What have YOU learned from this literature course?

In the beginning we wondered: “Students and professors may and likely do have differing opinions on the content and form of a course on literature.  What are your expectations? What are you hoping to learn?” Re-read your original posts and those of your classmates, then briefly describe what you have learned this semester. We will spend part of our last class considering what can or what ought a class in literature TEACH.

Project Summary

One member of each group should describe in 25 words or less the project, provide a link or access to the project, identify all contributors and if possible indicate the major contributions of each to the final project.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

Levin’s visit to Anna has a striking effect on him, on Anna and on Kitty. You may choose to reflect on her power to impress people. Or you might examine her portrait. Finally, Tolstoi uses as he had in War in Peace his last pages to tell the reader what he feels he has not adequalty conveyed in his novel. Is his message, much like Dostoevsky’s, too important to be left to fiction?

It’s a dog’s world!

Tolstoi gets into everyone’s mind, even Laska’s-the dog. Yet each sees the world and events in a different light. Tolstoi sees the irony, hypocrisy, and superficiality of conventions-societal, religious, legal. He also employs a technigue called “defamiliarization” in which a common occurrence is presented from a unigue perspective so that we the readers can experience the old and familiar in a refreshingly new way.  What have you learned from Books 5 and 6?

Forgive and forget?

There is lots of forgiving going around, but also haymowing, death anxiety, moth killing divorce lawyers, kids running wild, and the contrast of one family dissolving while another gets ready to tie the knot. And what about Vronsky’s suicide attempt-Anna being pregnant-and so much more? Can anyone sum up this chaos in 250-300 words?

Anna Karenina

Tolstoi builds his novel on contrasts and comparisons, Anna and Kitty, Vronsky and Levin, Petersburg and Moscow and many more. By bringing his main characters into contact with one another he highlights them for us the reader. Choose one of the comparisons-contrasts and comment on who emerges in a more favorable light.

Crime and Slime

The novel which begins with a simple murder turns into a melting pot of sub-plots: Sonya and redemption, Dunya and female courage, Svidrigailov and suicide, Porfiry and criminal investigation, Luzhin and exploitation, and even poor Raskolnikov and his search for meaning. So pick a plot and share your thoughts.

Saying a “New Word.”

Book Three steps outside of the world of Raskolnikov to include others. They are all trying to restore him to health, but as the doctor remarks, that requires identifying cause.  Does Raskolnikov’s theory of the “extraordinary man” provide a clue? Does the theory stand up to careful scrutiny even if Raskolnikov is not one of those extraordinary men?

Crime and Punishment

Where does one begin? Is the novel a search for motive? What drives Raskolnikov? Is it simple arithmetic-kill the old lady and use the money for good? What is Sonya’s response to economic despair? How close is this to a perfect crime? Does Raskolnikov care too much for others to be a real man of decisive action? What is the meaning of dreams in real life and in literature?   Answer any of mine or raise your own and answer it.