Instructor:    Robert Donahoo

                        408 Evans Complex

                         Office Phone: 936-294-1421

                         Home Phone: 281-298-1442 (no calls after 9 p.m.)

                         Office Hours: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday

Class Meets: 11:00 a.m., Tuesday and Thursday, in Evans 417

Texts:        The Literature of the American South, W. Andrews, ed.
                    The Unvanquished, W. Faulkner
                    Light in August, W. Faulkner
                    As I Lay Dying, W. Faulkner

Introductory Thoughts:
America has long been a nation of regions: geographical areas whose inhabitants share enough common experiences, values, and history to make them distinct from other areas. Of our nation’s major regions, one of the most distinct has been the American South. In part, that distinction is owed to history. In seceding from the Union, claiming its own national separateness, and initiating the Civil War, the South underscored its own view of itself as "different." Yet that sense of difference existed long before guns were fired at Fort Sumter, and it has continued long after the stillness of Appomattox. That leads to the question, what is so different about the South? This question—and the answers that have been made and can be made to it—is central to this course. Our goal will be to arrive at some sense of how Southern difference has been portrayed in, commented upon, used by, and even generated the literature of the American South.

That goal necessitates that the course assume a view of literature different from the one students may be accustomed to encountering in English classes. Generally, undergraduate literary studies seek to examine specific texts in order to understand why or how those texts are "literature." In doing so, they typically focus on "universal" truths found in the texts or on the unity between form and meaning. While these things will not be totally ignored here, students will be required also to recognize literary texts as cultural artifacts: objects that explain and define a specific society and are explained and defined by their society. In short, we’ll not only be looking for messages and artistry in the texts we consider, we will ask such questions as, "what does this text tell me about the South?"; "why was this text valued/rejected by the South?"; and "what effect(s) did and does this text have on the South?"

Students also need to be aware that the idea of a "South" is itself a fiction. There are, in fact, many "Souths." This course will attempt to address that fact by pointedly considering three different, though related Souths: the mythical/aristrocratic South; the racial South; and the working class or "white-trash" South. Students should, by the end of the term, be able not only to define the essence of each of these versions of the South but also to grasp the ways in which they are connected—even dependent upon each other for definition. As a consequence, the course will not pursue the strict, chronological organization many students may expect. Neither will it attempt to fairly examine all the literature of the region. Rather, we will center the course on three texts by the South’s most influential and highly praised writer, William Faulkner. And we will use supplementing texts to respond to and elaborate Faulkner’s insights. This will be challenging because Faulkner is a challenging, difficult writer, but his work is also richly rewarding.

Finally, students should know that Southern literature and culture are one of my major intellectual passions. In translation, that means I like them a lot. That doesn’t mean I like or agree with everything we read, but it does mean that I love to think about it and talk about it. Take advantage of my office hours and e-mail to give me comments and questions. Give yourself the freedom to enjoy the course—even Faulkner. With any luck, some of you will leave the course as passionate about the South and its literature as I am.

Grading:
Of course, you’re probably wondering, "How am I going to earn my grade for this class?" The answer is that each student’s grade for the course will be determined by 3 major factors.

First, we have will have three essay exams. Two of these will occur during the semester, and the third will occur during the time scheduled by the University for this course’s final exam. The exams are of equal value. Each exam will focus on the material covered most recently in the course, but students may need to refer to concepts from previously tested material in order to do their best work. Also, each day a student attends an entire class session, he/she will earn one extra credit point toward the next exam. All exams must be written in a "blue book" and use some form of ink. My eyes are aging too rapidly due to the stress of trying to read faint pencil scratches. Collectively, a student’s three exams will determine one-third of his/her course grade.

Second, each student will prepare an annotated bibliography over Faulkner’s novel, Light in August. This project will consist of bibliographic entries and annotations for six articles/essays. Five of these articles/essays will be chosen by me and found on reserve in the library. It will be up to each student to find a sixth article/essay to complete the assignment. After the second week of class, this assignment can be found on web page attached to the syllabus for this course. This project will produce two grades. The first of these is a grade over the mechanics of bibliographic form and clarity of the annotations ("clarity" includes grammatical correctness). This grade will determine one-sixth of each student’s course grade. The second is a grade over a student’s mastery of the content of the articles. This will be determined in an individual conference with me. I will ask each student a few open-ended questions and give him/her the opportunity to show both knowledge and opinions of the articles and Light in August. This conference will produce a grade that will determine one-sixth of each student’s course grade.

Third, each student will write a historical/cultural analysis of a piece of Southern writing. The specific texts for this assignment are found on the assignment sheet attached to this syllabus. The grade on this paper will determine one-third of each student’s course grade.

