Thursdays 12:00 – 2:00 PM
January 13 through March 3, 2005
D.O.C. House
Who, or what, is an "anti-hero?" From where does such a protagonist appear and WHY? Is he or she merely the pawn of a minor literary genre, or do such characters invade much contemporary writing? What impact - if any - do they have on the "shape" of a narrative? And what does all this have to do with comedy and tragedy?
These are a few of the theoretical questions we shall at least confront. At the same time, though, our weekly discussions will try to survive not only in the rarefied air of theory, but we shall also inhale deeply of the reality in the written texts before us. After starting with the celebrated novella, The Overcoat by Nicolai Gogol, we shall then take a huge chronological leap to mid-20th Century America and read what is arguably Saul Bellow's most nearly perfect work, Seize the Day.
I have tentatively selected other titles for the rest of the term (i.e. Catcher in the Rye, Melville’s Bartleby, The Scrivener, Nathaniel West's Miss Lonelyhearts, Notes from Underground by Dostoyevsky, and possibly concluding with Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man); however, I should like to get some response from the group before submitting the list to be cast in the permanence of "curriculum."
As you may see from the above titles, the books in my list are all (with exception of Ellison's) relatively - and mercifully - short. Given the brevity of our term, and the busyness of our lives, there will be no written papers; however, a couple of oral reports are always nice to get things rolling.
Class is limited to 18 members.
JOSEPH MOSES has a number of interests, which include studies in the Hebrew Bible and in Talmudic literature; he has translated Nobel-prize winner S.Y. Agnon from the Hebrew. His academic degrees, however, -- BA and MA (University of Chicago), Ph.D. (Graduate Center, City University of NY) – are all in English Literature. He is the author of The Novelist As Comedian (Schocken Press). Aside from academic publications, his poetry and criticism have appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The Sewanee Review; a children's book, The Great Rain Robbery was published by Houghton Mifflin. Mr. Moses reviewed Off-Off Broadway productions for a short-lived publication called Other Stages, and, emboldened by that experience, recently completed a three-act play, The Egoist, based on the 19th century novel by George Meredith.
