ENGL 119

Spring 2022 All Classes

All Classes

Literature of Fantasy

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 3 hours.

Introduction to the rich traditions of fantasy writing in world literature. While the commercial category of fantasy post-Tolkien will often be the focal point, individual instructors may choose to focus on alternate definitions of the genre: literatures of the fantastic, the uncanny, and the weird; fantasy before the Enlightenment and the advent of realism; fantasy for young adult or child readers; and so on.

Same as CWL 119.

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ENGL 119 class schedule data for spring 2022
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	47149	Online	M	9:30AM -10:45AM	TR	n.a.	Baron, I	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/18/22-05/04/22 Section Info: SP22 - ENGL 119 British Fantasy British literature is commonly perceived to be a collection of stuffy texts written in older English dialects by men who died hundreds of years ago. But the English were actually on the cutting edge of literature when it came to developing fantastical tales of daring knights performing impossibly brave deeds. The Beowulf saga and other epic poems such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Faerie Queene advanced rich narratives that use imaginative mythic elements to laud heroic acts of personal and national honor, and to create texts that examine fraught sociopolitical issues. By the late 19th century, Lewis Carroll began to compose stories such as Alice in Wonderland, and in the early 20th century, J.M. Barrie penned Peter Pan which appealed to children of all ages. In the interwar period, P.L. Travers wrote her famous Mary Poppins novels. And in the midcentury modernist period, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, both academics at Oxford, began to delve into examining the aftermath of the World Wars and producing what we now commonly recognize as modern fantasy literature, igniting wide public interest in this subgenre of fiction. In this course, we’ll explore how fantasy lit transformed from being seen as just a collection of quaint bedtimes stories for upper middle class British children into a global literary enterprise that has produced some of the most complex and creative works in the last century. We’ll also examine why fantasy lit has sparked the interest of so many adult readers across the world. As we move through the semester, we’ll learn how to unpack the political elements in these texts and how more recent series such as Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, The Book of Dust and The All Souls Trilogy reveal dark narratives about the rise of Alt-Right parties and the fight against white nationalist charismatic leaders. And we’ll study how these texts also unveil changing attitudes concerning gender, identity politics and critical race theory. Students are required to actively attend class and to write three to four papers on the novels we read. Texts may include: Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, The Fellowship of the Rings, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Golden Compass, La Belle Sauvage, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and A Discovery of Witches.