Instructor: Jones, J. Jennifer
English 356: Literature and the Law: It is hard to imagine a human being who did not experience the fury of being wronged and the longing to be avenged for it. And so, unsurprisingly, the literary imagination for vengeance is ancient, far-reaching, and tenacious. It was powerful when Moses sang “Vengeance is mine” to God in the 13 th century B.C.E. (Deuteronomy 32:35). And it remains powerful today: In the fifty years since the publication of his first novel about an adolescent girl with a thirst for vengeance and the superpowers to wreak it, Stephen King’s Carrie has sold more than 350 million copies, making King one of the most successful novelists of all time. In this course, we will study imaginative literature’s obsession with vengeance in the Western tradition across long time, concentrating on preoccupations definitive of shared human experience where suffering at the hands of another and then retaliating against them is concerned: rage, arrogance, power, loss, grief, guilt, remorse, punishment, justice, recompense, forgiveness, redemption, and the ideal of human rights. We will begin with stories of vengeance that predate the conception of justice; then trace the birth of the democratic ideal of justice; and finally, think about the longstanding entanglements of the two. We will read from the Old Testament and Apocropha of the Bible; ancient Greek drama; British poetry, stories, and novels from the medieval era through to the Romantic era; and American horror fiction. To deepen our sense of history, context, and understanding, we will also read critical prose works by Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Jacques Derrida.
4 crs.
Schedule: Online
Start Date – End Date: 1/2-1/16
General education outcome: N/A
Course delivery: Online-Asynchronous
Inclusive access fee: N/A
Additional fees: No additional fees.

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