1. English Literature and Performance
Reach Cambridge
Explorer Program, 2017
Genny Zimantas

2. Welcome! Introducing ourselves What is the literary canon?
How do we (and how should we) study literature?
The course to come
Closing Activity

3. Me, My Books, and I What kind of readers are we?
What makes a book good (or great)?

4. The Literary Canon
What is a canon?

5. A First Definition:
The literary canon is a list of the most important works of literature throughout history which are usually divided into periods or ‘movements’.

6. Who decides which authors make it into the canon?
Why do we need a canon?
What problems might there be in having a canon?

7. Activity!
In groups, write down all the writers you can think of who belong in the literary canon.
Tip: If you’re feeling stuck think of who you’ve already studied in school. Which authors do we talk about most? Which ones show up the most in movies and TV shows?

8. Harold Bloom

9. But what about the people the canon leaves out?

10. The Canon the Way We Saw It (Before the last 3rd of the 20th Cent.)
What does Harold Bloom’s list suggest an author needs to be (or maybe even look like) to be great?
Male
White
Old
*Bonus for facial hair

11. The Canon the Way We See It Now
Straight, white, European men were not the only ones writing great literature
So we need to find and uncover those other voices
In the cases where straight, white, European men were doing most of the writing, we should be asking ‘why?’

12. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)
Based on a series of lectures Woolf gave at Newnham and Girton in the late 1920s
Discussing the reasons for the presence of so few women in the English literary canon

13. And we can extend Woolf’s argument…
Why might there be so few people of colour? So few poor authors? So few authors from non-European countries?

14. So how do we decide what to read? And what to study?
And who does decide?

15. Well… you!

16. A Working Definition:
The literary canon is a theoretical list, generally agreed upon by readers and scholars, of the most important works of literature throughout history.
It is usually organized into periods or ‘movements’.
It is always changing (never fixed!).

17. Reading and re-reading the canon

18. Some Goals for the Course
To think and talk about literature in a critical way (while never losing sight of why we love it!)
To share our favourite authors and discover some new ones
To develop some of the skills involved in literary criticism
To exercise our creative muscles and think about what it means to participate in the world of art through creation

19. Week 1
Monday (Genny): ‘Why do we read books? And why do we read teh books we read?’
Tuesday (Genny): ‘What is a “literature”?’
Wednesday (Genny): ‘Romantics and Romanticism’
Thursday (Genny): ‘An Introduction to Modernism and its Difficulties’
Friday (Genny): ‘Feminism and Feminist Theory’

20. Week 2 Monday (Genny): Trip to the Fitzwilliam
Tuesday (Andy C.): ‘Poetry of the First World War’
Wednesday (Andy C.): ‘Over-sharing and song lyrics’
Thursday (Andy C.): ‘Gothic and Horror’
Friday (Andy C.): ‘Julius Caesar’

21. Week 3 Monday (Andy S.): ‘Scoring the Scene: Film Music Workshop’
Tuesday (Andy S.): ‘Join the Band: Performance Workshop’
Wednesday (Genny): ‘Postcolonial Literature: Should We Still be Calling it That?’
Thursday (Genny): ‘What is there left to say? Literature today and tomorrow’
Friday (Genny): ‘Final Performance, Workshop, Presentations’

22. Diving In

24. When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be by John Keats (1795-1821)
When I have fears that I may cease to be     Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,     Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;  When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,     Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,  And think that I may never live to trace     Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;  And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,     That I shall never look upon thee more,  Never have relish in the faery power     Of unreflecting love—then on the shore  Of the wide world I stand alone, and think  Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.