Literature: Literature Appreciation: 'Openings'

How does an author draw us in to their writing and tempt us to read on? Do they appeal to our sense of narrative convention, or turn it on its head? Do they use devices such as prologues and narrative frames, or plunge us into the action? What images do they use? How do they establish character, or the tensions of plot and atmosphere? These are just some of the questions we will be asking on this course as we read a wide range of texts and genres together. These include the openings to modern novels such as Caleb Azumah Nelson’s moving ‘Open Water’, and Laline Paull’s extraordinary work ‘The Bees’. Older prose by Jonathan Swift and Virginia Woolf will also form part of our studies. We will be considering poetry, both modern and across the centuries, and how the openings of poems subvert our expectations. The immediacy and risk of drama, from both older and more contemporary playwrights will also be part of our discussion. Finally, our set text will be Rose Tremain’s novel Restoration, with its extraordinary sequence of multiple openings. Through reflection and analysis together, we will be exploring each writer’s moment of perhaps highest risk: the opening of their text.