This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

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    Home > Courses > Literature > Writing About Literature

    21L.000J / 21L.010 / 21W.734J Writing About Literature

    As taught in: Fall 2006

    Costume design for Feste from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

    Costume design for Feste from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, created for the Federal Theatre Project under the Works Progress Administration. Graphite and watercolor by Robert Byrne (1935). (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Federal Theatre Project Collection, W.P.A. Transfer (159.7))

    Level:

    Undergraduate

    Instructors:

    Dr. Wyn Kelley

    Course Description

    Writing About Literature aims:

    1. To increase students' pleasure and skill in reading literary texts and in writing and communicating about them.
    2. To introduce students to different literary forms (poetry, fiction, drama) and some tools of literary study (close reading, research, theoretical models).
    3. To allow students to get to know a single writer deeply.
    4. To encourage students to make independent decisions about their reading by exploring and reporting back on authors whose works they enjoy.

    The syllabus includes an eclectic mix: William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Henry James, Michael Frayn, and Jhumpa Lahiri. We'll explore different ways of approaching the questions readers have about each of these texts.


    *Some translations represent previous versions of courses.