Department of English

Jamia Millia Islamia

Syllabus
M.A. English (Semester System)

M.A. Previous : w.e.f. July 2010

M.A. Final : w.e.f. July 2011

Note: The Syllabus contains CORE and OPTIONAL courses

Each course would carry 4 credits. A student has to obtain 64 credits to complete the M.A.
course. The first two semesters (M.A. Previous) would have 3 compulsory and one optional
course, while the third and fourth semesters (M.A. Final) would have two compulsory and
two optional courses. A student has to take a minimum of 12 courses from English
department (10 core and 2 optional). He/ She can take a maximum of 4 courses from other
departments. He/ She is also free to take all 16 courses from English department.

List of Core Courses

Semester I: Paper I : Poetry 1
Paper II : Drama 1
Paper III : Introduction to Linguistics

Semester II: Paper IV : Fiction 1

Paper V : Literary Criticism
Paper VI : Postcolonial Literatures in English

Semester III: Paper VII : Poetry 2

Paper VIII : Drama 2

Semester IV: Paper IX : Fiction 2

Paper X : Literary Theory
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Core (Compulsory) Courses

Paper 1
Poetry I : From the Medieval Age to the Romantic Age

The course is designed to provide the students with a historical-cum-critical perspective on

British Poetry. The idea is to underline the significance of the poets in totality and to see how
they become a part of a literary tradition.

While poems in Unit I are for detailed study, where students will be required to critically
examine extracts with reference to the context, poems in Units 2 and 3
would help the students recognize the essential identity markers of the poets concerned.
Poems referred to in these two units shall only serve as points of reference and enable
students to situate the prescribed poets in a canonical context.

Unit I
William Shakespeare : Full many a glorious morning...*
John Donne : The Good Morrow*
Thomas Gray : Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard*
William Blake : Holy Thursday*
Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Kubla Khan*

Unit II
Geoffrey Chaucer : The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
John Milton : Paradise Lost (Book I)
John Dryden : Macflecknoe
Alexander Pope : An Essay on Man

Unit III
William Wordsworth : She was a Phantom of Delight
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

George Gordon, Lord Byron : On the Castle of Chillon

Youth and Age

Percy Bysshe Shelley : When the Lamp is Shattered

The Indian Serenade

John Keats : On First Looking Into Chapmans Homer

Happy Insensibility
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Recommended Reading:
Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp.
Bowra, C.M. The Romantic Imagination.
Paz, Octavio. Children of the Mire.
Sutherland, James. The Eighteenth Century Background.
Willey, Basil. The Seventeenth Century Background.

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Paper 2
Drama I: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century English Drama

Shakespeares themes are so varied and his text so charged with meaning that almost any of
his plays can be read in the modern context. Although he dominates sixteenth and early
seventeenth century drama, we must remember that he is not alone, he was influenced by his
contemporaries and influenced almost every writer after him. This paper, while emphasizing
Shakespeares centrality to English Drama, will pay due attention to what happened around
and after him.

Unit I
William Shakespeare : Coriolanus
: Richard III
: As You Like It

Unit II
Thomas Heywood : A Woman Killed With Kindness
Beaumont and Fletcher : Philastor, or Love Lies Bleeding

UNIT III
John Dryden : All For Love
Richard Brinsley Sheridan : A School for Scandal

Recommended Reading:
Congreve, William. The Way of the World.
Jonson, Ben. Volpone. The Alchemist.
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta.
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Dillon, Janette. Theatre, Court and City 1595-1610: Drama and Social Space in London
(Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Dollimore, Jonathan and Alan Sinfield, eds. Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural
Materialism (Manchester University Press, 1985).
Ellis, Frank H. Sentimental Comedy: Theory and Practice.
Evans, G. Blakemore, ed. Elizabethan-Jacobean Drama: The Theatre in Its Time.
Jones, Vivien, ed. Women and Literature in Britain, 1700-1800.
Loftis, John., Sheridan and the Drama of Georgian England.

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Paper 3
Introduction to Linguistics
The objective of the course is to familiarise students with the elementary concepts of
theoretical Linguistics and Phonetics.

UNIT I
Linguistics and its Scope, Branches of Linguistics, Some Basic Concepts in Linguistics,
Language and Communication, Language Variation and Language Change.

UNIT II
Phonetics and Phonology; Phoneme, Allophone, Human Speech Mechanism, Vowels and
Consonants in English; Syllable structure, Supra-segmental features; GIE, Phonemic
Transcription.

UNIT III
Morphology and Syntax; Morpheme, Word Formation Processes in English, Traditional
Grammar, IC Analysis, Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformation-Generative Grammar.

Recommended Reading:
Abercrombie, D. Elements of General Phonetics (Edinburgh University Press, 1967).
Balasubramaniam, T. A Textbook of English Phonetics for Indian Students (Macmillan1981).
Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1965).
Crystal, David. Linguistics (Penguin, 1971).
Hockett, C.F. A Course on Modern Linguistics (New York: Macmillan, 1958).
Katamba, F. Morphology (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993).
Lyons J. 1968. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (CUP, 1981).
OConnor, J.D. Phonetics (Penguin, 1973).
Robins, R.H. General Linguistics (Longman, 3rd Edition 1980).
Saussure, Ferdinand de. A Course in General Linguistics, Trans. Wade Baskin (New York:
McGraw Hill).
Verma, S.K. and N. Krishnaswamy. Introduction to Modern Linguistics (OUP, 1993).
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Paper 4
Fiction I

The course is intended to acquaint students with the growth and development of the English
novel though the eighteenth and a major part of the nineteenth century, its social and cultural
contexts, and the major trends in fiction writing during the period.

Unit I
Henry Fielding : Joseph Andrews
Jane Austen : Mansfield Park

Unit II
Charles Dickens : Oliver Twist
Charlotte Bronte : Jane Eyre

Unit III
George Eliot : Middlemarch
Thomas Hardy : Return of the Native

Recommended Reading:
Allen, Walter, The English Novel.
Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel: An Introduction
Forster, E.M. Aspects of the Novel.
Leavis, F.R. The Great Tradition
Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel.

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Paper 5
Literary Criticism
This paper seeks to introduce students to the tradition of literary criticism in the West, from
the beginnings in Greek and Latin to the first half of the twentieth century. The three units are
devoted to classical literary criticism, the Romantic period, and early twentieth century
criticism. In addition to the prescribed texts, students will be required to acquaint themselves
with the books and essays referred to in Recommended Reading.

Unit I
Aristotle : Poetics
Longinus : On the Sublime
Philip Sidney : An Apology for Poetry
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John Dryden : Essay of Dramatic Poesie

Unit II
S.T. Coleridge : Biographia Literaria Chapters IV, XIII, XIV
P.B. Shelley : A Defence of Poetry
William Hazlitt : Why the Arts are Not Progressive
Mathew Arnold : The Function of Criticism at the Present Time

Unit III
T.S.Eliot : Tradition and the Individual Talent, The Function of Criticism
Wimsatt and Beardsley : The Intentional Fallacy, The Affective Fallacy
Northrop Frye : The Archetypes of Literature
Virginia Woolf : A Room of Ones Own (Chapter IV)

Recommended Reading:
Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp.
Blamires, Harry. A History of Literary Criticism.
Brooks, Cleanth and W.K.Wimsatt. A Short History of Literary Criticism.
Hazlitt, William. On Shakespeare and Milton.
Horace. Ars Poetica.
Plato. The Republic Book X.
Richards, I.A. The Two Uses of Language, The Four Kinds of Meaning.
Wellek, Ren. A History of Literary Criticism (6 volumes).
Wordsworth, William. Preface to Lyrical Ballads.

