Your Suggested English Curriculum

[lavender]

 

[Starblayde]

J R R Tolkein
Douglas Adams
Terry Pratchett
Tom Clancy
George R R Martin
Jane Austen
Chuck Palahnuik
George Orwell
Whoever wrote 'Of Mice and Men'

these writers demonstrate class in all different aspects of literature.. different genres, different styles... it would be a wide ranging curriculum, making sure nobody got bored throughout the whole degree course

Or then again, they're just my favourite authors.....

and i'll give you Henry Miller, too

 

[Mischka]

I'll go out on a limb and say Shakespeare.

 

[Starblayde]

A person I know graduated with a degree in English and just finished their Master's Degree in English...He was not aware who Henry Miller was...It shocked and disappointed me.

I'm doing a vague media-type degree... and movies are big inspirations.. I love movies, if i go 48 hours without some type of movie i get withdrawal symptoms. I dont know who Fellini was or what he filmed.

What about artists who have no idea who Modigliani (sp. i think) or Henry Moore or Matisse or anyone else you could care to name...

you could apply this to almost any field... its just a question of how much you know compared to someone else....

 

[Starblayde]

I'll go out on a limb and say Shakespeare.

yeah, well i was talking authors.....

D'oh!

 

[seXieleXie]

i can't even begin to make a real list, so i'll just ramble off some names.

shakespeare
charles dickens
james joyce
henry james
henry miller
t.s. elliot
robert frost
james bladwin (i love this man... er, this man's work)
jane austin
emily dickenson
charlotte bronte
toni morrison

....shit! i'm going to miss my bus... i'll amend the list later

 

[Marxist]

Re: Re: Your Suggested English Curriculum

I dont know who Fellini was or what he filmed.

Is this an example or you really don't know?

If you don't know then you don't deserve a degree in any of the liberal arts.

 

[lavender]

Re: Re: Re: Your Suggested English Curriculum

 

[Starblayde]

Re: Re: Re: Your Suggested English Curriculum

Is this an example or you really don't know?

If you don't know then you don't deserve a degree in any of the liberal arts.

I know he was a film-maker... and i know 8 1/2 comes in somewhere, but I've never seen any and know nothing beyond that...

But then again are you familiar with Akira Kurosawa? Both the Scotts, Tony and Ridley? FF Coppola? David Fincher? Luc Besson? George Lucas? Steven Speilberg? at what point do you say "Thats enough knowledge for a liberal arts degree?"
any of a huge number of directors... and thats just film! I might know some you dont know, you will know some i dont know....

Or do you want to compare knowledge of capital cities? or how about sportsmen....?

 

[SeXy ReDHeD]

As an English major, myself...

Shakespeare (definitely)
Leslie Marmon Silko
Joy Harjo
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Alice Walker
Zora Neale Hurston
H. P. Lovecraft
Edgar Allen Poe
Stephen King
James Joyce
umm...umm... shit! the guy who wrote The Lord of the Flies
Sandra Cisneros
Gary Soto
Simon Ortiz
Rudolfo Anaya
William Faulkner
Henry James
Sam Clemens (Mark Twain)
Reznikoff (sp?)
Flannery O'Connor
Sylvia Plath
Emily Dickenson....

sheesh... too many more to name!

 

[Aphrodisiac]

Re: As an English major, myself...

Sandra Cisneros

Finally !

I thought I was the only one who knew of her ....
I love her poetry & short stories.

 

[KillerMuffin]

The collected works of W.E.B. Griffin.
All of the KillerMuffin classics.
A sprinkling of the dictionary.



Or was that vain of me...


Wasn't Miller that not-communist persecuted by McCarthy?

 

[Mischka]

Builing off leXie's list, here's mine. Obvious American slant, and it does not incorporate nearly enough from Spanish/Hispanic culture, and it completely ignores Ancient Rome/Greece and Eastern writers. This all really depends on the degrees being sought. I'm assuming a basic American/English approach here.
And I left off Melville because I don't like him.

Adams, Douglas
Austen, Jane
Bacon, Francis
Baldwin, James
Bradbury, Ray
Bronte, Charlotte
Burges, Anothony
Cervantes, Miguel de
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Conrad, Joseph
Dahl, Roald
Dickens, Charles
Dickenson, Emily
Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Elliot, T.S.
Faulkner, William
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Frost, Robert
Hemingway, Ernest
Ibsen, Henrik
James, Henry
Joyce, James
Lee, Harper
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
Maugham, Somerset
Miller, Henry
Morrison, Toni
Orwell, George
Paine, Thomas
Rand, Ayn
Salinger, J.D.
Shakespeare, William
Spark, Muriel
Steinbeck, John
Steinbeck, John
Tolstoy, Leo
Twain, Mark
Vonneguy, Kurt
Woolf, Virginia

 

[Marxist]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Your Suggested English Curriculum

I know he was a film-maker... and i know 8 1/2 comes in somewhere, but I've never seen any and know nothing beyond that...

