Course description

This course examines the ways in which selected works make meaning through their dependence on other works. Every text is produced out of earlier texts, and these earlier texts may be called intertexts. The course studies the debt that literary texts of one or more English cultures owe to culturally prominent intertexts: mythology, the Bible, classical writings, legends, or folklore. In “Odysseys,” we will read Homer’s epic poem (in translation) and a variety of texts that draw upon The Odyssey in various ways. Readings will include short stories, novels, movies, and poems.