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Paper 6
Postcolonial Literatures in English
The richness and diversity of Postcolonial Literatures is self evident. This course will
introduce students to major issues, themes, and literary concepts of postcolonialism. Apart
from the prescribed texts, students will be required to acquaint themselves with the books and
essays referred to in Recommended Reading.

Unit I: Non-fiction Prose

Ngugi wa Thiongo : Decolonizing the Mind
Nayantara Sahgal : Some Thoughts on the Puzzle of Identity (the Arthur
Ravenscroft Commonwealth Literature Lecture at Leeds, 1993)
Derek Walcott : Excerpts from The Muse of History (from The Arnold
Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Ed. John
Thieme, Arnold, 1996)
Frantz Fanon : Chapter 1 from Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
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Unit II: Poetry and Drama

Elli Mandel : Grandfathers Painting
E.K. Braithwaite : Ananse, Negus
(From The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English)
Judith Wright : Woman to Man, Rockpool
Wole Soyinka : Death and the Kings Horseman

Unit III: Fiction

Salman Rushdie : Midnights Children
M.G.Vassanji : The Assassins Song

Recommended Reading:
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and
Practice in Post Colonial Literatures (2nd edition, 2002).
---. Postcolonial Studies: Key Concepts (London: Routledge, 2000).
Bhabha, Homi K., ed. Nation and Narration.( London: Routledge, 1990).
Csaire, Aim. Discourse on Colonialism (1950).
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
Gilbert, Helen and Joanne Tompkins. Post-Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics
(London: Routledge, 1996).
Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965).
Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism,1981-1991 (London: Granta,
1991).
Said, Edward. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (London: Routledge, 1978).
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak?
Trivedi, Harish and Meenakshi Mukherjee, eds. Interrogating Post-Colonialism: Theory,
Text and Context (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1996).

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Paper 7
Poetry II: From the Victorian Age to Contemporary Times

This course is best read as a sequel to Poetry I, studied in Semester I. It aims at furthering the
canon and studying poets hailing from British and other traditionsIrish, American
Caribbean, Indian, and Canadian. The intention is to acquaint the students with enlarged
perspectives on life and tenets of poetical composition.

Here again, the poems in Unit I are for detailed study, where students will be required to
critically examine extracts with reference to the context. Poems in Units 2 and 3 represent a
confluence of traditions, as they come from varied sites, and offer unflinching perceptions on
the issue of identity formation.

Unit I
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Robert Browning : Porphyria's Lover*

Dylan Thomas : And death shall have no dominion*
Sylvia Plath : Daddy*
Bob Dylan : Blowing in the Wind*
Ted Hughes : The Howling of the Wolves*

Unit II
Alfred Lord Tennyson : The Lady of Shallot, Crossing the Bar
W. B. Yeats : The Second Coming, Among School Children
T. S. Eliot : The Waste Land
W. H. Auden : The Shield of Achilles, In Memory of W. B. Yeats

Unit III
Adrienne Rich : Ghazals from Homage to Ghalib
Derek Walcott : Adams Song, The Sea is History
Kamala Das : An Introduction, Madness is a Country
Margaret Atwood : Siren Song, Spelling

Recommended Reading:
Ashcroft, Bill et al. The Empire Writes Back.
Bradbury, Malcolm. Modernism.
Hamilton, Ian. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English.
Rich, Adrienne. A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997-2008.
Weston, Jessie. From Ritual to Romance.

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Paper 8
Drama II: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
Although this period is generally regarded as the age of decline for drama, the fact is that
while verse drama declined, other kinds of drama flourished in England, and more so on the
Continent. Drama in the nineteenth century in English is to be remembered for the so-called
lyric drama, the comic opera and melodrama. Much of twentieth century drama is marked
by political engagement, existential issues, and experiments in dramaturgy.
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Unit I
Percy Bysshe Shelley : Prometheus Unbound
Oscar Wilde : The Importance of Being Ernest

Unit II
T. S. Eliot : The Cocktail Party
Bertolt Brecht : The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Unit III
Luigi Pirandello : Lazarus
Albert Camus : Cross Purpose

Recommended Reading
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Dolls House, Ghosts.
Ionesco, Eugene. Exit the King, Notes and Counter Notes.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit, The Transcendence of Ego.
Shaw, George Bernard. Saint Joan.

Bigsby, C.W.E., Contemporary English Drama.

Esslin, Martin, The Theatre of the Absurd.
Styan, J.L., Modern Drama in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Welch, Robert, The Abbey Theatre 1899-1999.
Williams, Raymond. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht.
Worth, Katharine J. Revolutions in Modern English Drama..

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Paper 9
Fiction II: The Modern Novel
This course will examine key Modern fictional texts and writers. It will focus on the
emergence and development of the modern novel in the light of colonialism, war, feminism,
psychoanalysis, avant-garde movements, mass culture, and theories of the novel. It will also
consider the significance of innovative literary techniques such as point of view, character,
language, narrative strategies, impressionism, stream of consciousness, and authorial
impersonality.
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Unit I
Joseph Conrad : The Secret Sharer
D.H. Lawrence : Women in Love

Unit II
Virginia Woolf : The Waves
E.M. Forster : A Passage to India

Unit III
James Joyce : A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Jean Rhys : Wild Sargasso Sea

Recommended Reading:
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction.
Frazer, G.S. The Modern Writer and His World (Pelican, 1964).
James, Henry. The Art of Fiction.
Trotter, David. The Modernist Novel. The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Ed.
Michael Levenson (Cambridge: CUP, 1999).
Woolf, Virginia. Modern Fiction in The Common Reader.

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Paper 10
Literary Theory
This paper will acquaint students with twentieth century literary theory, with its various
schools of thought, such as Marxism, Structuralism, Formalism, Deconstruction, Feminism,
Psychoanalysis, Postmodernism and Post-Structuralism.

Unit I: Marxism, Structuralism, Formalism and Deconstruction

Walter Benjamin : Author as Producer (from Understanding Brecht)
Louis Althusser : Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (from Lenin
and Philosophy and Other Essays)
Ferdinand de Saussure : The Object of Study (from The Course in General
Linguistics)
Roman Jakobson : On the Metaphoric and Metonymic Pole
Jacques Derrida : Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human
Sciences (from Writing and Difference)
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Unit II: Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Postmodernism

Michle Barrett : Ideology and the Cultural Production of Gender (from
Womens Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist
Analysis)
Luce Irigaray : When the Goods Get Together (from Elaine Marks and
Isabelle Courtivron eds. New French Feminisms)
Sigmund Freud : The Method of Dream Interpretation (from The
Interpretations of Dreams)
Jacques Lacan : The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since
Freud (from crits: A Selection)
Jean-Franois Lyotard : Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism? (from
The Postmodern Condition : A Report on Knowledge)

Unit III: Post-Structuralism, Diaspora Studies

Michel Foucault : What is an Author? (from Language, Counter-Memory,
Practice)
Roland Barthes : From Work to Text (from Image-Music-Text)
Homi K. Bhabha : Cultural Diversity and Cultural Difference (from B
Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, H. Tiffin eds. The Post-Colonial Studies
Reader)
James Clifford : Diasporas (from Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late
Twentieth Century)

Recommended Reading:
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
Csaire, Aim. Discourse on Colonialism.
Goldmann, Lucien. The Genetic-Structuralist Method in the History of Literature.
Gramsci, Antonio. Hegemony.
Greimas, A. J. Basil Soup or the Construction of an Object of Value.
Jameson, Fredric. On Interpretation: Literature as a Socially Symbolic Act.
Said, Edward. Crisis in Orientalism.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Introduction: Axiomatic from Epistemology of the Closet
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak?
Thiongo, Ngugi wa. Decolonizing the Mind.

