Penn Arts & Sciences Logo
 

Women and Literature

ENGL 090.601
instructor(s):
TR 5-6:30

This course surverys women's writings in Great Britain, the United States, Australia, and France from 1800 to the present. We will read the works in groups of two and consider, for example, the significance of the room in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story *The Yellow Wall-Paper* and in Virginia Woolf's essay, *A Room of One's Own*. What do wisdom and maturity mean to Jane Austen in *Emma* versus Henry Handel Richardson in *The Getting of Wisdom*? What is the fate of the divorced woman in *The Age of Innocence* and by Colette in *The Vagabond*? We will look at the history of a family in community in Emily Bronte's *Wuthering Heights* and Toni Morrison's *Song of Solomon*. And in our "postmodern" world we will explore where non-fiction ends and fiction begins in Marguerite Dura's *The War: A Memoir* and Carol Shields' *The Stone Diaries*. Requirements: class attendance and participation; either a journal or a series of short papers (ca. 3 pages); and by a class vote, either a final exam or a final paper.

fulfills requirements