1996.