Philip Holden (email: ellhpj@nus.edu.sg)
Edna Lim (email: elllime@nus.edu.sg)

Reading

Make sure you have the reading done before the relevant lecture in order to participate fully in active learning.

• Suchen Christine Lim, Fistful of Colours.
  [Read to the end of part 3, pp. 1-108]
• Scholes, Robert. "The Elements of Fiction." Elements of Fiction, an Anthology Ed.[ Robert Scholes. New York : Oxford UP , 1981. 3-21.
  [In your COURSE PACK]
• Landow, George. “How to Read a Novel -- Some Places to Begin” from the Victorian Web.

My suggestion here would be first to read the relevant pages of Christine Lim's Fistful of Colours for enjoyment, and then to come back to the critical material.

You may find the Scholes essay rather difficult. First, Scholes assumes that he is writing for an American reader who will be acquainted with several well-known works of Literature: he thus gives examples with which you may not be familiar. Second, he adopts a rather fine classificatory system, and you may find yourself struggling with some of his terminology. Don't be too anxious here--remember that examples back up a main point, and that as long as you understand the main point, you may not need to go into each example in too great a detail. When Scholes makes use of complicated terminology--such as in his discussion of "three pairs of fictional patterns" (9)--keep your mind firmly on the overall argument.

Issues to pay attention to in Scholes include his discussion of the relation of fact and fiction (3-4), his defence of why analysis of literary texts is important (5), and his focus on the importance of different elements of fiction such as plot (10-11), character (11-12), meaning or "theme" (12-14), point of view (15-19), and "design" (19-21). You'll find that these elements overlap with those in the online Landow article, which will give you practical suggestions about the kind of thing to look for in reading.

Last updated: 14 July, 2004