Graduate Liberal Studies

Wesleyan University
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HUMS 656
The Culture of the Quixote

Ashraf Rushdy          

Course Description
This course undertakes to explore the ideas that enter into literary discourse with the publication of DON QUIXOTE in 1605. The major ideas we will discuss at length concern three particular issues that Cervantes used his eponymous hero to raise in the novel: 1) the effects of reading on an uncritical mind; 2) the dynamics of desire in a media-saturated world; and 3) the role of parody in the transformation of literary history. In the first third of the course, we will deal with the first two ideas in Don Quixote and fiction and film in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the rest of the course, we will look at two exemplary cases of quixotic, parodic practice in English literary history in the mid- and late-18th century.
Required Texts

Required Texts:
Woody Allen, SIDE EFFECTS (Ballantine Books, 1986)

Jane Austen, NORTHANGER ABBEY (Oxford University Press, 2003)

Miguel Cervantes, DON QUIXOTE (Penguin, 2003)

Henry Fielding, SHAMELA AND JOSEPH ANDREWS (Oxford University Press, 1999)

Gustave Flaubert, MADAME BOVARY (Penguin, 2003)

Samuel Johnson, THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA (Penguin, 1977)

Jerzy Kosinksi, BEING THERE (Grove Press, 1999)

Ann Radcliffe, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO (Oxford University Press, 1998)

Samuel Richardson, PAMELA, OR VIRTUE REWARDED (Oxford University Press, 2001)
Written Assignments
You will be required to write four papers for this course: one short, ungraded essay for my information; two short, graded essays; and one longer essay.

**Paper One: 1-3 typed, double-spaced pages (max. 750 words) - Due Wednesday, September 22
at 7 p.m. in class

Paper Two: 2-4 typed, double-spaced pages (max. 1000 words) -Due Wednesday, October 6 at 7 p.m. in class

Paper Three: 3-4 typed, double-spaced pages (max. 1000 words) -Due Wednesday, November 10 at
7 p.m. in class

Paper Four: 4-8 typed, double-spaced pages (max. 2000 words) - Due Wednesday, December 1 at
7 p.m. in class

**Your first paper assignment is as follows:
Describe for me what you expect to get out of this course? What is your sense of how this course should be run? How do you think we should deal with the texts? What sort of context do you think we should establish in our class discussions and what sort of analysis should we perform on the texts we read? What disciplinary training do you bring with you to this class and how do you expect this class to help you expand or or more thoroughly deepen this training? These are merely suggested questions to help you think about your essay. You do not have to answer all or any of them. This paper will not be graded and will not be returned to you. If you wish to have a copy of your records, please make a photocopy before you hand it in.
Course Calendar
September 15 Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part I (pp. 11-479)
September 22 Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II (pp. 483-982)
September 29 Flaubert, Madame Bovary
October 6 Allen, Side Effects (pp. 61-78)
October 13 Kosinski, Being There
October 20 FALL BREAK
October 27 Samuel Johnson, Rasselas
November 3 Richardson, Pamela
November 10 Fielding, Shamela (pp. 44-307)

Fielding, Joseph Andrews (pp. 3-303)
November 17 Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
November 24 THANKSGIVING BREAK
December 1 Austen, Northanger Abbey (pp. 3-187)
December 8 Conclusion