LTRS 3813:
FATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE, PART II
AKA “THE AUDEN COURSE”
NB—LTRS 3813 is the second part of a two-course sequence. Its companion course, LTRS 3803, offered
in the fall term, covers Western literature from the ancient world through the seventeenth century.
Students are encouraged but not required to take both parts.
In 1941, as a visiting faculty member at the
University of Michigan, the poet W.H. Auden
taught an English course entitled “Fate and the
Individual in European Literature.” Some seventy
years later, in 2012, a faded, marked-up copy of
Auden’s original syllabus surfaced in the
University archives. Soon grainy copies of it were
circulating far and wide on the internet, spurring a
multitude of comments and reflections.
Scholars and writers were excited by the discovery,
for it provided them with a list of texts that Auden
himself, one of the greatest poets and critics of the twentieth century, considered central to the
Western tradition. But who could not be
awed and daunted by the immense scope
of the reading list? Auden presented his
undergraduate students at a large
American public university with nearly six
thousand pages of reading for a onesemester, two-credit-hour class. Incredible.
Where on earth today would one find
institutions or teachers or students so
audacious as to attempt something
similar?
Well, here we are. We have envisioned this
course as an effort to rekindle the spirit—a
mingling of seriousness towards and
delight in the Western canon—that
Auden’s syllabus embodied. Over two
sequential semesters we explore much of
the literature that he considered to be
indispensable to an understanding of the
intertwined traditions that constitute the
modern world. The fall semester will run
from the ancient Greeks, through the
Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In the spring, we will focus on modernity,
beginning in the Enlightenment and ending in the mid-twentieth century. Throughout we will be

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 wrestling with the big questions conjured up by Auden’s title: what is the role of destiny in
human affairs? What is the role of God or the gods? What is the meaning of human freedom?
What is the value of an individual person and what constitutes a meaningful life? How should
we relate to those who surround us and to those in authority?
We’ve omitted a few of Auden’s texts and added some others we think are important. While our
reading list is perhaps not quite so daunting as his was, we nevertheless recognize that it demands
a lot of you. We are asking you to read a good deal
more than you would in most humanities classes. We
hope you will see this as a valuable intellectual
challenge and rise to it. Your professors believe that
wrestling with Homer and Augustine, Dante and
Milton, Goethe and Melville is essential to a true liberal
education. We are looking for students – regardless of
major – who are excited by the challenge.
The class will be a mixture of lecture and discussion.
Your three professors will all take turns leading the
class on different days. When they aren’t scheduled to
teach, they will be sitting alongside you as your fellow
students, each of them eager to better grasp the books
and ideas that have shaped our collective story.

Instructors:
Prof. Wilfred McClay
Email: wmcclay@ou.edu
Office Hours: TR 3-4:30

Prof. Kyle Harper
Email: kyleharper@ou.edu
Office Hours: F 11-12:00

Prof. David Anderson
Email: dkanderson@ou.edu
Office Hours: F 2:00-4:00

Required Texts:
Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Modern Library)
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics)
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (PDF)
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths (PDF)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (Penguin Classics)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
T.S. Eliot, selected poems (PDF)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (Vintage)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (Scribner)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One (Oxford)
Henry James, “The Figure in the Carpet” (PDF)
James Joyce, “The Dead” (PDF)
Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Penguin Classics)
…continued on next page

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 Required Texts, cont’d:
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (Penguin Classics)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Don Giovanni (Dover)
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Penguin Classics)
Rainier Maria von Rilke, Duino Elegies (Vintage)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, A Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (Berkley)
Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (Opera Classics Library)
Derek Walcott, Omeros (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)

Schedule of Readings and Assignments
Week 1
Jan 16 - Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (KH), 5-124
Jan 18 - Robinson Crusoe, cont’d (DKA) 125-241

Week 9
Mar 13 - Brothers Karamazov, cont’d (WM) 515-776
Mar 15 –James, “Figure in the Carpet” (KH) (PDF)

Week 2
Jan 23 - Goethe, Faust (Part One) (DKA), 3-72
Jan 25 – Faust (Part One), cont’d (KH), 72-148

Week 10
Mar 20 - Spring break (no class)
Mar 22 - Spring break (no class)

Week 3
Jan 30 - Mozart, Don Giovanni (WM), 3-121
Feb 1 - Blake, Marriage of Heaven & Hell (DKA)(PDF)

Week 11
Mar 27 - Nietzsche, Zarath’a (DKA) 39-169, 205-10
Mar 29 - Rilke, Duino Elegies (KH), 3-133

Week 4
Feb 6 - Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Guest), 5-183
Feb 8 - Pride and Prejudice, cont’d (DKA), 184-367

Week 12
Apr 3 - Education of Henry Adams (WM) (Selections)
Apr 5 - Joyce, “The Dead” (DKA) (PDF)

Week 5
Feb 13 - Kierkegaard, Fear & Trembling (WM), 41-143
Feb 15 - Melville, Moby-Dick (WM), 3-212

Week 13
Apr 10 - Woolf, To the Lighthouse (KH)
Apr 12 - Eliot, Selected Poems (KH) (PDF)

Week 6
Feb 20 - Moby-Dick, cont’d (WM), 213-401
Feb 22 - Moby-Dick, cont’d (KH), 402-624

