Open Yale Courses

ENGL 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature

Lecture 2 - Introduction (cont.) << previous session | next session >>

Overview:

In this second introductory lecture, Professor Paul Fry explores the interrelation of skepticism and determinism. The nature of discourse and the related issue of discursivity is read through two modern works, Anton Chekov's Cherry Orchard and Henry James' The Ambassadors. Exemplary critical focus on literary authority is located in Michel Foucault's "What Is an Author" and Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author," both of which are read with an emphasis on their historical contexts. Objections to the approach and conclusions of the two theorists are examined, particularly in light of the rise of cultural studies.

Reading assignment:

Foucault, Michael. "What Is an Author?" In The Critical Tradition, pp. 904-14

Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." In The Critical Tradition, pp. 874-77

Class lecture:

Transcript
html
Audio
mp3
Video
medium bandwidth
low bandwidth
high bandwidth

Yale University 2009. Some rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated on this page or on the Open Yale Courses website, all content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0)