The only other factor that could affect a student’s grade is attendance. Generally, I try to use attendance as a positive inducement—something reflected in my giving extra credit points for each day a student is in class. However, excessive absences will not be tolerated. They discourage other students and me. Anyone missing more than 10 days of class (that’s almost half the course) will see a lowering of their course grade by a minimum of one letter.

Thursday, 8/23 Introduction to the course: Images of the American South
                                Chappell, "Grandmother Washes Her Feet"

Tuesday, 8/28 Cash, The Mind of the South (Norton)

Thursday, 8/30 Faulkner, The Unvanquished

Tuesday, 9/4        Faulkner, The Unvanquished

Thursday, 9/6 Faulkner, The Unvanquished

Tuesday, 9/11 Poe, "To Helen," "The Fall of the House of Usher"

Thursday, 9/13 Cable, "Belles Demoiselles Plantation"
                                Glasgow, "Jordan’s End"

Tuesday, 9/18 The Southern Agrarians, "Introduction: A Statement of Principles"
                                Ransom, "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter," "Old Mansion"
                                Tate, "Ode to the Confederate Dead"

Thursday, 9/20 Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

Tuesday, 9/25 Taylor, "Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time"
                                Dave Smith, "Smithfield Ham"
                                Hudgins, "The Persistence of Nature in our Lives," "Claims," "The Last Time I Saw General Lee"

Thursday, 9/27 Exam One

Tuesday, 10/2 Faulkner, Light in August

Thursday, 10/4 Faulkner, Light in August

Tuesday, 10/9 Faulkner, Light in August

Thursday, 10/11    Faulkner, Light in August
                                Note:   last day to drop a fall course without receiving an "F"; last day to resign without receiving "WP" or "WF"

Tuesday, 10/16 Faulkner, Light in August

Thursday, 10/18 Annotated Bibliography Due

Tuesday, 10/23 Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (chpts. I, II, V, X, XII)
                                Chesnut, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (pages 226-231)

Thursday, 10/25 Chopin, "Desiree’s Baby"
                                Page, "Marse Chan"
                                Chesnutt, "The Goophered Grapevine"

Tuesday, 10/30 Hurston, "Sweat"
                                Wright, "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," "Big Boy Leaves Home" ( http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/w_right.html )

Thursday, 11/1 No class (SCMLA)

Tuesday, 11/6 Gaines, "The Sky is Gray"
                                Kenan, "The Foundations of the Earth"

Thursday, 11/8 Exam Two

Tuesday, 11/13 Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

Thursday, 11/15 Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

Tuesday, 11/20 Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

Thursday, 11/22 Thanksgiving Holiday

Tuesday, 11/27 Analysis Paper Due
                                Hooper, "The Captain Attends a Camp Meeting"
                                Porter, "He"

Thursday, 11/29 O’Connor, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" (on reserve), "Revelation"
                                Final Exam for December Graduates

Tuesday, 12/4 Chappell, "Cleansing the Well," "Second Wind"
                                Price, "The Company of the Dead"

Thursday, 12/6 Mason, "Shiloh"
                                Allison, "River of Names"

"The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts/the state of religion in the South
Three poems in our text by James Dickey/southern materialism and/or economics
"Grant" by Ellen Douglas/the Southern Myth (On reserve in the library)
"Parker’s Back" by Flannery O’Connor/art and the artist in the South (on reserve in the library)
"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker/the state of African American families
"Blackberry Winter" by Robert Penn Warren/economics or the status of the child
"A Curtain of Green," by Eudora Welty/women and gender issues

A historical-cultural analysis seeks to establish the relationship between a text and either its period of production (the general era in which the text was first created) or some period of its reception. It makes use of a close reading of the text, research into the author and the period of the text’s production, and research into scholarly commentary on the text and the author. These things should be visible in this paper, but the thesis itself should be the product of each student’s thought and imagination. And the thesis should clearly state the connection the student sees between some aspect of the literary text and its culture or historical moment. It should not be simply a statement of the text’s theme or universal idea. To help students get a handle on the kind of thought to be in this paper, we will consistently take this approach to texts in class. In addition, students may find the attached sheet, "Historical-Cultural Approaches to Literature" helpful. However, students are strongly encouraged to ask lots of questions as they began research and reading for this assignment. For most, this will be a new kind of analysis, and in that situation there are no stupid or unimportant questions.

 Finally, take this advice: start early and have fun.

 The Mirror Approach

 This approach assumes that the literary text is a reflection of a historical reality named in its words. In short, it focuses its attention on the historical setting named in the text. In taking this approach, the analyst should consider three important issues:

1. the nature of the reality reflected in the text. In other words, what claims does the text make about its historical setting? Any historical data is valid (the kinds of clothes worn; the kind of language spoken; the general economic level of the period), but the analyst must carefully judge which are significant. In general, the significant data will be those that enable the analyst to understand something about the text's claims concerning the historical period that are unusual or new.