Week 14
Apr 17 - Borges, Labyrinths (Guest) (PDF)
Apr 19- Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Week 7
Feb 27 - Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (WM), 39-108
Mar 1 – Am. Bouquet (WM) (PDF) Paper #1 Due

Week 15
Apr 24 - Solzhenitsyn, A Day In the Life… (DKA)
Apr 26 - Ellison, Invisible Man (WM), 3-250

Week 8
Mar 6 - Dostoyevsky, Bros Karamazov (DKA), 3-282
Mar 8 - Brothers Karamozov, cont’d (KH), 283-512

Week 16
May 1 – Invisible Man, cont’d (KH), 251-579
May 3 - Derek Walcott, Omeros (WM) (Selections)
May 9 - Paper #2 Due

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 GRADING BREAKDOWN
Marking Breakdown:
Class participation: 20%
Quizzes: 20%
Essay Two: 30%
Essay Three: 30%
Assessment in this course will be based on class participation (worth 20% of the final grade), four quizzes and
two assignments.
For each essay you are required to write on one of the texts we have discussed in class. These two papers are
not research essays—you are welcome to use secondary research, but it is not required. Every essay must
include a bibliography page that gives publication information for any texts quoted (including the primary
text). You must also cite any quotations parenthetically. Any essay that does not include a bibliography and
page or line citations will be penalized 5%. Please submit an electronic copy of your paper to the appropriate
folder on Canvas.
Suggested Topics:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

Power
Erotic desire
Wisdom
Violence
Conflict
Gender

7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)

Ambition
Sin
Redemption (personal or collective)
Pleasure
Suffering
Pride and/or humility

These headings are designed to give you a wide range of interpretive latitude: we want you to concoct your
own topic from them. Some (like power or violence) may have both literal and metaphorical registers that you
are welcome to consider. Some may, like redemption, may apply to either the individual or the society
(redemption in Austen would likely mean something very different than it does in Nietzsche or Joyce). Pair a
theme and a text in a way that lets you engage the ideas that interest you most.
Essay One:
Due: 1 March 2018, before midnight
Weight: 30%
Length: Six to eight pages, double-spaced, 12 pt font.
Format: Upload to Canvas
Permitted Texts: from Defoe through Wagner
Essay Two:
Due: 9 May 2018, before midnight
Weight: 30%
Length: Six to eight pages, double-spaced, 12 pt font.
Format: Upload to Canvas
Permitted Texts: from American Bouquet through Walcott

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 UNIVERSITY POLICIES
Email: Your official OU email account must be checked at least once every weekday during term.
Academic integrity and honesty: Integrity is presumed and required on the part of all students in the course.
All students must become familiar with www.ou.edu/provost/integrity. In addition to explaining important
concepts about academic integrity, this site also provides guidance about how academic misconduct is treated
and what your rights are. In writing for this course, you must give proper credit through the use of quotation
marks and by footnoting or other citation for any ideas or words of others on which you rely in your written
work. Use of the work of others is positively encouraged and is central to scholarship, but it must always be
properly credited. When it is not credited, and when the thoughts/words/ideas of others are passed off as your
own, then that is plagiarism. Plagiarism is serious academic misconduct and will be reported to the appropriate
university office; penalties can be severe. If you are in doubt about how to handle quotations or citations, please
consult me. And please note: all written assignments will be uploaded to Canvas with turnitin.com enabled.
I expect every essay to include a properly formatted bibliography page that gives publication information for
any texts quoted (including the primary text). You are also required to follow the citation rules printed in the
“Writing Guidelines” handout on Canvas.
Religious Observance: It is the policy of the University to excuse the absences of students that result from
religious observances and to provide without penalty for the rescheduling of examinations and additional
required classwork that may fall on religious holidays.
Absences: Attendance is required. It is the student’s obligation to inform me of absences prior to the absence,
including those justified by religious observance, legally-required, or provost-approved university-sponsored
activity.
Students who accrue more than three unexcused absences will receive a penalty of one full letter grade for the
semester. Students who accrue four unexcused absence will receive a penalty of two full letter grades for the
semester. Students who accrue six unexcused absences will receive a penalty of three full letter grades.
Late penalties and extensions: Late essays will be docked 3% per day of lateness (weekends counting as one
day). I am willing to grant reasonable extensions for essays provided you email me at least one week in advance.
Electronic Devices: Students are not permitted to use cell phones, computers, or other electronic devices in
class. Any student who has a compelling reason for being exempt from this rule must consult me as soon as
possible.
Accommodation: Any student in this course who has a disability that may prevent him or her from fully
demonstrating his or her abilities should contact me as soon as possible so we can discuss accommodations
necessary to ensure full participation and facilitate your educational opportunities.
Codes and Policies of Behaviour: Each student should acquaint him- or herself with the University’s codes,
policies, and procedures involving academic misconduct, grievances, sexual and ethnic harassment, and
discrimination based on physical disability.

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 Writing Center: Most universities have a writing center, a place for students, faculty and staff to meet and talk
about writing. The Writing Center here at OU is a resource I encourage you to use. As a writer you will want
to seek feedback from many different readers. The writing consultants at the writing center are able to talk to
you about your writing—at any stage of the process and for any course you are taking. You can make an
appointment (online or at 405-325-2936) and you can drop in when they are open. I urge you to visit the website
for more information. (www.ou.edu/writingcenter.html)

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