Selections will include prose fiction, poetry, and drama from different time periods and regions of the world. Fiction is a particularly rewarding form of literature.
Readers respond differently to to the individual and communal emphases in fiction.
Poetry moreover offers us insights into the soul, the community, and the world, even as the poet modulates the language used to discover the insight and to capture the reader's ear. Drama plunges us into the traumas and delights of characters who act out key moments of their lives on stage, in order to engage the audience in their dilemmas. Different cultures have different literary styles and thematic concerns, which are what this course surveys. Yet we can do all forms of literature for all people. The selections should be valuable representatives of major cultutal traditions, and they must be pertinent and interesting to readers in the United States at the end of the 20th century.