Literature and the arts... aim to penetrate our true nature, our problems, and our experience as we strive to come to know and to develop ourselves and the world; they endeavour to discuss our situation in history and in the world, to throw light on our distresses and joys, needs and strengths, and to point to a better destiny for mankind. In this way they are capable of enhancing human life as it assumes many forms in time and place. -Second Vatican Council

LIT/ LAS 095: Drama Practicum. This course requires extensive hands-on work on a major theatrical production. Students must complete at least 45 hours of work on such aspects of the production as stage management, costume direction, and acting. Competence in the selected area must be demonstrated. (1 Credit, Fall/Winter, until play presentation. Pre-requisite: none. C. Schintgen.)

LIT 100: Freshman Writing. This course is now replaced by Lit 101: Essay Writing.

LIT 101: Essay Writing. This course teaches students to write clear and effective summaries and argumentative essays. Course components will include: summarizing; brainstorming and mind-mapping; planning and organizing; writing introductions and conclusions; drafting; revising; and citing sources (2 Credits. Fall. Pre-requisite: none. Doyle.)

LIT/LAS 106: Introduction to Drama. This course involves extensive hands-on work on a major theatrical production, as per LAS/LIT 095, as well as readings, discussions and applications of theoretical approaches to drama, and workshops on dramatic technique. (2 Credits [includes LAS/LIT 095: Drama Practicum], Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LAS/LIT 095: Drama Practicum. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 125: Creative Writing. “None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God, at the dawn of creation, looked upon the work of divine hands.” So begins Pope John Paul II’s illuminating “Letter to Artists.” In this influential pastoral letter, the Holy Father reminds us of the awesome responsibility Catholic artists—including Catholic authors—have for bringing the Gospel to humanity. He also stresses the vocational aspect of art. This course will be particularly interesting to those students who feel a call to express themselves through the art of creative writing. Classes will be conducted as workshops in which students will examine such topics as genres, style, setting, character development, and the unique responsibility inherent in being a Catholic author. They will hone their skills by analyzing samples of great works of literature. These will be used as models and springboards for their own creative works. Students will be expected to produce a personal portfolio of writings representing their efforts at tackling various literary genres. (3 Credits, Fall. Pre-requisite: none.  Doyle.)

LIT 141: Introduction to Classical Literature.  This course will introduce students to the foundational epics of the West―Homerʼs Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgilʼs Aeneid―as well as to Greek drama, with works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Through delving into the thought and outlook put forth in these works, the students will gain insight into the cultural soil, which, when sown with the seeds of Christianity, gave rise to Western Christian civilization. They will enrich their ability to understand and engage with the great canon of Western Literature by studying some of the earliest and most influential contributions to it. Further, they will increase their understanding of the human condition by examining some of the most dramatic and profound presentations of human experience available in the Western tradition. (3 Credits, Winter. C. Schintgen.)

LIT 201: Survey of Literature. In the first year, students acquire a basic knowledge of “our true nature, our problems, and our experience” from PHI 100: Fundamentals of Philosophy, which explores these subjects as naturally knowable, and from the Christian Doctrine sequence, which explores these subjects in the light of revelation. The History sequence gives a familiarity with “our situation in history.” Thus, having been suitably equipped through the first year of course work, second-year students begin penetrating these issues more deeply through the great works of literature. The Survey of Literature will introduce the students to the basic principles of the art of appreciating and critiquing literature while covering authors from St. Augustine to Flannery O’Connor, including Dante, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte. (6 Credits, Full-Year. Pre-requisite: second-year standing or permission of the instructor.  Doyle.)

LIT 251: Catholic Literature. What is “Catholic Literature”? Is it literature written by Catholics or literature that supports a Catholic world-view, whether written by Catholics or non-Catholics? (The latter criterion would disqualify some literature written by Catholics.) This course addresses these questions and others while analyzing the works of some major Catholic writers (e.g. Chesterton, Waugh, Tolkien, O’Brien) and a few non-Catholic writers (e.g. Robert Bolt, Willa Cather). The aim of the course is to equip students with the critical skills with which to read and appreciate literature from the standpoint of faith. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 252: Major Themes in European Literature. The course will offer a literary journey into some of the major works of modern European literature as among the most moving artistic fruits of the Christian view of the cosmos and human existence, in dialogue with the controversies, the crises, the intellectual questions, the artistic choices and spiritual battles which differ in every generation, and yet are “always new” in their existential meaning for each human being. What is love? Why do I want to be loved? Why do we suffer? How can we defeat evil inside us and outside us? Can I achieve justice and even revenge after a terrible wrong? Students will be introduced to the proper understanding of the structured and anagogical language of modern literature, from the poetry of the Middle Ages to contemporary fiction, and come to see this language as the bridge between the poet and the reader of every century, a dialogue from soul to soul, so as to achieve a deeper knowledge of how our forefathers faced the same existential questions we are facing now and gave us words of beauty and truth for our own spiritual journey. (3 Credits. Special Schedule, Winter: Tuesday evening and Saturday classes, beginning after the February break and continuing for 5 weeks. Dr. Edoardo Rialti.)

