What
Am I Getting in this Course?
Information? A body of ideas? Historical background? A thesis?
A METHOD: In this course we will be engaging in scholarship based
on a historicist approach to literature. We will also be analyzing
literature as rhetoric.
Below you will find a list of the key characteristics of each of these terms.
SCHOLARSHIP
offers claims that are:
-
specific and accurate
-
deep
-
substantiated.
LITERARY SCHOLARSHIP
offers an interpretation of text (or group of texts) based on a close reading
of such elements as the text's:
-
language
-
style
-
structure
-
conventions (of genre, period, or style
A HISTORICIST APPROACH TO LITERATURE
offers claims about the text that:
-
uses the interpretation of the text as a way of offering an insight
into culture;
-
uses insights into culture to deepen our understanding of the meaning
and importance of the text.
A HISTORICIST APPROACH FOCUSING ON LITERATURE AS RHETORIC
offers claims about the text that analyze:
-
the audience of the text;
-
the arguments posed by the text;
-
the methods of persuasion employed by the text;
-
an understanding of how this text functioned as a piece of rhetoric
within the culture in which it was produced.