Introduction to Written Texts (ENG00400)
Semester 1 / 2016

Texts

y separately published work icon Only the Animals Ceridwen Dovey , Melbourne : Penguin , 2014 7149680 2014 selected work short story (taught in 4 units)

'In a trench on the Western Front a cat recalls her owner Colette's theatrical antics in Paris. In Nazi Germany, Himmler's dog seeks enlightenment. A Russian tortoise once owned by the Tolstoys drifts in space during the Cold War. In the siege of Sarajevo, a bear starving to death tells a fairytale; and a dolphin sent to Iraq by the US Navy writes a letter to Sylvia Plath.

'Ten animal souls tell extraordinary stories about their lives and deaths, caught up in human conflicts of the last century and its turnings. Together they form an animal's eye view of humans at both our brutal, violent worst and our creative, imaginative best. Exquisitely written, playful and poignant, Only the Animals is a remarkable literary achievement by one of our brightest young writers. It asks us to find our way back to empathy not only for animals, but for other people, and to believe again in the redemptive power of reading and writing fiction.' (Publication summary)

Literary theory: a guide for the perplexed, Klages

The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot

The Tempest, Shakespeare

Jane Eyre, C. Bronte

Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys

Mrs Dalloway, Woolf

Description

Introduces students to contemporary literary and cultural theories which will engage them in the central questions about the place of writing in culture. The genres of poetry, drama, fiction and non-fiction, as well as popular genres, are studied in relation to their cultural significances and their participation in cultural formation.

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