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List of Optional Courses

Semester I

OC 1.1 Nineteenth Century American Literature

OC 1.2 Indian Writing in English
OC 1.3 Introduction to Film Studies
OC 1.4 Non-fiction Prose
OC 1.5 Creative Reading and Writing I

Semester II

OC 2.1 Literature(s) of the Indian Subcontinent

OC 2.2 The Bible as Literature
OC 2.3 Popular Fiction
OC 2.4 Translation: Theory and Practice
OC 2.5 Creative Reading and Writing II

Semester III

OC 3.1 Twentieth Century American Literature

OC 3.2 Indian Literature(s) in Translation
OC 3.3 Ancient Epics
OC 3.4 Literature of Dissent in the Twentieth Century
OC 3.5 Folk Literature and Culture
OC 3.6 Russian Fiction
OC 3.7 Satire
OC 3.8 African Writings in English

Semester IV

OC 4.1 English Writings from North-East India

OC 4.2 Patrick Whites Fiction
OC 4.3 War Literature
OC 4.4 Life, Literature and Thought in the Twentieth Century
OC 4.5 Performance Aesthetics
OC 4.6 Literature and Philosophy
OC 4.7 Literature and Gender
OC 4.8 Classical Indian Poetics

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OC 1.1 Nineteenth Century American Literature

The focus of this course is to acquaint students with not only a rhetorical approach to the
literary study of nineteenth century American texts but also the conceptions, generalizations,
myths and beliefs about American cultural history. This course has 3 units divided according
to genre.

Unit I: Non-Fiction Prose

Ralph Waldo Emerson : The American Scholar
Henry David Thoreau : Civil Disobedience
Sojourner Truth : Arnt I a Woman? Speech to the Womens Rights
Convention in Akron, Ohio, 1851.

Unit II: Fiction

James Fenimore Cooper : The Last of the Mohicans
Mark Twain : The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Nathaniel Hawthorne : The Scarlet Letter

Unit III: Poetry

Walt Whitman : I Hear America Singing, Oh Captain! My Captain!

Emily Dickinson : Because I could not stop for Death, A Light Exists in
Spring
Edgar Allen Poe : The Raven
Paul Lawrence Dunbar : Sympathy

Recommended Reading:
Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and
Whitman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941).
McNeill, Helen. Emily Dickinson (New York: Virago/ Pantheon Pioneers, 1986).
Parrington, Vernon L. Main Currents in American Thought. Vol.2 (New York; Harcourt
Brace, 1927).
Rans, Geoffrey. Inaudible Man: The Indian in the Theory and Practice of White Fiction.
Canadian Review of American Studies VII (1977): 104-15.
Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature
(Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1993).
Tompkins, Jane. Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History. Critical
Inquiry 13 (1986): 101-19.
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OC 1.2 Indian Writing in English

The objective of the course is to familiarise students with the emergence and growth of
Indian Writing in English in the context of colonial experience. The course will discuss issues
concerning Indian Writing in English such as the representation of culture, identity, history,
constructions of nation, (post)national and gender politics, cross-cultural transformations etc.

Unit I: Fiction and Non-Fiction Prose

Raja Rao : Kanthapura
Amitav Ghosh : In an Antique Land
Anita Desai : Clear Light of Day
A. K. Ramanujan : Is There an Indian Way of Thinking: An Informal Essay (in
The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, UP, 1999)

Unit II: Poetry

Toru Dutt : Savitri- Part I (from Ancient Ballads and Legends of
Hindustan)

Nissim Ezekiel : Goodbye Party for Ms Pushpa T.S., Background,

Casually, Night of the Scorpion

Jayanta Mahapatra : Evening Landscape by the River, From Temple (in

Indian Poetry in English. Ed. Makarand Paranjape. Macmillan,
1993)
Meena Alexander : Dream Poem, House of a Thousand Doors (in Indian
Poetry in English. Ed. Makarand Paranjape. Madras:
Macmillan, 1993)

Unit III: Drama

Mahesh Dattani Tara
Manjula Padmanabhan Harvest

Recommended Reading:
Ahmad, Aijaz. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures.
Devy, G. N. After Amnesia: Tradition and Change in Indian Literary Criticism, 1992.
Gopal, Priyamvada. Indian English Novel: Nation,History and Narration
Guha, Ranajit, ed. The Subaltern Studies Reader (Selected Essays), Delhi: OUP.
Iyenger, K. R. Srinivasa. Indian Writing in English.
King, Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English.
Khair, Tabish. Babu Fictions: Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Novels.
Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Twice Born Fiction, 2nd edn, 2001.
Naik, M. K. A History of Indian English Literature.
Naik, M.K. and Shyamala A. Narayan. Indian English Literature 1980-2000: A Critical
Survey. 2001.
Suleri, Sara. The Rhetoric of English India. 1992.
Vishwanathan, Gauri, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India.
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OC 1.3 Introduction to Film Studies

The objective of this paper is to introduce students to the major movements of world cinema
and familiarize them with the ways of reading a film text by engaging with the unique nature
of the language of cinema as an art form, the visual mode of story telling, the concrete nature
of the medium and its potential for cross-cultural dialogue among civilizations. Whether we
like it or not, it is cinema that infiltrates every domain of our lives be it religious, social,
cultural or personal. It is this tremendous power and influence of cinema as an art form that
would be the object of inquiry in this course.

Unit I: The Language of Cinema as an Art Form

Unit II: The History of World Cinema Movements An Overview
Unit III: Approaches to Reading a Film Text

Primary Texts:
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages (1916) by D. W. Griffith (silent)
The Kid (1921) by Charles Chaplin (silent)
The Battleship Potemkin (1925) by Sergei Eisenstein (silent)
Ladri di biciclette or Bi-Cycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica (Italian language with
English sub-titles)
Rashomon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa (Japanese language with English sub-titles)
Det sjunde inseglet or The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman (Swedish language with
English sub-titles)
Mother India (1957) by Mehboob Khan (Hindi language with English sub-titles)
Les Quatre Cents Coups or The 400 Blows (1959) by Franois Roland Truffaut (French
language with English sub-titles)
Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962) Jean-Luc Godard (French language with English
sub-titles)
La hora de los hornos or The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) by Fernando Solanos and Octavio
Getino (Hispanic language with English sub-titles)
State of Siege (1972) by Costa Gavras (French language with English sub-titles)
Trois couleurs: Rouge or Three Colors: Red (1994) by Krzysztof Kielowski (French
language with English sub-titles).
The Road Home (wde fqn mqn; literally "My Father and Mother", 1999) by Zhang
Yimou (Chinese language with English sub-titles)
Lakposhtha hm parvaz mikonand or Turtles Can Fly (2004) by Bahman Ghobadi (in Persian
language with English sub-titles)
Ten Canoes (2006) by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr (Indigenous Australian language with
English sub-titles).

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OC 1.4 Non-Fiction Prose

Non-fiction prose provides the basic ground for the study of literary texts. This paper
aims at introducing students to major thinkers from the sixteenth to the twentieth
century. These thinkers made seminal contribution to the understanding of life and
history, faith and freedom, survival and understanding in the course of human
existence. Taken together, the views of these thinkers provide a solid basis for
approaching literary texts with a foreknowledge, perception, and sensitivity that bring
out the nuances of expression and portrayal.

Unit I: From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century

Thomas Hobbes : Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning
Their Felicity and Misery, from Leviathan
John Locke : Of Power, from An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding
Edmund Burke : Reflections on Revolution in France: Part II
Thomas Jefferson : The Declaration of Independence

Unit II: The Nineteenth Century

Immanuel Kant : An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?
Arthur Schopenhauer : On Authorship and Style
Abraham Lincoln : Gettysburg Address
Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels : Manifesto of the Communist Party

Unit III: The Twentieth Century

Jawaharlal Nehru : What is Religion?
Jean Paul Sartre : What is Writing?
Nelson Mandela : Freedom
Martin Luther King (Jr) : I Have a Dream

Recommended Reading:
Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy.
Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures.
Sowell, Thomas. Race and Culture: A World View.
Banton, Michael. Racial Theories.
Easthope, Antony and Kate McGowan, eds. A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader
Kishwar, Madhu P. Deepening Democracy.

