MODULE TITLE: MODERN WORLD PROSE
3. Course Level: Level 3 Semester: I Credits: 2
4. Administering Department: English Language and Literature
5. Prerequisite Module: None
6. Module Description
This module is a genre-based introduction to prose fiction in English. Presenting important English-language literary texts, the course explores a range of novels and short stories so as to illuminate the different forms and techniques found within these principal generic categories. The course also provides a short introduction to diverse literary and scholarly approaches to the study of text. The course aims at exposing students to the concept of Prose Fiction, acquaint the students with the origin and development of Prose Fiction and acquaint students with the idea of textual analysis of Prose Fiction.
Short stories date back to oral story-telling traditions which originally produced epics such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Oral narratives were often told in the form of rhyming or rhythmic verse, often including recurring sections or, in the case of Homer, Homeric epithets. Fables, succinct tales with an explicit "moral," said by the Greek historian Herodotus is said to have been invented in the 6th century BCE by a Greek slave named Aesop, though other times and nationalities have also been given for him. These ancient fables are today known as Aesop’s fables.The other ancient form of short story, the anecdote, was popular under the Roman Empire. Anecdotes functioned as a sort of parable, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a point. Many surviving Roman anecdotes were collected in the 13th or 14th century as the Gesta Romanorum. Anecdotes remained popular in Europe well into the 18th century, when the fictional anecdotal letters of Sir Roger de Coverley were published.
- Teacher: Ginyera Stephen