Spring 2003 Dr. Sharon Wilson
Phone: 351-2985 Mich. L 18
Fax: 351-3378 TTh 9:50-10:50; W 12:50-1:50,
E-mail:
Website: www.asccsa.unco.edu/faculty/swilson
ENGLISH 497: Senior Seminar
MYTH, FAIRY TALES, AND OTHER FOLKLORE IN CONTEMPORARY
WOMEN’S LITERATURE
DESCRIPTION:
A capstone course investigating the use of myth, fairy tales, and folklore in contemporary women’s literature.
REQUIRED BOOKS. Available in the Book Stop:
Margaret Atwood. The Robber Bride. Bantam.
Rosario Ferre. The Youngest Doll.
Toni Morrison. Beloved. Bantam.
Louise Erdrich. The Beet Queen. Bantam.
Marie-Claire Blais. Mad Shadows. New Canadian Library, McClelland &
Stewart.
Anne Sexton. Transformations. Houghton Mifflin.
Doris Lessing. Memoirs of a Survivor. ed. Anne Freegood. 1977.Vintage. 1977.
Angela Carter. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.
Edith
Hamilton. Mythology: Timeless Tales
of Gods and Heroes. Meridian.
Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek.
Ed. Folk and Fairy
Tales. Third edition. Broadview Press.
Recommended:
Holman, C. Hugh and William Harmon, ed. Handbook to Literature. 8th ed. MacMillan.
Joseph
Gibaldi. MLA Handbook For Writers of Research Papers. Fifth Edition.
The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales, ed. Lily Owens. Avenel.
Jack Zipes, ed. Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Bantam.
HANDOUTS including:
Fairy tales and myths.
Helene Cixous. "The Laugh of the Medusa." In Women's Voices: Visions and Perspectives, ed. Pat C. Hoy II, et. al.
Poems:
W.B. Yeats “Leda and the Swan”
Beckian Fritz Goldberg, “Leda”
Atwood, Margaret. "Orpheus."
Bogan, Louise. "Medusa." Gilbert and Gubar. Norton Anthology of Literature By Women. 1611.
Plath, Sylvia. "Medusa." Gilbert and Gubar. 2209-10.
Sarton, May. "The Muse as Medusa." Gilbert and Gubar. 1777.
Recommended: T.S. Eliot “The Waste Land”
REQUIRED AND RECOMMENDED FILMS:
Margaret Atwood: Once in August (Biographical). UNC
The Poetry and Voice of Margaret
Atwood. Hermione Lee Interview. UNC.
Robber Bride Interview.
The Handmaid's Tale. Loosely based on Atwood novel.
The Red Shoes. Dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
The Company of Wolves.
Memoirs of a Survivor.
Doris Lessing Interview.
Like Water for Chocolate.
Toni Morrison Interview.
Louise Erdrich
Interview. UNC.
Wide
Black Orpheus. Dir. Marcel Camus.
Orphee. Dir. Jean Cocteau. l951.
Cocteau. Beauty and the Beast.
Fairy-Tale Theatre: Snow White
Disney films
Clash of the Titans. l981.
Joseph Campbell. The Power of Myth.
Transformations of Myth Through Time.
Ones not shown in class are available at UNC Media area of library, video stores, or for checkout and earn extra-credit.
OBJECTIVES:
To develop students' insight into the use of myth, fairy tales, and other folklore in literature, especially women writers' re-visionings of fairy tales.
To develop students' insight into the contributions of women writers from different cultures, environments, ethnic backgrounds, and sexual orientations.
To develop students' abilities to read and communicate about literature, literary technique, myths, fairy tales, and feminist literary criticism.
To develop students' insight into the varied roles women and men play in literature, popular culture, and life.
To develop students' insight into twentieth-century literature and its relationship to personal concerns.
