ENGLISH 121
The Bible as Literature:
Narratives of Separation and Estrangement
http://www.uvm.edu/~lschnell/eng121
  
 
Professor Lisa Schnell 
Old Mill 423 
phonemail: 656-4215 
e-mail: lschnell@zoo.uvm.edu 
Office Hours for Spring '99: Wednesdays 2-5 (and by appointment) 
 

 

The monotheistic revolution of biblical Israel was a continuing and disquieting one. It left little margin for neat and confident views about God, the created world, history, and man as political animal or moral agent, for it repeatedly had to make sense of the intersection of incompatibles--the relative and the absolute, human imperfection and divine perfection, the brawling chaos of historical experience and God's promise to fulfill a design in history. The biblical outlook is informed, I think, by a sense of stubborn contradiction, of a profound and ineradicable untidiness in the nature of things, and it is toward the expression of such sense of moral and historical reality that the composite artistry of the Bible is directed. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative
p.154  How do you introduce a course on the most important, most influential book in the history of Western civilization? With enthusiasm primarily: many of you will be surprised to find that the Bible is one of the most interesting--even entertaining--books you've ever read. It's a very old collection of stories, but you will often be struck by just how contemporary it seems. For literature students, it is a virtual goldmine of information and inspiration: suddenly you have a whole new sense of almost everything other piece of literature you've read. It is also a terrific place to work on our skills of literary analysis--the "stubborn contradictions" of which Alter speaks, above, should be suggestive enough of the complex literary structures that we will be investigating.

As the subtitle of the course suggests, we will mainly be investigating narrative issues in this class: where does the impetus come in the first place for stories? How, in this book, do the authors tell stories about people, families, nations, and a God who is intrinsically unknowable? The "unknowability" at the center of these stories—the mystery that is part of any sacred history—makes for some very interesting narrative issues. It is primarily in this way that we will approach this text as "literature."

Experience has also taught me that I would be remiss if I didn't end this description with something like a "warning." First of all, you must all be prepared to do an enormous amount of reading in this course. Secondly--and, to be fair, this warning does not apply to all (or even any) of you, but it needs to be articulated anyway--in this class, you must be willing to sidestep (though not necessarily ignore) the enormously complicated theological questions that the text brings up in order to focus on the literary questions that will be asked in here. The Bible, as of course you know, is many things to many people: in here, it will be approached primarily as a narrative text with a necessarily limited number of literary and cultural significances. For instance, in this class we cannot discuss the big question "who is God and what is my relationship to him/her?" But we will ask other big questions, like, for instance, "how do we understand the workings of and the power of written stories to shape a nation, even an entire culture?"

Texts:
Required

Optional Note about the primary text:
Because this course counts as an early literature course, I've decided that our official text will be the King James (1611) translation of the Bible. I'm biased, but lots of people besides me think it's far and away the most elegant--the most poetic, or literary--translation of the Bible into English.

I have specifically ordered the Ryrie Study Bible for this course after a great deal of research. You may have other copies of the King James Bible, but I am strongly recommending that you purchase the Ryrie for this course. Though occasionally a tad heavy on the evangelical theology (which is literarily useful in its own peculiar way), this Study Bible is a superb resource and will be invaluable to you in your reading, especially for those of you coming to this text for the first time. It contains maps, a concordance, and is heavily cross-referenced and glossed. It also has wide margins--very handy for scribbling the many notes you will want to record during both your own reading and the class discussions.

Assignments:
Locks and Keys

"Locks" are places where the text challenges your understanding. "Locks" are usually part of the text you recognize as significant, but you can'’t articulate why or how. "Keys" are the places in the text that help you to unlock the significance of those parts of the text that were initially closed to you. This is interpretive work, not detective work, so questions like "what is the name of Lot'’s wife?" are not appropriate. Sometimes, especially with this text, you will find yourself in front of a locked door for which there is no key. In those cases, speculate as best you can about what a possible key might look like, or discuss why there can’t be key for this door. Remember that even when we do find keys to our locks, there is probably never any "right" answer to any of the questions we bring to this text. The keys are always in a sense "provisional"; the door may never swing side open for us. (We will work on Locks and Keys in class for the first week or so.)

The class will be divided in half: Group A will hand Locks and Keys in one week (always on Fridays); Group B will hand them in the next. And so on through the semester. Keep track of Locks and Keys in the margin of your Bible, or on Post-itsÔ , and then chose one or two of them to write up in a short (no more than one page), typewritten response.

Take-home Midterm Exam
More on that as we approach week 6 of the course.

Final Exam
More on that as we approach the end of the course.

Grade Breakdown

Other Important Stuff
  1. all work except the Final Exam MUST be typed. I will not accept hand-written assignments.
  2. always number your pages
  3. fasten your pages with a staple or paper-clip
  4. PROOFREAD - a good way to guarantee yourself a "C" is to turn in work—even the weekly assignments—full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes (even typos)
  5. and just to reiterate, so that there is no confusion at all about this: I will not grant extensions except in cases of serious illness (a cold does not count as a serious illness) or family emergency
  6. an important note about attendance: as always, I will allow only three unexcused absences; after that I start taking notice (i.e. your grade will suffer). Ten unexcused absences constitute an "F" for the course--no negotiation. (An unexcused absence is any absence that is not explained by a documented illness (I need a doctor's note) or family emergency.
The part of the website called "Announcements" will be updated frequently with information pertaining to the course. It would be a good idea to check it frequently, particularly if you miss a class.