ENG 311: Backgrounds of Western Literature
Fall 2025: `Class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays: 10:30-11:45 am at Sakamaki B101
Objectives
Western literature implicitly assumes the existence of a less significant non-western world. However, the sources of so-called western culture—classical Greece and the Judeo-Christian—encompass a geographical area corresponding to the present-day Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Mediterranean. In this class, we will read select texts from this tradition. We will read them to see their continuum with “non-western” values as well as to understand why the west is regarded as inherently superior. The ideals of democracy, citizenship, and equality enshrined in ancient Athens, and the message of compassion for the weakest members of society in the New Testament, are ironically hailed as touchstones of a superior civilization. How does the patriarchal basis of these cultures, not to mention the thriving forms of slavery and exemplary violence associated with these cultures affect these ideals? What is the role of women in these two very distinct patriarchal cultures? What allowed these two vastly different world-views to be framed into a unified construct of the western world and western literature? How did the sublime and tragic dimensions of these ancient cultures transition into the morality tales and the farcical and comical pieces of the medieval period?
The background texts teach us how the west and non-west have never really been separate, and that the idea of “western literature” has been constructed somewhat arbitrarily in relatively recent times. Premodern narrative literature, when studied on its own terms, seems to make the category “western” close to irrelevant at times, and yet the paradox with which we must reckon is that these premodern civilizations have been put to uses they themselves could have never imagined, which we still live with today. And yet they have so much more to offer when examined closely.
Student Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this class you should be able to
- Appreciate the complex background to what is simplistically deemed “western literature”
- Demonstrate familiarity with the vocabulary used to analyze different narrative types, literary styles, and aesthetic figures
- Undertake group discussions with your classmates, and render them into concise and effective oral presentations
- Articulate constructive critical responses to your classmates’ presentations and writings
- Undertake disciplined revision of your writing in response to constructive criticism
- Employ online text-editing and commenting tools effectively
Readings (electronic texts)
Stephen Mitchell (2004), Gilgamesh: A New English Translation;
Robert Crumb’s Illustrated Book of Genesis (2009);
The Gospel According to St. Matthew;
Pasolini (1964), The Gospel According to St. Matthew;
Homer, The Odyssey;
Augustine’s Confessions;
Euripides, Medea;
Pasolini (1969), Medea (film by Pasolini);
Aristophanes, Lysistrata;90
Arabian Nights, The Prologue;
Pasolini (1972), Canterbury Tales (film)
Marina Warner (2012), Stranger Magic
Course Requirements
One Oral Presentation 25
Group Discussions to Generate Prompts and Individual Questions 40
In-class writing assignment 15
Final Paper 20