Particularly examined are the cultural and political milieus of the periods in which this literature was created. Some of the authors read are Frost, Hemingway, Faulkner, Cummings, Eliot, Stevens, Baldwin, Bellow, Plath, and Walker. Students learn the main critical and structural approaches to these genres. Students produce a set amount of writing in each genre, and more in a chosen genre and discuss student work in class. The work must be creative and also mechanically acceptable.
Students learn about acceptable manuscript practices and market opportunities.
Each student will be expected to produce a significant body of writing such as a collection of poems, a full-length play, a major part of a novel, or a collection of short stories. Stressed are the permanence and the current relevance of this literature. The course deals with such works and authors as the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, and Rabelais. Stressed are parallels and relationships between this literature and that of the English-speaking world. The course includes writings by Voltaire, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Kafka, and Sartre.