But then again are you familiar with Akira Kurosawa? Both the Scotts, Tony and Ridley? FF Coppola? David Fincher? Luc Besson? George Lucas? Steven Speilberg? at what point do you say "Thats enough knowledge for a liberal arts degree?"
any of a huge number of directors... and thats just film! I might know some you dont know, you will know some i dont know....

Or do you want to compare knowledge of capital cities? or how about sportsmen....?

Dude, it's not a cock show (mine is probably much much much smaller than yours), it is about well-rounded knowledge however, especially in a particular field in which you're studying or study.

What if doctors or lawyers had your attitude? Scratch that, I'm sure some do.

 

[Weird Harold]

Building off leXie's list, here's mine. Obvious American slant, and it does not incorporate nearly enough from Spanish/Hispanic culture, and it completely ignores Ancient Rome/Greece and Eastern writers. This all really depends on the degrees being sought. I'm assuming a basic American/English approach here.
And I left off Melville because I don't like him.

Just how long is this English Lit course anyway?

Between you and Lexie (and the others) there's enough required reading to fill four years for an average reader without even considering actually discussing any of these works.

English Lit, as a college class, should cover defining works such as the first NOVEL, the development of different genres (Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy, etc,) and authors who had significant impact on future authors.

Because there are varying opinions on which authors had what effect on their sucessors, and there are a great number of "seminal works," there will never be a class that covers everything relevant. A representative sample of novels and short stories from each decade from the 1600's on is needed to provide a well rounded understanding of how English Literature evolved into what we can buy at Borders or Barnes & Noble today.

 

[lavender]

 

[Weevil]

Tom Clancy?
Douglas Adams?
Tolkein?


That's just ridiculous. We're talking a university level degree here I hope.

Orwell is a bad idea too. Dr. Seuss would be a better choice. At least his satire isn't quite as obvious.

 

[SeXy ReDHeD]

Re: Re: As an English major, myself...

Finally !

I thought I was the only one who knew of her ....
I love her poetry & short stories.

I know, I love her, too! She reminds me of me.

 

[SeXy ReDHeD]

Tom Clancy?
Douglas Adams?
Tolkein?


That's just ridiculous. We're talking a university level degree here I hope.

Orwell is a bad idea too. Dr. Seuss would be a better choice. At least his satire isn't quite as obvious.

What about Tom Clancy, JRR Tolkien and Douglas Adams is ridiculous? Just because people actually like to read their books does not make them any less significant. If anything, it makes them MORE significant because they are the authors that the "common," everyday people read, and so influence, to a certain extent, how society is shaped.

And that's why Orwell is and very well should be mentioned: for its time, Animal Farm, was quite satirical and influential.

 

[Weird Harold]

Weird Harold -

I'm assuming a full curriculum for a major and Master's, not simply one class.

That was sort of the point I wanted to make -- there are enough suggestions so far of what "must" be included to serve two or three different curriculims through a PhD -- without allowing time for discussions on why each piece was important.

English Lit shouldn't be about the professor's favorite author or genre. It should be about how and why the different genres and literary forms developed.

I notice no one has mentioned any poets yet -- isn't poetry an important aspect of English Lit?

 

[Weevil]

What about Tom Clancy, JRR Tolkien and Douglas Adams is ridiculous? Just because people actually like to read their books does not make them any less significant. If anything, it makes them MORE significant because they are the authors that the "common," everyday people read, and so influence, to a certain extent, how society is shaped.

And that's why Orwell is and very well should be mentioned: for its time, Animal Farm, was quite satirical and influential.

Sure, I suppose if you wanted a class that was "Why do people read the books they read" you could use them all as examples. But especially for Clancy and Orwell there's no legitmate things there to study. University isn't about book reports. The books you read should be layered and have depth. Tom Clancy doesn't qualify.

As to your point about Animal Farm, so what? Dr. Seuss was ten times more satirical and influential. You can write something interesting about The Lorax or Horton hears a who. Anything written about Animal Farm is a weak variation of "Orwell didn't like communism."

 

[seXieleXie]

I notice no one has mentioned any poets yet -- isn't poetry an important aspect of English Lit?

um.... is that a joke?

"t.s. elliot, emily dickenson, robert frost, shakespeare, sylvia plath, edgar allen poe"

between mischka, sexy redhead and my abridged list all of these poets are mentioned.

 

[Weird Harold]

um.... is that a joke?

"t.s. elliot, emily dickenson, robert frost, shakespeare, sylvia plath, edgar allen poe"

I missed seeing Robert Frost, and thought of the others in terms of there non-poetic contributions or just din't recognise the name as a poet. (Shakespeare was a playwright mor than he was a poet to my mind.)

 

[lazarus UK]

WH Auden
Wilfred Owen
T S Elliott
Oscar Wilde
G B Shaw

Chaucer
Milton

The Author of Beowulf

 

[Marxist]

Orwell is a bad idea too. Dr. Seuss would be a better choice. At least his satire isn't quite as obvious.

Orwell's 1984 is one of the greatest dystopian novels ever written.

It belongs you snit.