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OC 1.5 Creative Reading and Writing I

OC 1.5 Creative Reading and Writing I -- Semester I
OC 2.5 Creative Reading and Writing II -- Semester II

Course description: Taken together, the two units of the course (I and II) will give the student
a thorough introduction to the creative reading and writing of prose non-fiction in the first
semester and fiction in the second semester. The course will establish the vital link between
reading and writing: creative reading i.e. the imaginative and analytical reading of
specific texts will serve as the foundation for actual writing exercises. A regular series of
lectures and in conversation with writers of fiction and non-fiction will provide multiple
perspectives on praxis.

Method: Since the course aims to locate the craft of writing within a context of specific
writers, texts and contemporary themes, stylistic aspects of writing will be taught through
lectures, talks and classroom discussion and presentations that analyze and interpret existing
texts. Building on this, the students will be given regular writing exercises and projects and
provided some individual guidance.

Twenty students will make up the class (15 from the English Department and upto 5 from
other departments). There will be a brief test in July to select these 20 students if more than
20 students wish to sign up for the course.

Readings: The detailed list of required and optional readings will be available in July. Some
of the shorter required readings will be photocopied and put together in a course pack. Texts
from other M.A. and M.Phil. courses will also be included in the list.
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OC 2.1 Literature(s) of the Indian Subcontinent

The Postcolonial has turned problematic as a term and a concept. Although the literatures
of the Indian subcontinent fall under this contested category, the parameters for reading these
literatures are not yet well defined. While Unit I of this paper seeks to underline the
theoretical bases for the study of these literatures, Units 2 and 3 focus upon some of the
significant writers/texts who represent the singular nature and status of writing in the Indian
subcontinent marked by shared history and culture.

Unit I: Theoretical Bases

Amartya Sen Indian Tradition and the Western
Imagination
Homi K. Bhabha DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of
the Modern Nation
Aijaz Ahmad Indian Literature: Notes Towards the Definition of a
Category
Sara Suleri Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial
Condition

Unit II: Poetry

Rienzi Crusz why I can talk of the angelic qualities of the raven
Zulfikar Ghose The Loss of India
Eunice de Souza Forgive Me, My Mother
Alamgir Hashmi Pakistan Movement

Unit III: Fiction

Bapsi Sidhwa Ice-Candy-Man
Michael Ondaatje Anils Ghost
Mukul Kesavan Looking Through Glass
Monica Ali Brick Lane

Recommended Reading:
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture.
King, Bruce. New Literatures in English.
Harrex, S. C. The Fire and the Offering: The Modern Indian Novel in English.
Nandan, Satendra, ed. Language and Literature in Multicultural Contexts.
Shamsie, Muneeza, ed. A Dragonfly in the Sun.

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 19

OC 2.2: The Bible as Literature

This course will aim at an academic study of the Authorized King James Version of the Holy
Bible (1611) as a literary text. As such, it will differ from theological studies of the Bible by
stressing on the following points:
the historical development of the Judeo-Christian consciousness
the translation of the Bible into English between the fifteenth and
seventeenth centuries
the major trends in Biblical interpretation and criticism since the eighteenth
century
the rhetorical and syntactical structures of the Bible
the influence of the Bible on English literature and language
Since the primary text is too vast for a single semester, six books will be selected for
intensive reading by students, representing six different categories:
Genesis (Pentateuch)
Joshua (historical)
Job (philosophical)
Song of Solomon (poetical)
Matthew (Gospel)
Revelation (apocalyptic).

Primary Text:
The Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible (1611) containing the Old and
New Testaments.

Recommended Reading:
Barton, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Berlinerblau, Jacques. The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic
Literature. 1984. (2nd Revised edn. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishimg Company, 1998).
McKim, Donald, ed. Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, , 1998.
Moulton, Richard Green. The Literary Study of the Bible. 1895. (reprint BiblioLife, 2008).
Porter, Stanley, ed. Dictionary of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation (London: Routledge,
2007).
Rogerson, John W. and Judith M. Lieu, eds. Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
Wallis, Louis. Sociological Study of the Bible (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1912).
Warner, Martin, ed. The Bible as Rhetoric: Studies in Biblical Persuasion and Credibility
(London: Routledge, 1990).
Vidal-Naquet, Pierre. The Jews: History, Memory, and the Present. Trans. and ed. David
Ames Curtis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
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 20

OC 2.3 Popular Fiction

This course will look at certain forms of popular fiction that emerge from the Anglo-
American literary context of the late nineteenth to late twentieth century. It will examine the
genres of detective fiction, horror stories, science fiction, thrillers, romance, and childrens
literature through readings of illustrative texts by Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Isaac
Asimov, Ian Fleming, Helen Fielding, J.K. Rowling respectively. In presenting these six
genres and authors, the course will further classify them into three chronological units, each
representing a distinct period, with the first unit and the first two genres/authors belonging to
the late nineteenth century, the second pair belonging to mid-twentieth century and the final
duo from the late twentieth century.

Unit I
Arthur Conan Doyle : The Musgrave Ritual, The Final Problem from
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894)
Bram Stoker : Dracula (1897)

Unit II
Isaac Asimov : Foundation (1951)
Ian Fleming : Dr No (1958)

Unit III
Helen Fielding : Bridget Joness Diary (1996)
J.K. Rowling : Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (1997)

Recommended Reading:
Ashley, B., ed. The Study of Popular Fiction (London: Pinter, 1989).
Bennett, T., ed. Popular Fiction: Technology, Ideology, Production, Reading (London &
New York: Routledge, 1990).
Cawelti, J.G. Adventure, Mystery and Romance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1976).
Gelder, Ken. Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field (London & New
York: Routledge, 2004).
Palmer, J. Potboilers: Methods, Concepts and Case Studies in Popular Fiction (London &
New York: Routledge, 1991).
Pawling, C., ed. Popular Fiction and Social Change (London: Macmillan1984).

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 21

OC 2.4 Translation: Theory and Practice

The course is designed to familiarize students with the theory and practice of translation in
the western and eastern traditions. It will deal with relevant concepts and theories germane to
translation. Focussing mainly on literary translation the course will prepare students to
understand the process of translation and appreciate linguistic, cultural and philosophical
issues involved in this process.

Unit I
Concept of translation in the West and in the Indian tradition.
Types of translation intra-lingual and inter-semiotic; word for word or
sense for sense; decoding and recoding
Equivalence linguistic and cultural; formal and dynamic; Equivalent Effect
Language and Culture

Unit II
Translators Invisibility Domestication and Foreignisation.
Translation as Rewriting, Self translation (Auto Translation), Transcreation
Translation of an actual text: a short story/ excerpts from a novel or play/ poems

Unit III
Philosophical Theories of Translation Steiners Hermeneutic Motion; Ezra Pound
and the Energy of Language; The Task of the translator; Walter Benjamin;
Deconstruction
Literary Translation in Nineteenth Century India
Postcolonial Translation Theory

Recommended Reading:
Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies (Revised edn, 2000).
Catford, J.C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation.
Mukherjee, Sujit. Translation as Discovery and Other Essays, and Translation as Recovery.
Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi, eds. Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice
(London & New York: Routledge, 1999).
Venuti, Lawrence. Translations Invisibility: A History of Translation.

