Literature: A Feast of Fiction

Over the ten weeks of the course, you’ll take part in lively discussions, analysing and interpreting great works of fiction. To understand literature, we need to engage with it on three levels: our own personal response to it as a work of art; an attempt to understand the preoccupations, aims and agenda of the writer, as illuminated by their biography; and an enquiry into what it can tell us the wider culture and society that produced it. Each class starts with a short lecture from the tutor, putting the work in its historical and cultural context; we then read selected passages and explore all three levels. Be prepared for plenty of (good-natured) disagreement. The texts under discussion are: The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde; Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers; Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell; Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton; Right-Ho Jeeves by PG Wodehouse; A Waiter in Pris by Edward Chisholm; and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. Some of these texts are available free online, and selected passages will be posted on Canvas before each session. A course for everyone who loves literature