LIT 255: Chesterton. This course will explore a representative selection of G.K. Chesterton’s poetry and prose (both fiction and non-fiction).  Students will have an opportunity to experience the great wit and wisdom of one of Christendom’s most prolific writers and master of the paradox. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 301: Canadian Literature. This course looks at some of the seminal literary texts that have shaped Canadian identity, from the early colonial experience (Susanna Moodie) to the 20th century (Archibald Lampman, Stephen Leacock, Gabrielle Roy). Special attention will be given to Catholic writers in Canada (Morley Callaghan, Michael O’Brien). French texts will be taught in translation. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 310: American Literature from the Pilgrims to 1900. Attempts by settlers in America to establish a sense of self both individually and as a society constitute the founding impulse of American literature. By looking at these early texts, and by following subsequent developments as pilgrims increasingly forged an identity separate from that of the mother country, students will gain an understanding of how America was shaped in those early years. Connections will be made to literary trends in Britain, but distinct modifications and departures of American writers will also be appreciated. Authors will include Edwards, Bradstreet, Franklin, Poe, Dickinson, Twain, and Whitman. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 311: 20th Century American Literature. American responses to modernity and post-modernity have been multi-faceted and inventive. They have frequently involved the development of literary movements, often divided along geographical or ethnic lines, reflecting the cultural diversity of 20th-century America. Students will gain familiarity with these movements and their characteristic features, as well as with the work of individual writers, and special attention will be paid to Catholic authors. Texts will include works by Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Parker, Hughes, Ginsberg, and O’Connor. (3 Credits, Fall. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012. Doyle.)

LIT 320: Medieval Literature. This course will explore some key English medieval texts – including Middle English lyrics, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Langland’s Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Everyman, and The Chester Play of Noah. Discussion of these texts will focus on questions of literary merit, style, and genre, but also on the insights they give us into aspects of medieval culture and society. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 322: Shakespeare. This course is an in-depth study of six of Shakespeare’s plays. The focus in 2009-2010 was Shakespeare’s histories (I Henry IV, Henry V, and Richard III) and comedies (Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Merry Wives of Windsor). Various critical methods are brought to bear on these texts so that a range of interpretations may be explored and tested. (3 Credits. Winter. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Doyle.)

LIT 325: Restoration and 18th Century Literature. Significant developments in the practice of writing literature during this period will be studied, including the restoration of English drama (and the new directions the playwrights took); the birth of the English novel; the importance of satire; and the rise of literary journalism. Authors will include Goldsmith, Defoe, Dryden, Johnson, Pope, Richardson, and Swift. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature.  Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 326: Romanticism. Sweeping changes to European society as a result of the French Revolution were accompanied by radical transformations in literature, in Britain no less than in France. In poetry, the works of Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth, followed by the second generation of Romantic poets, represented a significant departure from their Enlightenment predecessors, as did the Gothic novel. The nature of these changes will be examined, and an attempt will be made to understand their implications from the point of view of philosophy and religion. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 327: Victorian Literature. This course focuses on the literature of the Victorian period, which sets the foundation for modern literature in English through seminal developments in the novel (Dickens, George Eliot), and innovation and achievement in poetry (Tennyson, Browning). An abiding concern of the course will be the decay of religion in England during this period and the genius of the Catholic response to it in literature, as exemplified by Newman and Hopkins. (3 Credits, Fall. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. C. Schintgen.)

LIT 329: Modern British Literature. This course will concentrate on the literature produced in Britain during the first half of the 20th Century, paying special attention to Symbolism and Imagism in poetry, and Modernism in the novel. Connections will necessarily be made to the two world wars, noting the rise of pessimism and nihilism in writings of the period. Equally, however, the importance of religion and, in particular, of renewed orthodoxy as a corrective to the general trend will be examined through literary expressions of faith. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 340: Dostoevsky. This course will seek to appreciate what it is that makes Dostoevsky’s great oeuvre inexorably Christian, through an exploration of some crucial themes in his works, such as human sinfulness; repentance and forgiveness; divine mercy; and social justice vs. injustice. Texts to be studied include some of the major works (The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, The Devils) but also some minor works (Notes from the Underground, short stories). (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Not offered 2011-2012.)

LIT 351: Dante. “Among the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast who have left undying fruits in literature and art especially, besides other fields of learning, and to whom civilization and religion are ever in debt, highest stands the name of Dante Alighieri . . .” (Benedict XV). The Divine Comedy stands as perhaps the greatest Catholic literary work ever produced. Richly imaginative, stylistically masterful, and religiously profound, it offers inexhaustible material for study. This course will focus on the work’s poetic imagery, its structure, and its relation to its historical context. (3 Credits, Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Next offered in 2012-2013.  C. Schintgen.)

LIT 371: Literary Theory to 1900. This course focuses on seminal texts in traditional literary criticism from Plato and Aristotle through Johnson and Dryden to Coleridge and Matthew Arnold, to name a few. Attempts will be made to understand the philosophical views that shape these literary theories on the one hand, as well as how the theories can be applied practically on the other. The theories will also be placed in their historical and literary-historical context. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite or Co-requisite: LIT 201: Survey of Literature. Next  offered in 2012-2013.)

LIT 471: Contemporary Literary Theory. Building on the knowledge students have gained in LIT 371: Literary Theory 371, this course will introduce students to more recent challenges to traditional theory and practice. Schools of criticism such as New Criticism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, deconstruction, Marxism, and post-colonialism will be studied, both in terms of their ideological underpinnings and in terms of their practical applications. Attention will be paid to the ways in which these theories may in certain cases complement a Christian perspective and/or how they are inimical to it. In addition, the work of theorists who seek to re-inject religious and metaphysical premises into literary theory will be evaluated. (3 Credits. Pre-requisite: LIT 371: Literary Theory to 1900, one other 300 level LIT course and PHI 303: Modern Philosophy. Co-requisite: an additional 300 level LIT course. Not offered 2011-2012.)