 22

OC 2.5 Creative Reading and Writing II

Sequel to OC 1.5 Creative Reading and Writing I.

Only those who have taken Course I (OC 1.5) are eligible to take Course II.
 23

OC 3.1 Twentieth Century American Literature

This course is best read as a sequel to OC 1.1 Nineteenth Century American Literature
offered in Semester I. The objective of this course is to introduce students to the emergence
of multicultural literature in twentieth century America; it emphasizes texts as complex,
hybrid forms of cultural discourse. The course consists of 3 units and is divided according to
genre.

Unit I: Fiction
William Faulkner : The Sound and the Fury
Toni Morrison : Beloved

Unit II: Poetry

Robert Frost : After Apple-picking , West-Running Brook
Wallace Stevens : Thirteen Ways of looking at a Blackbird
Langston Hughes : The Negro Speaks of Rivers
June Jordan : The Female and the Silence of a Man
Allan Ginsberg : A Supermarket, Sunflower Sutra

Unit III: Drama

Tennessee Williams : A Streetcar Named Desire

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry : A Raisin in the Sun
Arthur Miller : The Crucible

Recommended Reading:
Bond, Jean Caron, ed. Lorraine Hansberry: Art of Thunder, Vision of Light.
Freedomways Magazine 19.4 (1964) [Special Issue].
Bradbury, J.M. Renaissance in the South: A Critical History of the Literature, 1920-1960.
Cheney, Anne. Lorraine Hansberry (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984).
Conner, Lynne. Pittsburgh in Stages: Two Hundred Years of Theater (Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007).
Hughes, Langston. The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. Nation 23 June 1926: 692-
94.
Kolin, Philip C., ed. Confronting Tennessee Williamss A Streetcar Named Desire: Essays
in Cultural Pluralism (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993).
Miller, R. Baxter. The Art and Imagination of Langston Hughes (Lexington, KY: University
of Kentucky Press, 1988).
Quinn, A. H. A History of the American Drama from the Civil War to the Present Day.
Rosenblatt, Louise. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the
Literary Work (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press,
1978).
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 24

OC 3.2 Indian Literatures in English Translation

Objectives: The course will focus on selected key texts of the nineteenth and twentieth
century to familiarize students with the literature produced in Indian languages in this period.
Discussions will revolve around the ways in which these texts represent nation along with
their engagement with the issues of gender, caste and class.

Unit I: Fiction
Mirza Mohammad Hadi Ruswa : Umrao Jan Ada (Trans. from Urdu by David
Matthews)
Shrilal Shukla : Rag Darbari (Trans. from Hindi by Gillian Wright)
Mahasweta Devi : Draupadi (Trans. from Bangla by Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak)

Unit II: Non-Fiction Prose and Drama

Mirza Ghalib : Selected Letters from Urdu Letters of Mirza Asadullah Khan
Ghalib (Trans. and annotated by Daud Rahbar), Excerpts from
Dastanbu
Tarabai Shinde : Excerpts from Stri Purush Tulana (from Women Writing in
India eds. Susie Tharu and K Lalita, Vol 1, pp.221-234)
Girish Karnad : Hayavadana

Unit III: Poetry

Faiz Ahmad Faiz : Last Night, Ghazal, August 1952(Trans. from Urdu by
Agha Shahid Ali)
Chemmanam Chacko : Rice (Trans. from Malayalam by K Ayyappa Paniker, The
Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry eds. Vinay
Dharwadker and A. K. Ramanujan, pp.148-149)
Sitakant Mahapatra : The Election, (Trans from Oriya by the poet, The Oxford
Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry p.176)
Subramania Bharati : Wind, 9 (Trans. from Tamil by A. K. Ramanujan, The Oxford
Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry p.177)

Recommended Reading:
Allen, Richard and Harish Trivedi, eds. Literature and Nation: Britain and India, 1800-1990
(Routledge, 2000).
Basham A. L. The Wonder that was India.
Bhabha, Homi, ed. Nation and Narration.
Das, S. K. History of Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi).
Dharwadker, Vinay. Modern Indian Poetry and Its Contexts, The Oxford Anthology of
Modern Indian Poetry eds. Vinay Dharwadker and A. K. Ramanujan
Kothari , R. Translating India (Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2003).
Mukherjee, Sujit. Towards a Literary History of India (Shimla: IIAS, 1975).
Mukherjee, Meenakshi, ed. Early Novel in India (Sahitya Akademi).
Simone, Sherry and Paul St-Pierre, eds. Changing the Terms: Translating the Postcolonial
Era (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2002).
Varma, Pavan K. Ghalib: The Man The Times.
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 25

OC 3.3 Ancient Epics

Students will be acquainted with the literary characteristics of the epic. The course is
structured in three units. Unit I is devoted to Greek and Latin epics, Unit II has two versions
of the Ramayana, translated from Sanskrit and Tamil, while Unit III has epics from two
different linguistic areas, ancient Tamil and Old English.

Unit I
The Iliad by Homer. Trans. Robert Fagles; introduction and notes by Bernard Knox
(Penguin)
The Aeneid by Virgil. Trans. David West (Penguin)

Unit II
The Ramayana by Valmiki. Trans. P. Lal
The Ramayana by R.K.Narayan (Kamba-Ramayanam)

Unit III
Silappadikaram by Ilango Adigal. The Tale of an Anklet: An Epic of South India. Trans. R.
Parthasarathy (Penguin)
Beowulf. Trans. Burton Raffel (Signet Classic).

Recommended Reading
Bowra, C.M. Heroic Poetry (1954).
Ford, Andrew. The Poetry of the Past (1992).
Lawrence, W.W. Beowulf and Epic Tradition (1928).
Pollock, Sheldon. The Language of Gods in the World of Men (University of California Press,
2006).
Pollock, Sheldon, ed. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia (New
Delhi: OUP, 2003).

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 26

OC 3.4 Literature of Dissent in the Twentieth Century

Dissent is best reflected in postcolonial texts emanating from a variety of literary sites. They
represent individual, social and political ideologies that run counter to dominant culture. Unit
I of this paper attempts to familiarize students with the very nature of dissent; Units II and III
contextualize the concept of dissent through specific texts. These texts configure dissent in
domains as varied as society, culture, religion, and politics. Taken together they project a
comprehensive view of the modern world with all its differences and contestations.

Unit I: Understanding Dissent

Aim Csaire : Discourse on Colonialism
Edward Said : Themes of Resistance
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak : Can the Subaltern Speak?
Arundhati Roy: : Algebra of Infinite Justice

Unit II: Dissent in the Domain of Politics

M. K. Gandhi : Hind Swaraj
Noam Chomsky : Notes on Anarchism
Nawal el-Saadawi : First Trip Outside the Homeland
Adrienne Rich : Preface, Manifesto:Three Classic Essays on How to
Change the World

Unit III: Dissent and the Literary Text

Ghassan Kanafani : The Death of Bed Number 12
Arjun Dangle : No Entry for the New Sun
Salma : The Hour Past Midnight
Adrienne Rich : Power

Recommended Reading:
Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Basu, Amrita. Community Conflicts and the State in India.
Bhabha, Homi K., ed. Nation and Narration.
Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Guha, Ranajit, ed. A Subaltern Studies Reader 1986-1995.
Harlowe, Barbara. Resistance Literature.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politic.

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 27

OC 3.5 Folk Literature and Cultures

The objective of this paper is to introduce students to the discipline of folklore studies from a
linguistic and cultural perspective. The vibrancy of oral literatures in India and the increasing
focus on tribal traditions and ethnic studies makes this an important area of contemporary
engagement. Folklore has emerged as a viable field of study particularly when in
contemporary forms of cultural representations it finds manifestation through video games
replicating quest narratives, genres of childrens literature, cartoons and animated narratives
for children, film and media constructed urban legends.