2. the accuracy of the reflection. At one level, this issue simply asks, "Is it true?". In other words, if a text claims that people in pre-colonial America traveled to other planets, should this be accepted as accurate "history"? At a more important level, however, the analyst seeks to understand the degree of accuracy and the reasons for variation from accepted history.

3. the assessment/judgment of the historical period reflected in the text. This is the climatic and central point, but it cannot be separated from the other two. Most often, it will serve as the thesis of this type of historical analysis.

 The Artifact Approach

This is by far the more sophisticated and interesting of the two approaches because it assumes that the literary text exists in history and both is determined by and determines history. In other words, as an artifact, the literary text creates our understanding of the time period in which it was written/produced. The thesis of this kind of analysis will always be some assertion about the nature of the time period which enabled/caused the text to be written. To find that information, it is important to bear in mind six things.

1. The date of the text's production. Note that this is not something you seek to deduce from the text but rather to determine from information exterior to the text. Be especially carefully to determine if the text's date of production differs from its date of setting.

2. If the date of the text's production coincides with the date of its setting, the analyst can read the text for specific historical data such as means of transportation, type of housing, popular entertainments, issues of public interest and debate. Then the analyst can use this data to deduce a way of describing the conditions characterizing this time period (i.e., militaristic, rustic and simple, hard but fulfilling, etc.).

3. In following up the insights gained in issue two, the analyst needs to question whether or not the tone, the major idea, and/or the emotional impact of the text can be seen to challenge, encourage, or accept the general description of the period deduced from the text's specific historical details. On the basis of the relationship between the text's specific historical details and its tone, major idea, and/or emotional impact, the analyst must draw conclusions concerning the relationship between this writer and his/her historical era.

4. If the date of production differs from the setting's time period (for example, "Young Goodman Brown" is written/produced in 1835 but its setting is 1690), the analyst has to recognize that specific historical details are useless for an "artifact" analysis. They will not necessarily reflect the conditions during the period of production. Therefore, the analyst must rely totally on tone, major idea, and/or emotional impact to find the historical meaning of the text. These things (tone, major idea, and/or emotional impact) are the items that reflect the beliefs of at least one individual (the author) living in a specific time period and may reflect general beliefs of that period..

5. Based on an understanding of the text's tone, major idea, and/or emotional impact, the analyst must hypothesize ideas about the period of production, being careful to acknowledge the limitations of the hypothesize. This will usually be the thesis of the paper using this kind of historical analysis.

6. In discovering these ideas, the analyst should evaluate their accuracy against credible histories of the period of production, not to find out whether the text is right or wrong but rather to see how the text expands or solidifies our understanding of that period.

 In either the mirror or the artifact analysis, the analyst needs to avoid:

--reading assumed history onto the text.

--forcing the text to agree with history.

--demanding historical accuracy in a literary text.

--using historical details to date the text or prove its period of production when the date of production can be found exterior to the text.

 It should also be remembered that we are free to evaluate historical responses to the text. In order words, we can note what has been said about a text in order to understand the period which produced that commentary.

An annotated bibliography is simply a list of critical texts containing:
--a complete bibliographic entry for each text (students must use MLa style);
--a brief summary of the major arguments and ideas in the critical text;
--an informed response to the arguments and ideas in the critical text.
These components are arranged alphabetically, on double-spaced, typed pages.

 For this assignment, students are required to use five critical articles/essays on reserve in the library for this course. The articles/essays are:

--"A Very American Power Struggle: The Color of Rape in Light in August" by Laura L. Bush
--"Getting Around the Body: The Matter of Race and Gender in Light in August" by Mary Joanne Dondlinger
--"The Body Against Itself in Faulkner’s Phenomenology of Race" by Laura Doyle
--"Hightower’s Apotheosis in Light in August" by Harvey L. Gable, Jr.
--"Mentral Blood and ‘Nigger’ Blood: Joe Christmas and the Ideology of Sex and Race" by Joseph R. Urgo

In addition, students are required to locate one additional article/essay on Light in August. This article should meet the following requirements:

 In preparing each bibliographic entry and annotation, students should follow the steps below.

 The key is knowing what kind of text you are writing an entry for: is it an original article in a journal, an original essay in a collection of essays, a journal article reprinted in a collection of essays? The cover sheet for each article should provide you with adequate information to determine exactly what your essay is. Anyone who is unsure should check with the instructor. The example entry below is for a journal article found reprinted in a collection of essays.

Spangler, George M. "Pudd'nhead Wilson: A Parable of Property." American Literature 42 (1970): 1, 28-37. Rpt. in                 "Pudd'nhead Wilson" and "Those Extraordinary Twins". Ed. Sidney E. Berger. New York: W.W. Norton,                   1980. 295-303.

 Step 2: Read the article and mark/note its main points.

