SHORT FICTION: HENRY JAMES, JAMES JOYCE, KAFKA
AND FLANNERY O'CONNOR
(4 Week Course)
Course Introduction
Literary fiction in the modern era has been dominated by two forms: the novel and the short story. The two have many elements in common and both are hard to define. The short story, though, can be usefully contrasted with the ancient forms of the fable and the tale. In a fable, the characters may be talking animals, inanimate objects, or people and supernatural beings (think of Aesop's fables). In all cases, the characters will be lightly sketched but not greatly developed. This is actually crucial to the fable, which requires a certain bareness and simplicity for its message to lodge easily in the memory.
A tale (from the Old English talu, “speech”) is summary in a similar kind of way...
Course Overview
In this 4-week module we will read together Henry James's Turn of the Screw, James Joyce's The Dead, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, and Flannery O'Connor's Revelation. Our classes will be structured around discussion of the guided reading questions, provided to you one week in advance. We will cover all of the above in closer detail, focusing on the following key topics:
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Madness and the Risks of Practice in The Turn of the Screw
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Structure and Sympathy in Joyce's The Dead
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Narcissism and Metaphor in Kafka's Metamorphosis
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O'Connor and the Body: Incarnation, Redemptive Suffering and Evil