Unit I: Defining Folklore

Baron, Robert. Multi-Paradigm Discipline, Inter-Disciplinary Field, Peering through and
around the Interstices. Western Folklore (Special issue on Theorizing Folklore:
Toward New Perspectives on the Politics of Culture) Vol. 52, No. 2/4 (Apr. - Oct.
1993), pp. 227-245.
Crepeau, Pierre. The Invading Guest: Some Aspects of Oral Transmission. The Wisdom of
Many: Essays on the Proverb. Eds. Wolfgang Meider and Alan Dundee. New York:
Garland, 1981, pp. 86-110.
Dorson, Richard. Folklore: Selected Essays. London: Indiana University Press, 1972.
Handoo, Jawaharlal. Folklore in Modern India. Mysore: CIIL Press, 1998.
Propp, Vladimir. Theory and History of Folklore, Chapter I The Nature of Folklore.
Trans. Ariadna Y. Martin. Ed. Anatoly Liberman. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1984.

Unit II: Linguistic Approaches

Courtes, Joseph.Towards a Semantics of Folk-Tradition. Paris School Semiotics, Eds. Paul
Perron and Frank Collins. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1989.
Lvi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology (Chapter IX -- The Structure of Myth).
Trans. Claire Jacobson. New York: Penguin, 1963, pp. 31-54.
Liberman, Anatoly. Propp and Structuralism: Propp versus Levi- Strauss. Introduction to
Theory and History of Folktales. Trans. Ariadna Y. Martin and Richard P. Martin
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.
Manjali, Franson. Proppian Folkloristics: From Morphology to Morphogenesis. Folklore:
New Perspectives. Ed. Jawaharlal Handoo. Mysore: Zooni Publications, 1999, pp.
263-276.
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. Trans. Laurence Scott. Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1968.

Unit III: Cultural Approaches

Dundes, Alan. On the Structure of the Proverb. The Wisdom of Many:Essays on the
Proverb. Ed. Wolfgang Meider and Alan Dundee. New York: Garland Publishing,
1981, pp. 3-9.
Griswold, Wendy. Recent Moves in the Sociology of Literature. Annual Review of
Sociology, Vol. 19, (1993), pp. 455-467.
Read, Dwight W. and Clifford Behrens. Modeling Folk Knowledge as Expert Systems.
Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 3.
 28

Taylor, Archer. The Wisdom of Many and the Wit of One. The Wisdom of Many: Essays
on the Proverb. Eds. Wolfgang Meider and Alan Dundee. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1981, pp. 43-64.
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Primary Texts
Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm : Grimms Fairy Tales
A. K. Ramanujan : Folktales from India
Rabindranath Tagore : Lokashahitya: The Oral Tradition in Bengali
Children's Rhymes
J. Shakespear : Manipuri Proverbs from The Religion of Manipur.
(Calcutta: The Folklore Society, 1913)
Animated Versions : Bal Hanuman, Bal Ganesh and Bal Krishna.
Video Games : The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
 29

OC 3.6 Russian Fiction

This course will introduce students to the richness of Russian fiction, and its place in world
literature. Texts of the nineteenth century, the Golden Age of Russian literature, will be
taken up for detailed study.

Unit I
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837) : Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse. Tr.
Vladimir Nabokov
Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) : Father and Sons Tr. Constance Garnett.

Unit II
Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) : Dead Souls
Fedor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) : Crime and Punishment Tr. Rosemary Edmonds

Unit III
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) : The Death of Ivan Ilyich Tr. Richard Pevear.
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) : The First-Class Passenger, The Lottery Ticket
Tr. Constance Garnett

Recommended Reading:
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoevskys Poetics.
Emerson, Caryl. The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature (New York, Cambridge
University Press, 2008).
Gibian, George, ed. The Portable Nineteenth-Century Russian Reader (Penguin,1993).
Jones, Malcolm V., ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel (1998).
Terras, Victor. A History of Russian Literature (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1991).

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 30

OC 3.7 Satire
The objective of the course shall be to acquaint the students with various kinds of satirical
writings as also to expose the students to the importance of this literary genre. Through
background readings as well as selected texts, the course shall focus on the following: (a)
Horatian satire, (b) Juvenalian satire and (c) Menippean satire

Unit I
George Orwell : 1984
William Golding : Lord of the Flies

Unit II
Ambrose Bierce : The Devils Dictionary
Ray Bradbury : Fahrenheit 451

Unit III
Dario Fo : The Pope and the Witch Tr. Joan Holden. London: Methuen
Drama, 1992.
Francois Rabelais : Gargantua and Pantagruel, Chapters I, XVI, XVII, XVIII
Jonathan Swift : A Modest Proposal
Harishankar Parsai : Contesting an Election in Bihar (short story) Tr. C.M.
Naim in Inspector Matadeen on the Moon

Recommended Reading:
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World.
Bierce, Ambrose. Civilization, from The Shadow on the Dial and Other Essays.
Carlyle, Thomas. Sartor Resartus.
Coffey, Michael. Roman Satire (1976).
Colbert, Stephen. 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner.
Fo, Daniel. Against Jesters Who Defame and Insult, Dario Fos Nobel Lecture 1997 from
the Nobel Prize website.
Freudenburg, Kirk. Satires of Rome.
Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters.
Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock.
Relihan, Joel C. Ancient Menippean Satire.
Swift, Jonathan. Gullivers Travels.

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 31

OC 3.8 African Writings in English

The objective of this course is to familiarize students with African Literature written in
English. African Writings in English has burgeoned both in quantity and recognition. This
course will look into Africas past and present and its literary engagement with the themes of
colonialism, liberation, independence, tradition, modernity, individualism, community,
socialism and capitalism. The following works would be taken up for study:

Unit I Fiction

Ngugi Wa Thiongo (Kenya) : A Grain of Wheat

Ayi Kwei Armah (Ghana) : The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born
Bessie Head (Botswana) : When Rain Clouds Gather

Unit II Poetry
Susan N. Kiguli (Uganda) : Deconstructing You
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) : A Big Airplane Crashed into The Earth,
Telephone Conversation
Dennis Brutus (S. Africa) : Letters to Martha

Unit III Non-fiction

Chinua Achebe ( Nigeria) : The Novelist as Teacher
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) : The Man Died: Prison Notes
Ngugi Wa Thiongo (Kenya) : Writers in Politics

Background Readings on History:

Precolonial Black Africa : Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegal)
The Prehistory of Africa : J. Desmond Clark (British)
The African Past : Basil Davidson (British)
Black Skin, White Masks : Frantz Fanon

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 32

OC 4.1 English Writings from North-East India

This paper seeks to scrutinize the responses of the writers to the socio-political and cultural
encounter of the region - post independent India. The paper will try to map how different
writers try to negotiate their historical and cultural situated - ness in the realms of politics,
power, language, gender, history, identity and the nation. The course will be divided into
three units as follows:

Unit I: Novels
Birendra K Bhatacharya : Love in the Time of Insurgency
Esterine Iralu : A Naga Village Remembered
Anjum Hasan : Lunatic in My Head

Unit II: Poetry

Robin Ngangom : Revolutionaries
Mamang Dai : The Tiger
Desmond lee Kharmawphang : Last Night I Dreamed

Unit III: Short Stories

Temsula Ao : A Simple Question
Margareth Ch Zama : Tualvungi and Zawlpala
Kynpham S Nongkynrih : The Seven Clans
Jahnavi Barua : The Patriot

Recommended Reading:
Barua, Manjeet. Political Literature from the North East.
Baruah, Sanjeev. India Against Itself.
Chandra, N.D.R. and Nigamananda Das. Ecology, Myth and Mystery: Contemporary Poetry
in English from North East India.
Daruwalla, Keki N. Poetry and the North East.
Hazarika, Sanjoy. Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace from Indias Northeast.
Horam, M. North East India: A Profile.
Karmawphang, Desmond Lee and Robin Ngangom, eds. Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.
Kashyap, Aruni. Some Thoughts on Literature from Indias North East.
Nongkynrih, Kinpham Sing. The Writer and the Community: A Case for Literary
Ambidexterity.

