“Character” in Literary History

In this course, we will take a close look at literary character-what it is; what makes it "round" or "flat," "deep" or "shallow"; how and why "fictional person" acquired the name "character," which literally means "printed or engraved mark." How, we will ask, does the concept of "character" relate to representations of the body, of property, of authorship, of the Unconscious, and of the self? What is the relation of theatrical character to character in the novel? Using various critical approaches (materialist, feminist, reader-response, psycho-analytic) we will explore the historical development of "character" on stage and page. Playwrights will be selected from Terence, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Pirandello, and Kushner; and novelists will be selected from Defoe, Sterne, Austen, Shelley, Dickens, Woolf, and Rushdie. 3 hrs. lect.