Semester I Compulsory (Paper I)
Literary Movements –I
Many distinct literary movements mark the journey of writing from ancient times to the very contemporary. The paper identifies some of the major literary movements that form the essential frame of reference for a critical engagement with the vast corpus of literature. Movements such as classicism, romanticism or realism constitute the primer of critical vocabulary and therefore a basic understanding of these movements is necessary for a nuanced understanding of varieties of literary articulation. Each movement has its own specific set of aesthetic, cultural and ethical values and preferences. The writers and writings that fall within a movement, despite their heterogeneity and particularities, do converge in terms of fostering an identifiable literary taste and trend. Though these movements do occur in literatures of the world, and across languages, yet the focus of this course is primarily on European literature, with special accent on the British. The emphasis of the paper is on the historical and conceptual understanding of various literary movements. The students are expected to study the prescribed texts closely. The students are also expected to study books and articles mentioned in the suggested readings toenhance their understanding of the primary texts, but there will be no question on the suggested readings. The paper shall consist of five compulsory questions – one each from a unit. Each question shall however have internal choice. The paper shall carry atotal of 80 marks.
Unit I What is a literary movement?
1. François Jost, ―The Challenge of Literary Movements, Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, Papers of the Seventh Triennial Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (Sep., 1981) 278-286.
2. Micah Mattix, ―Periodization and Difference, New Literary History, Vol. 35, No. 4, Forms and/of Decadence (Autumn, 2004) 685-697.
Unit II Classicism
1. Jean Hytier and June Guicharnaud, ―The Classicism of The Classics, Yale French Studies, No. 38, The Classical Line: Essays in Honor of Henri Peyre
(1967) 5-17.
2. Horace, ―Ars Poetica, The Poetry of Criticism: Horace, Epistles II and Ars Poetics, Ross S. Kilpatrick (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1990)
72-83
3. Longinus, On the Sublime. Chapters VIII-XXII. Trans H.L. Havell (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890)14-48
Unit III Renaissance
1. George Parfitt, ―Renaissance, Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism. Eds. Martin Coyle, Peter Garside, Malcolm Kelsall and John Peck (London & New York: Routledge, 1990) 83-92.
2. Machiavelli: Prince. Oxford World Classics. Trans. & Edited by Peter Bondanella, (New York: OUP, 2005) 53-78.
3. Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, trans. & edited Hoyt Hopewell Hudson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015) First Eight Sections, 1-20.
Unit IV Neo-Classicism
1. Thomas Kaminski, ―Neoclassicism, from A Companion to the Classical Tradition, edited by Craig W. Kallendorf (Malden & Oxford: Blackwell,2007) 57 71.
2. Samuel Johnson, ―The Necessity of Good Humour, The Rambler 72, November 24, 1750 in Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings. Ed Peter Martin
(Cambridge & Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009) 97-100
3. Henry Fielding, ―Author‘s Preface to Joseph Andrews (Penguin, 1999) 25-31
Unit V Romanticism
1. Seamus Perry, ―Romanticism: The Brief History of a Concept, A Companion to Romanticism, ed. Duncan Wu (Malden &Oxford: Blackwell, 1999) 3-12.
2. M. H. Abrams: ―Romantic Analogues of Mind and Art, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (OUP: Oxford, London &
New York, 1953) 47- 56.
3. Coleridge, ―Chapter XIII – On the Imagination or the Esemplastic Power‖, Biographia Literaria(Princeton UP, 1984) 116-128.