GENERAL REQUIREMENTS:
l. Research Paper on LONG OUTSIDE READING (see list), one or two in-class readings, or, if desired, a topic of your own that I approve. (If the LONG OUTSIDE READING is covered in the Seminar, it may be omitted in the essay.) Advance and support a thesis relevant to the course theme and on a focused aspect of the work(s), such as a character, theme, narrator, motif, significance of setting, symbol, or particular technique. Recommended length: 15-20 typed pages. Use MLA Handbook form. 20 %
2. Five Brief Reflection Papers on each novel, one of which will be around mid-term. 30 %
3. Short oral report and critique of one or several Short Readings (see list of essays), either by yourself or with another person. You must support a thesis rather than summarizing. Fairy tales and myths may not be used for this assignment unless you apply the critic’s ideas to the tales.
10 %
4. Create your own myth or fairy tale. Grade will be based partly on knowledge of the selected genre. Use readings as models. 15 %
5. Seminar--an informal discussion of one of the assigned or Outside LONG READINGS or a topic I approve, either by yourself or with another person. (If the LONG OUTSIDE READING is not covered in the Essay, it must be discussed here.) As above, advance and support a thesis on a focused aspect of a fictional work. Schedule a time with me as soon as possible, by the end of the fourth week at the latest. Recommended length: l0-20 minutes for each person. If you are ill on the scheduled day, notify me or the English secretary before class time; if you do not, the grade is 0. The presentation must be well-prepared and well-delivered. As background reading, some relevant critical works are recommended. Extra Credit for two seminars. 15 %
6. Completion of all reading and other work on time, preparation for and participation in discussions, and regular attendance. If necessary, quizzes will be given. 10 %
NOTE: IF ANY WORK IS PLAGIARIZED, THE COURSE GRADE MAY BE "F." All sources must be cited in internal notes AND a Works Cited (See MLA Handbook).
LATENESS Policy: Grades for Brief Papers will be lowered a whole letter for each class day late. Grades for other work will be lowered 1/3 a letter a class day. Extensions are normally for one day, and work is not accepted more than one week late.
Students with disabilities who believe they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability Access Center, (970) 351-2289, as soon as possible to better ensure that accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion.
OTHER REQUIRED READING OUTSIDE OF CLASS:
1. SHORT READING. At least five required. Some to be covered in Oral and others cited in Paper, Myth, Fairy Tale, or Seminar. See Contents and Index for topics that interest you. Other suggestions will be offered in class. Some of these readings are in the library. Others are recommended texts in bookstore or available through Interlibrary Loan. Read article or book chapter. Where the book is not entirely about myth, choose chapters on myth or fairy tales. Also note essays in Hallett and Karasek and bibliographies in course texts.
Atwood, Margaret. "The Curse of Eve--Or, What I Learned in School" in Second Words. UNC.
---. “On Medea.” www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0498/wolf/essay.html
---. Survival. UNC.
Barzilai, Shuli. “Reading ‘Snow White’: The Mother’s Story.” Ties That Bind: Essays on Mothering and Patriarchy, ed. Jean F. O’Barr, Deborah Pope, Mary Wyer.
Bettleheim, Bruno. The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales.
Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Grimms' Bad Girls and Bold Boys: The Moral and Social Vision of the Tales.
Campbell, Joseph. The
Flight of the Wild
---. "Folkloristic Commentary." Hunt and Stern trans. of Grimms. 833-64.
---. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology.
---. The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology.
---. Transformations of Myth Through Time. New York: Penguin, l962.
Cixous, Helene. “Castration or Decapitation.” Medusa.
Daly, Mary. Gyn/ecology.
Simone DeBeauvoir. The Second Sex.
Dworkin, Andrea. Woman Hating.
Eliade, Mircea. Myths, Rites, and Symbols. 2 vols. Ed. Wendell C. Beane and William G. Dotz.
Frazer, James George.
The Golden Bough.
Freud, Sigmund. Selected Writings. The Interpretation of Dreams. See Oedipus, Medusa, Electra complexes.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe. Ed. Joan Marler. San Francisco: Harper, 1991.
___. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982.
---. The Language of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.
