The Poetics of Plot
In this seminar, we'll be examining certain features of plot, starting with Aristotle's Poetics and moving on from there. I'm interested in those elements that contribute to urgency and momentum, and among the sub-topics we'll discuss will be snowball plots, comic plots, one-way gates, desires and fears as narrative engines, the strategic blurt, and the creation of Wonderlands. I'm also interested in the dissolving distinction between potboilers and art. I'll be referring to the critical work of Rene Girard and Peter Brooks. Among the texts we may read: Macbeth, Dostoyevsky's The Double, Conrad's The Secret Agent, the stories of Graham Greene, The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (whose book on suspense narratives we may read), one of Charles Portis's novels, something by Chester Himes, and possibly Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away.