- Teacher: Sangam Macduff
Welcome to the English Department, and welcome to BA1!
BA1 introduces students to the reading of English
literature and the writing about it. It is divided into four parts over two
semesters: the first on drama and narrative taught by Sam MacDuff in the autumn;
the second on poetry and the essay taught by Simon Swift in the spring. Each
weekly lecture is supported by a class (“Analysis of Texts” or AT) where
questions, ideas and readings presented in the lecture can be discussed by
students with their teacher. Every week, you will also have a class in composition
(“Critical Writing”), where you will learn the mechanics of good writing at BA
level.
In the autumn semester some of the essential features of drama (genre, plot,
character, dramatic language and media) will be introduced through a close
reading of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Some of the basic features of narrative,
such as story, plot, characterisation, and narrative voice, will then be
introduced through close analyses of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
In the spring semester we will start to think about what is at stake in the study of a poem in English through close reading of a range of poetic examples. We will also begin to consider in more detail how literary criticism can enhance the close reading of poems. We will then consider the essay as a form that has a history. We will ask what essays are trying to do as forms of writing, what reading them can teach us about how to write them, and how essays can help us to close read poems.
The poems and essays that we will focus on in the lectures for the spring semester are included in this reader. For the autumn semester, in addition to this reader, students are required to buy William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Folger Shakespeare Library edition, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (Simon & Schuster, 2012) ISBN13: 9781451669411 and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, edited by Stella McNichol with an introduction and notes by Elaine Showalter (Penguin, 2019) ISBN: 9780241371947. Both are available from Payot, Rue de la Confédération or from good online book depositories.
Each lecture will be accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation which is available on the BA1 Moodle page. The lecture is also recorded; you can listen to it again via the UNIGE mediaserver website.