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 33

OC 4.2 Patrick Whites Fiction

Patrick Whites experiment with the novel as an art form with innovative use of language,
symbols and images make for a very interesting study. This course will try to make sense of
his aesthetics and mysticism while critically analyzing and contextualizing him in a
postcolonial world.

Unit I
The Tree of Man (1955)
Voss (1957)

Unit II
Riders in the Chariot (1961)
A Fringe of Leaves (1976)

Unit III
The Cockatoos (1974)
Flaws in the Glass: A Self Portrait (1983)

Recommended Reading:
Brady, Veronica. Caught in the Draught (Sydney: Angus and Robertson Publication, 1994).
During, Simon. Patrick White (Melbourne: OUP, 1996).
Laurier University Press, 1989).
Marr, David. Patrick White -- A Life (Sydney: Random House, 1991).
Morley, Patricia A. The Mystery of Unity: Themes and Technique in the Novels of Patrick
White (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1972).
Steven, Laurence. Dissociation and Wholeness in Patrick Whites Fiction (Ontario: Wilfrid
Tacey, David J. Patrick White: Fiction and the Unconscious (Melbourne: OUP, 1988).
Walsh, William. Patrick Whites Fiction (Hornsby, N.S.W. Australia: George Allen &
Unwin, 1977).

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 34

OC 4.3 War Literature

This course will introduce students to the modern genre of the war novel as well as short
stories and war poetry. In a war novel, war does not merely provide a backdrop for human
drama; it also becomes an agency through which the writer explores the interconnected
themes of violence, heroism, morality, identity and much more. The course is restricted to
early twentieth century western wars (though one novel, one short story and one poem are
based on nineteenth century western wars). The central objective of this course will be to
stimulate discussions on the following questions:
How is killing sanctioned as an ethical act in wartime?
How is becoming a warrior linked to gender identity?
What psychological price does the soldier pay for killing?
What myths do societies create about war and killing?
How do literature and cinema perpetrate such myths?
How do the experiences of ordinary soldiers differ from those of military officers and
political leaders?

Unit I
Stephen Crane : The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
Erich Maria Remarque : All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

Unit II
Norman Mailer : The Naked and the Dead (1948)
Guy de Maupassant : Boule de Suif (short story)
Roald Dahl : A Piece of Cake (short story)

Unit III Poetry

Alfred Tennyson : The Charge of the Light Brigade
Rupert Brooke : The Soldier
Walt Whitman : Reconciliation
Wilfred Owen : Strange Meeting, Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori
Siegfried Sassoon : Everybody Sang

Recommended Reading
Bergonzi, Bernard. Heroes Twilight: A Study of the Literature of the Great War (New York:
Coward McCann, 1994).
Cobley, Evelyn. Representing War:Form and Ideology in First World War Narratives
(University of Toronto Press, 1996).
Craig, David and Michael Egan. Extreme Situations: Literature and Crisis from the Great
War to the Atom Bomb (London: Macmillan, 1979).
Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: O.U.P., 1975).
-----. Wartime: Understanding and Behaviour in the Second World War (O.U.P., 1990).
Harvey, Arnold D. A Muse of Fire: Literature, Art and War (London: The Hambledon Press,
1998).
Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (New
York: Norton, 1994).
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 35

OC 4.4 Life, Literature, and Thought in the Twentieth Century

This paper aims at introducing students to major marks of literary expression in the twentieth
century. Unit I foregrounds some of the important figures from different fields of knowledge
who contributed towards the formation of intellectual capital in the last century. Units II and
III bring forth seminal examples from poetry and fiction from a variety of literary
traditionsBritish, American, Australian, Indian, Pakistani, Latin American, and Japanese.
On the whole, the course underlines the variety and richness of the native and diasporic
writing that mark the nature of literary expression in the twentieth century.

Unit I: Background of Ideas

Sigmund Freud : Creative Writers and Day Dreaming
Jean-Paul Sartre : Preface to The Wretched of the Earth
Simone de Beauvoir : The Independent Woman
Frederic Jameson : Third World Literature in the Era of
Multinational Capitalism

Unit II: Poetry

E. E. Cummings : I carry your heart with me, will you teach a (12)
Judith Wright : Womans Song, Ghazals from Rockpool
Philip Larkin : Talking in Bed, Water
Agha Shahid Ali : From Amherst to Kashmir, Lennox Hill

Unit III: Fiction

Gabriel Garcia Marquez : The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and
Her Heartless Grandmother
Kazuo Ishiguro : Remains of the Day
Hanif Kureishi : My Son the Fanatic
Jhumpa Lahiri : When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

Recommended Reading:
Bill Ashcroft et. al., The Empire Writes Back.
Blamires, Harry, ed. A Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English.
Bradbury, Malcolm. Modernism.
Brooker, Peter, ed. Modernism/ Postmodernism (Longman Critical Readers, 1992).
Ford, Boris, ed. The Modern Age (Vol.7 of The New Pelican Guide to English Literature).
McGaw, William, ed. Inventing Countries: Essays in Post-Colonial Literature.
Wain, John. Essays on Literature and Ideas.

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 36

OC 4.5 Performance Aesthetics

The objective of this course is to focus on the changing notions of performance aesthetics
with respect to dramatic traditions that emanate from the cultural body of a community.
Although the genre of drama has been part and parcel of literary studies, the codes of
performance that brings theatre alive remain relegated to the margins of academic discourses
primarily due to the challenges it poses as to what ought to become the object of inquiry if it
is not the performance text? Keeping in view the challenges mentioned, this course would
focus on performance traditions by eliciting an engagement with modes of reflection on the
art of performance itself and aim to examine how cultural codes influence the way a play is
staged.

Unit I: The Classical Tradition

Bharata Muni : Natyashastra [with close reading of the concepts of Ranga (theatre
house), Anukarana (imitation), Rasa (extract of essence/ taste),
Bhava (emotional state), Abhinaya (acting), Dasarupakas (ten
dramatic genres) particularly in Chapters 6, 7].
Aristotle : Poetics

Unit II: The Critical Tradition

Konstantin Stanislavski : An Actor Prepares (Excerpts)
Bertolt Brecht : On Non-Aristotelian Drama, The Modern Theatre is the
Epic Theatre: Notes to the opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt
Mahagonny.
Antonin Artaud : For the Theatre and its Double (1931-36)

Unit III: Against the Canon

Augusto Boal : Aristotles Coercive System of Tragedy
: Poetics of the Oppressed
Eugenio Barba : Theatre Theory: Sociology and the Actors Technique
Ngugi wa Thiongo : from The Language of African Theatre
Badal Sircar : Third Theatre
Heisnam Kanhailal : Physical Theatre