*most interpretations judge the book by either its racial themes or by its view of "environmental determinism"

**"It is a book pervaded from start to finish with the very obsession with property which is its theme, yet fully in control of the revelation it offers about the moral and spiritual consequences of this obsession."--this is the central thesis.

*uses as support the beginning and ending of the plot in money issues: the theft that awakens Roxy to her danger & Tom being sold to creditors.

*analyzes Tom claiming, "Tom makes sense only as a nearly allegorical figure of the obsession with property to the exclusion of all other human concerns."

*analyzes Wilson as a "foil" to Tom--the man unconcerned with possession.

*analyzes Roxy and observes that when she acts of desire for money she causes harm but when she acts out of love, she becomes a sympathetic figure.

*analyzes Judge Driscoll and notes the same pattern of satire/praise seen in the case of Roxy--though it is less love than his adherence to his code that makes him sympathetic..

*notes that the Twins show how money leads to slavery in their presentation of their past.

**concludes the book is related to Twain's biographical financial problems and is definitely consistent, coherent and unified.

 Step 3: Develop these main ideas into a coherent summary.

 Spangler argues that despite criticism labeling Pudd'nhead Wilson as a flawed work focusing on the issues of either race or "environmental determinism" (296), the novel is in fact a highly unified and consistent work concerning "obsession with property" and "the moral and spiritual consequences of this obsession" (297). Spangler supports this assertion by noting how property issues (the theft of money and Tom being sold by creditors) frame the novel and by an analysis of the novel's major characters. He comments that "Tom makes sense only as a nearly allegorical figure of the obsession with property to the exclusion of all other human concerns" (298), and he shows that Wilson serves as Tom's "foil" (298) or negative image. In addition, he shows that both Roxy and Judge Driscoll reflect both obsession and rejection of property, though each becomes sympathetic only when she/he opts to act by some motive other than financial gain: love in the case of Roxy and his aristocratic code in the case of the Judge. He even, quite briefly, notes that the Twins' story of their youth demonstrates "slavery to property, to economic motives . . . reduces one to property, to slavery" (303)--exactly the consequence Tom suffers.

 Step 4: Evaluate the article's ideas in light of your own interpretation of the literary text. It helps to have finished reading the novel before trying to do this.

 On first reading, Spangler's argument struck me as totally convincing. Everything he says is well-supported and reasonable, leading to the conclusion that he is right to direct readers away from attempts to understand the novel only in terms of race or environmental determinism. However, subsequent readings and thought lead me to notice two things. First, there is great deal of the novel with Spangler ignores. In focusing of character and plot, he tends to ignore the novel's language and humor, and, as Marvin Fisher and Michael Elliott point out in their article, "Pudd'nhead Wilson: Half a Dog Is Worse than None," language and humor in the novel create an impression at least as strong as its plot and characters. Second, race and the role of environment in determining personality are not issues that can just be tossed aside for a focus on property. Both play key roles in the novel. And while they may not create or sustain the novel's unity, to ignore them would be about as useful as ignoring an elephant in a living room when one attempts to describe that room's decor. Even if Spangler is correct that a focus on property is what guided the writing of the novel, its use of race and environmental determinism inevitably draw readers' interest. While Spangler's arguments should not be ignored, I can't help wishing he had found ways to accommodate these two key issues in his analysis.

 Step 5: Repeat this process using other articles as often as the assignment requires, remembering to arrange all entries in alphabetical order based on the bibliographic material.

 To help you, here is a second example of a biographic entry and annotation. This time, the source is an article in a scholarly journal.

Dunleavy, Linda. "Sanctuary, Sexual Difference, and the Problem of Rape." Studies in American Fiction 24                  (1996): 171-191.

Dunleavy analyzes Faulkner’s novel Sanctuary from the perspective of gender to discover what the novel says about rape. Her discovery is that, while criticism has tended to view women in the novel as "inherently rapable" (171), the novel actually shows that rape is an act of violence resulting not from biological weakness in women but from social "configurations of power" (172). By this phrase, Dunleavy means that rape occurs as women are made to appear socially powerless. Thus Temple Drake does not cause or invite rape by being sexy but by being in a position of weakness. Moreover, Popeye does not rape Temple because he is attracted to her but because he wants to demonstrate or claim a power over her. Thus the famous physical rape in the novel is actually mirrored by other relationships of domination in the novel--particularly that of Horace and his wife and that of Temple and her father.

The attractiveness of this argument is that it de-sensationalizes the novel. It helps readers to see that the rape is not there to shock or attract readers but to emphasize a social aspect of Southern life during the 1920s. It makes "rape" a metaphor for the avid use of power Faulkner constantly displays in the novel. The problem with it is that it may intellectualize for some readers, particularly males, an act that is reprehensible. In other words, this article, though powerful, does not totally convince me that Faulkner has made a good choice in using rape as a metaphor for power relationships in the American South.