123041 PS Proseminar Literature (2012W)

Intense emotions and complex human relationships are the stuff that literature is made of. The theme of mothers and daughters provides ample opportunity for exploring the emotional ambivalence inherent in close family ties. In this course, we will read narrative fiction, poems and plays by Maya Angelou, George Bernard Shaw, Eavan Boland, Angela Carter, Margaret Drabble, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Kathleen Raine, Michèle Roberts, and Virginia Woolf, all of which have a mother-daughter relationship as their central theme. While we will concentrate on acquiring and applying basic interpretative skills, we will also debate the various concepts of identity and gender development implied in the texts under debate.