References:
Antonin Artaud. Selected Writings. Ed. with an introduction by Susan Sontag. University of
California Press, 1976, p. 215-270.
Augusto Boal. Theatre of the Oppressed. Trans. Charles A. and Maria-Odilia Leal Mcbride
and Emily Fryer. 2nd Edn. London: Pluto Press, 2000.
Aristotle. Poetics: Aristotles Theory of Poetry and Fine Art. Trans. with notes by S. H.
Butcher. Intro. John Gassner. 4th ed. New York: Dover, 1951.
Aristotle. Poetics: Aristotle on the Art of Poetry. Trans. Ingram Bywater (available online).
Badal Sircar. The Third Theatre. Calcutta: Sircar, 1978.
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Bertolt Brecht. 1950. The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre: Notes to the opera Aufstieg
und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic.
Ed. and trans. John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964. p. 33-42, and p. 169-175.
Bertolt Brecht. 1963. The Messingkauf Dialogues. Trans. John Willett. Brecht's Plays, Poetry
and Prose Ser. London: Methuen, 1965.
Bharat Gupt. Dramatic Concepts: Greek & Indian. A Study of the Poetics and the
Natyasastra. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1994.
Bharata Muni. Natyasastram with Abhinavabharati. Ed.Ramakrishna Kavi. 4 vols.
Gaekwads Oriental Series. Baroda: Oriental Institute, vol. I (1956), vol. II (1934),
vol. III (1954), vol. IV (1964).
Eugenio Barba. Towards a Third Theatre. Eugenio Barba and the Odin Teatret. Ian Watson,
Routledge, London: 1993.
Heisnam Kanhailal. Physical Theatre.
Konstantin Stanislavski. 1936. An Actor Prepares. London: Methuen, 1988.
Ngugi wa Thiongo. From The Language of African Theatre in Radical Street
Performance: An International Anthology. Ed. Jan Cohen-Cruz. London and New
York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 238-244.
Raymond Williams. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht.

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OC 4.6 Literature and Philosophy: From Kant to Nietzsche

This course will look at the relationship between literature and philosophy with special reference
to the exceptionally fertile hundred years or so of German thought, from the late eighteenth to late
nineteenth century, from Kant to Nietzsche. With the objective of schematizing the very dense
body of thinking that this period produced, the course will study it as classified into three units.
The first, which will present the transcendentalist or idealist position vis--vis art and culture,
will take students through selected extracts from Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel. The second
unit will explore the romantic view on the same through a reading of Friedrich Schiller and
August W. Schlegel. The final unit will examine materialist or even physicalist perspectives
on the subject that emerge in the same period in the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Nietzsche.

Unit I:
Immanuel Kant : Introduction to The Critique of Judgement (1790), trans. James
Creed Meredith, Oxford: Clarendon, 1952, pp. 8-39.
G.W.F. Hegel : On Art (lectures given between 1820-29, published 1835) in On Art,
Religion, Philosophy, trans. & ed. J Glenn Gray, New York & Evanston:
Harper & Row, 1970, pp. 22-127.

Unit II:
Friedrich Schiller : Excerpts from On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1793-94,
revised 1801), trans. Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby, in
The Origins of Modern Critical Thought: German Aesthetic and
Literary Criticism from Lessing to Hegel, ed. David Simpson,
Cambridge: C.U.P., 1988, pp. 129-47.
August W. Schlegel : Excerpts from Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1808) in
The Origins of Modern Critical Thought: German Aesthetic and
Literary Criticism from Lessing to Hegel, ed. David Simpson,
Cambridge: C.U.P., 1988, pp. 253-69.

Unit III:
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels : Extracts from On Literature and Art, Moscow: Progress,
1976, pp. 41-44, 70-74, 82-93, 108-22, 125-29.
Friedrich Nietzsche : On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (1873),
trans. Ronald Speirs in The Birth of Tragedy and Other
Writings, eds. Raymond Geuss and Ronald Speirs,
Cambridge: C.U.P., 1999, pp. 141-53.

Recommended Reading:
Bowie, Andrew. Aesthetics and Subjectivity: From Kant to Nietzsche. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2003.
Hammermeister, Kai. The German Aesthetic Tradition, Cambridge: C.U.P., 2002.
Koslowski, Peter, ed. The Discovery of Historicity in German Idealism and Historicism.
Berlin: Springer, 2005.
Simpson, David, ed. The Origins of Modern Critical Thought: German Aesthetic and
Literary Criticism From Lessing to Hegel. Cambridge: C.U.P., 1988.
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OC 4.7 Literature and Gender

This course aims to familiarize students with the impact of gender on the writing, production
and reception of literature. They will be introduced to feminist and queer literary
theories. The central objective of the course is to stimulate discussion on issues of
cultural constructs of femininity and masculinity

Unit I: Poetry and Drama

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea : The Introduction, The Answer
Coventry Patmore : : Angel in the House
Imtiaz Dharker : Purdah I, Battle Line, She Must Be From
Another Country
Bhattacharya, Malini : Act 3 of Meye Dile Sajiye (To Give a Daughter
Away). Trans. from Bangla by Chandreyee
Neogy and Piyali Sengupta. (Women Writing in
India Vol. II pp. 477-486).

Unit II: Novels

Virginia Woolf : Orlando
Suniti Namjoshi : The Mothers of Maya Diip

Unit III: Short Stories

Rokeya Shakawat Husein : Sultanas Dream
Katherine Mansfield : A Cup of Tea
Charlotte Perkins Gilman : If I were a Man
Ernest Hemingway : The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Recommended Reading:
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble (1990).
de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex (1949).
Freidan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique (1963).
Gardener, Judith Kegan, ed. Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions
(Columbia University Press, 2002).
Greer, Germaine. The Female Eunuch (1970).
Lal, Malashri. The Law of the Threshold (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1995),
pp.1-33.
Mill, John Stuart. The Subjection of Woman (1869).
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Gender Criticism: What Isnt Gender.
Tharu, Susie and K.S. Lalita, eds. Introduction Women Writing in India (New Delhi:
O.U.P., 1993)
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth (1991).
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
Woolf, Virginia. Shakespeares Sister from A Room of Ones Own (1929).

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OC 4.8 Classical Indian Poetics

The objective of this course would be to familiarize the students with the critical writings in
the domain of Indian literary criticism. An Indian student of literature, owing to the general
unavailability of the older critical texts, is not overtly oriented to accessing Indias critical
tradition. This paper will help the students engage with critical concepts, tools and
perspectives about basic aesthetic premises that have emanated from the intellectual ethos of
the Indian tradition. Theoretical sections that are available in English translations will be
culled out from the seminal texts written in Sanskrit, Tamil and other Indian languages.

Unit I
On Natya and Rasa (From Bharatamunis Natyasastra, written in the 3rd century in Sanskrit)

On Diction and Syntax (From Tholkappiyars Tholkappiyam, written in the 4th century in
Tamil)

On Syntax and Meaning (From Bhartriharis Vakyapadiya, written in the 5th century in
Sanskrit)

Unit II
On Epic Poetry (From Dandins Kavyadarsha, written in the 7th century in Sanskrit)

On the Structure of Poetic Meaning (From Anandavardhanas Dhvanyaloka, written in the 9th
century in Sanskrit)

On Definitions and Descriptions in Drama (From Dhananjayas Dasarupa, written in the 10th
century in Sanskrit)

Unit III
On the Language of Poetry and Metaphor (From Kuntakas Vakrokti-jivita, written in the 10th
century in Sanskrit)

On Aesthetic Equipoise (From Abhinavaguptas Abhinavabharati, written in the early 11th

century in Sanskrit)

On Multilingual Literary Culture ( From Amir Khusraus Nuh Siphir, written in the early 14th
century in Persian)

Recommended Reading:
Choudhary, Satya Dev. Glimpses of Indian Poetics: A Survey of Sanskrit Poetics (New Delhi:
Sahitya Akademi, 2002).
Devy, G.N., ed. Indian Literary Criticism: Theory and Interpretation (Hyderabad: Orient
Longman, 2002).
Gupt, Bharat. Dramatic Concepts: Greek and Indian. A study of the Poetics and the
Natyasastra (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1994).
Jafri, S.N.H., ed. Critical Theory: Perspectives from Asia (Creative Books, Delhi, 2004).
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