Welcome to The Reading of Literature: Fiction

Literature should be fun. It gives you a legal reason for reading books, which you will soon discover are among the best written. The Great Gatsby is one of the best American novels ever written and certainly the best about the Jazz Age. Wuthering Heights is among the three greatest novels in English. The Wind in the Willows vies with Alice in Wonderland to be the best so-called children’s book. 1984 is one of the greatest satires ever written, and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is hailed as the best espionage novel.

We quickly learn labels are meaningless. Wind in the Willows may have been written for children, but it is much more—far more than any child would understand. Wuthering Heights is one of the greatest love stories ever written but, as adults, the lovers never kiss each other. In 1984, there is a constant state of war and fear to keep the populace in line—sound familiar?

There isn’t anything certain in literary studies—a fact that irritates some, but even in science what was once supposed to be true can change. The smallest part of an element isn’t an atom! The purpose of literature, if it has one, is to raise questions. We will discuss some of those questions.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the books we will be reading all have a theme of the class struggle. It’s “them versus us.” This issue is germane to the English novel, but Fitzgerald is the man who said. “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

After this class you will have the necessary critical tools to read all kinds of literature and assess their merits. You should be able to critique a text via different approaches (new critical, cultural, feminist, African-American and psychoanalytical) to produce new and different insights.

Other things we’ll be able to do during and after the class are:

1. Discuss questions based upon characterization, plot, setting, theme, point of view, literary devices, etc. of any kind of book (using appropriate critical terms).
2. Determine the genre of any work of fiction and analyze its components.
3. Explain how society is reflected in and determines content of the novel.
4. Appreciate literature and its place within your own life and development and those of students you are teaching.
5. Increase your awareness of the link between literature and the human experience.