Introduction to Comparative Literature

ANG 341 Winter 2006

Created by Maryse Bernier, Eve Lauzier, and Michaël "Buddy" Marcoux

    Introduction to Comparative Literature (ANG 341) was a  course offered at the Université de  Sherbrooke during the Winter 2006 session.  This course compared literatures across cultures, through interdisciplinary methods and to other forms of representation.  Moreover, in this comparative literature course, students studied literature with a greater concern for theory than is sometimes found in literary studies of one national or linguistic culture.  Throughout the semester, students read several short stories, novellas and memoirs from authors around the world and their works were analyzed and discussed during the class meetings.  In addition, students wrote web-page contributions to give background information about the authors, the social context and artistic movements.  Below, you can read some of the works done for this course and learn more about those well-known authors and their works.  

     Thanks to Jackie Hall for English corrections.

"Metamorphosis"     Biography of Franz Kafka Existentialism Surrealism A Comparison Between "Metamorphosis" and Happiness in Slavery (Song by Nine Inch Nails)
"Rip Van Winkle"    Biography of Washington Irving The American Revolution and the Story as Allegory Early American Romantic Fiction
"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"          Biography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez Magic Realism and Latin American Literature The Use of Magic Realism in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" The Critique of the Church in "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" How do the various characters respond to the events of the story? What does their response suggest about human nature and about organized society? How does Garcia Marquez make an apparently fantastic event seem real and plausible?
"A Real Life"     Biography of Alice Munro A Comparison Between "A Real Life" and Les Fées ont Soif (Play by Denise Boucher)
"A Country Wedding"      Comparing Endings: "A Country Wedding" and "A Real Life"
"Heart of Darkness"   Biography of Joseph Conrad The Ivory Trade and the Slave Trade in Africa The Leitmotif of Darkness in the Story
"A White Heron"    Biography of Sarah Orne Jewitt
"Aura"          Biography of Carlos Fuentes The Gothic Genre of  Story Telling The Gothic Elements of "Aura" The Implications of the Final Scene in "Aura"
"A Rose for Emily"     Biography of William Faulker The Gothic Elements of "A Rose for Emily" A Comparison Between "A Rose for Emily" and Psycho (movie by Alfred Hitchcock) What does the story imply about the relationship between past and present, illusion and reality, permanence and change, death and life? Southern Gothic Fiction in the United States
"In the Kindergarten" Daycares and Childhood in China Rural Chinese Education Through Film and Words
"The House on Mango Street"   Identity and Poverty in "The House on Mango Street"
"Wine"                                    Biography of Doris Lessing The Role of the Non-Verbal in "Wine"
"The Horse Dealer's Daughter"   Biography of D. H. Lawrence The Marriage Plot in "The Horse Dealer's Daughter"
"I Stand Here Ironing"      Biography of Tillie Olsen The Mother-Daughter Relationship in "I Stand Here Ironing" A Comparison between "I Stand Here Ironig" and Aurore (movie by Luc Dionne)
"The Darling" Biography of Anton Chekhov “How does each of the four episodes of the story add to the reader’s understanding of Olenka’s successive states of mind?”
"Big Blonde" Biography of Dorothy Parker Love-Addicted Women in "Big Blonde" and "The Darling" The Role of Wome in the Age of the Flappers (1920's and 30's) Realism and Naturalism in Storytelling How do the men of the story—including the doctor—regard and treat Hazel Morse? How does Hazel regard and treat herself? To what extent are the views of both Hazel and the men tied up with the idea of being a "good sport"?

For more information concerning Comparative Literature, you can visit these websites:

• http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/Complit/Eclat/#elsewhere

• http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library.html

• http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Eclj/

• http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/colt/internet.htm