Hearne, Betsy. Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale.
Jung, Carl G., M.-L. von Franz, Joseph L. Henderson, Jolande Jacobi, Aniela Jaffe, ed. Man and His Symbols. l964. (in addition to assigned handout).
Jung, Carl Gustav. Selected Writings.
Leach, Maria. ed and Jerome Fried, asst. ed. Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. "The Structural Study of Myth." Myth: A Symposium. l971. 81-106.
Luthi, Max. The European Folktale: Form and
Nature. Pratt, Annis. Archetypal Patterns in
Women's Fiction.
---. Dancing with Goddesses: Archetypes, Poetry, and Empowerment. Medusa, Aphrodite, Artemis. 1994.
Roemer, Danielle M. and Cristina Bacchilea, ed. Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale. 2001.
Sebeok, Thomas A., ed. Myth: A Symposium. l971.
Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads.
Tyler, Hamilton.
Van Franz, MarieLouise. Problems of the Feminine in Fairy Tales.
Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales.
Walker, Barbara. The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Great Goddess.
Waelti-Walters, Jennifer. Fairy Tales and the Female Imagination.
Webber, Jeannette L. and Joan Grumman, ed. Woman as Writer.
sections on or by writers covered in class, including Sexton, Atwood.
Weigle, Marta. Spiders and Spinsters: Women and Mythology. l982.
Wilkinson, Tanya. Medea's Folly: Women, Relationships, and the Search for Intimacy. 1998.
Wilson, Sharon Rose. Margaret Atwood's Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics.
Zipes, Jack. Don’t
Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England.
The Trials and Tribulaions of Little Red Rising Hood.
See also Bibliography in Hallett and Karasek.
2. LONG OUTSIDE READING for essay or oral--novel or book of poetry. One Required. With approval, students may follow up the role of myth or fairy tales in literary works of their choice.
Margaret Atwood. The Blind Assassin.
The Edible Woman. “Bluebeard”
Cat’s
Eye. “The Snow Queen”
Good Bones. Flash fictions.
Surfacing. Demeter/ Persephone.
You Are Happy. See "Circe/ Mud Poems."
The Handmaid's Tale. “Little Red Riding Hood”
Life Before
Lady
Oracle. “The Red Shoes,” “Bluebeard,” Goddess
Bodily Harm. Pandora
Bluebeard's Egg. Stories.
Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New 1976-1986. Oxford. 1986. Canada.
Jorge Borges. Labyrinth.
A.S. Byatt. Possession.
Sandra Cisneros. Woman Hollering Creek.
Louise Erdrich. Tracks. Native American.
Laura Esquivel. Like
Water for Chocolate.
Anne Hebert. Heloise. General Pub. Co., Toronto. UNC.
Kamouraska.
Keri Hulme. The Bone People.
Rapunzel.
James Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man. Daedalus.
Ulysses.
Joy Kogawa. Obasan.
Doris Lessing. Briefing for a Descent into Hell.
Margaret Laurence. Diviners.
Toni Morrison. The Bluest Eye.
Tar Baby.
Iris Murdoch. The Unicorn.
A Severed Head.
Joyce Carol Oates. Do
With Me What You Will. Girl Without Hands.
Jean Rhys. Wide
Alain
Robbe-Grillet. In
the Labyrinth.
Mary Shelley. Frankenstein.
Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club.
Eudora Welty. The Robber Bride.
Golden Apples (stories).
Poetry in Norton Anthology based on or using intertexts from myths, fairy tales, and folklore.
RECOMMENDED READING—see also Recommended
Texts.
Myth Anthologies
Biehorst, John. The Mythology of
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar. D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. Doubleday, l962. (for elementary education students)
Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz, ed. American Indian Myths and Legends. l984.
Graves, Robert. The
Greek Myths: Vols. 1, 2.
Leeming, David Adams. The World of Myth: An Anthology. Oxford UP, l990.
Reed, A. W. Aboriginal Myths, Legends, and Fables.
---. Maori Myth and Legend.