Course Syllabus YONSEI INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL 2011

World Literature: English and American Literature

The Imaginative Tradition

CREDIT 3 INSTRUCTOR Professor Kelly S. Walsh

OFFICE NMH B-128 OFFICE HOURS

TIME CLASSROOM LOCATION

E-MAIL kswalsh@yonsei.ac.kr, kswalsh@uw.edu

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[COURSE INFORMATION]

COURSE DESCRIPTION & GOALS

What do we mean by the imagination? For Samuel Taylor Coleridge, it is “the living Power

and prime Agent of all human Perception,” a vital faculty that “dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in

order to recreate” the “real” world in a more meaningful, that is, aesthetic, form. While not

everyone in the Anglo-American tradition has ascribed such a quasi-transcendent capability to

the imagination, it has, from Shakespearean tragedy to Romanticism and Modernism, remained

a potent force in literature, one that acts as a supplement and counterbalance to what is

conventionally understood as reality. In this course, then, we shall explore many different

conceptions—and manifestations—of the imagination in British and American poetry, prose,

and drama, attempting to discern what its limits are and what it can (still) do. We may not all

agree on the value of the imagination and its capacity to reinvent a more satisfying world; it is

my hope, however, that you leave the course with an appreciation of what Wallace Stevens

means when he says that the imagination has “something to do with our self-preservation,” that,

in its poetic permutations, it “helps us to live our lives.”

PREREQUISITE

None. Students should have an interest in the role of the imagination in British and American

literature and be eager to discuss and think critically about many challenging texts.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

PARTICIPATION (30%):

This includes active participation in class discussions and group work activities. To receive

full participation credit you will be required to: 1) regularly attend class; 2) finish all required

readings before they are discussed in class; and 3) actively participate in class discussions and

group work activities.

READING JOURNAL (15%):

After each class, you will be required to spend about 20 minutes writing a reflection on the

material covered that day in class. These reflections will be submitted to me at the end of each

week (generally on Friday by 5:00 PM).

Course Syllabus YONSEI INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL 2011

GROUP TEACHING ASSIGNMENT (10%):

In groups of 4-5, students will be responsible for preparing a 40-45 minute class on one of the

course texts. This is not meant to be a presentation per se; rather, you are being asked to put

together a lesson plan and teach one of our primary texts for half the period. Feel free to draw

upon scholarly articles dealing with the text itself, but you should not spend time providing plot

summary and/or biographical information on the author.

MIDTERM EXAM (20%):

Essay Exam taken during class time.

FINAL EXAM (25%): Essay Exam taken during class time.

GRADING POLICY

Participation: 30% Reading Journal: 15% Group Teaching Assignment: 10% Midterm Exam: 20% Final Exam: 25%

TEXTS & REFERENCES

The Course Reader (available for purchase at the NMH Copy Center), will include many of the following texts: Edmund Burke: From Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful Samuel Taylor Coleridge: From Biographia Literaria & Selected Poems Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Nature” & “The Poet” Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown” & “The Minister’s Black Veil” John Keats: Selected Poems Edgar Allan Poe: “The Philosophy of Composition”; “The Raven”; “Annabel Lee”; “Ligeia”; “The Man of the Crowd”; & “The Purloined Letter” P. B. Shelley: “A Defence of Poetry” & Selected Poems Wallace Stevens: “The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words” & Selected Poems Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass: “Song of Myself” William Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads & Selected Poems

INSTRUCTOR’S PROFILE

Kelly S. Walsh teaches European and American literature at Underwood International College.

He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington in 2009.

He has published on Ranier Maria Rilke and Virginia Woolf and Robert Musil and Wallace

Stevens and translated several articles, chapters, and reviews on psychoanalysis and

psychotherapy. His current research interests include American and European modernism,

tragedy, Shakespeare, and early twentieth century Korean literature.

Course Syllabus YONSEI INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL 2011

[WEEKLY SCHEDULE] (Subject to Revision)

WEEK (PERIOD) WEEKLY TOPIC & CONTENTS COURSE MATERIAL & ASSIGNMENTS REFERENCE

1 (06.27 ~ 07.01) Burke, Wordsworth, & Coleridge

Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful; Preface to Lyrical Ballads; Biographia Literaria;, Selected Poems of Wordsworth & Coleridge

2 (07.04 ~ 07.08) Wordsworth & Coleridge cont’d P. B. Shelley & Keats

“A Defence of Poetry”; Selected Poems of Shelley & Keats

3 (07.11 ~ 07.15)

Shelley & Keats cont’d Poe & Hawthorne

“The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” “Ligeia,” “The Man of the Crowd,” & “The Purloined Letter”; “Young Goodman Brown” & “The Minister’s Black Veil” MIDTERM EXAM

4 (07.18 ~ 07.22) Poe & Hawthorne cont’d Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nature” & “The Poet”

5 (07.25 ~ 07.29) Emerson cont’d Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass: “Song of Myself”

6 (08.01 ~ 08.04) Whitman cont’d Wallace Stevens

“The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words” & Selected Poems FINAL EXAM