Curriculum : The main aim of the course is the familiarization of postgraduate students with Basic Principles in the Theory of Literature as well as with the specialized issues regarding the interpretation of literary texts. The idea is to link theoretical perspectives about the role and function of Literature with the various approaches of reading literary texts in order to offer students a fuller comprehension of the potential of the former as a discourse, as a form of art and more generally, as a form of cultural expression.
Teaching and learning methods include: lectures, group discussions, personal oral presentations by the postgraduate students on the application of a range of theoretical perspectives on literary texts followed by group evaluation/feedback, and personal written assignments. Evaluation and grading methods rest on oral presentations, on written assignments and on final (written) examination. The language of course instruction is Greek.
Outline : -The course will cover the following areas:
- The meaning and criteria of literariness (G. Genette).
- Literature as a communicative act (R. Jakobson).
- The historical development of the Theory of Literature (from Romanticism to Deconstruction and the Reader-Response Theories) as well as the development in the Theories on Reading.
- The notion of reader and the reading (as an interpretive process) in older perceptions of the literary texts as well as in modern versions of the Theory of Literature.
- Differences between Theories on Reading (the reader in the text - the text in the reader – interaction/transaction between text and reader).
- Classification of the various versions of audience-oriented criticism (according to S. Suleiman: rhetorical, semiotic and structuralist, phenomenological, subjective and psychoanalytic, sociological and historical, hermeneutic).
- Analytic presentation of all six versions mentioned above followed by their application on various literary texts (both poetry and prose).
- The application of theoretical principles in the use of literary texts in the classroom.