This Course Guide has been taken from the most recent presentation of the course. It would be useful for reference purposes but please note that there may be updates for the following presentation.
ENGL A131
Introduction to English Fiction
As a result of the spread of English as a truly international medium for government, diplomacy, education and business, some countries with many local languages (e.g. India) have adopted English as an official language along with their dominant native languages. In all major universities worldwide, this has led to a very swift and dynamic proliferation of courses in English Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, along with courses in English as a Foreign Language, English as a Second Language and English for Specific Purposes (e.g. Business English). It has also meant a growth in English Literature courses and the publication of literary work in English by non-native speakers. The number of non-native speaker students of English language has grown so quickly because many international job markets demand employees with the ability to function professionally in English. To accommodate the rush to English, many international language schools have sprung up. The best schools, colleges and universities have realized for many years that, in learning any language, one needs to encounter the culture that created it. For this reason, those wishing to reach more than a minimal language level have always taken literature courses, so that a greater command and flexibility in the language can be achieved, together with reading levels that allow people to read more easily any document they might encounter professionally and to interact on an adult level with foreign colleagues using the language in question. English can boast one of the very great literatures in the world and today this includes the fast-growing field of 'modern literatures in English' written by people of different nationalities in many different parts of the world.
ENGL A131 Introduction to English Fiction is a five-credit, foundation level elective course for undergraduate students of all academic disciplines. It is one of the three five-credit English Literature courses offered by the School of Arts and Social Sciences. The course is structured in such a way that students of varying backgrounds can select it without being restricted by prerequisites. It can also serve later as a prerequisite for ENGL A231 English Literature in the Modern World.
This courseintroduces you to the critical reading of different kinds of fiction in English. We consider, and try to answer, the following questions, some of them in relation to our study of specific texts.
The course will give you a reading knowledge of selected fiction texts, an understanding of critical approaches to the reading of these texts, and an indication of the variety of different kinds of fiction. It will also enhance your awareness of the use of verbal imagery in the texts.
This introductory course is designed to help you to read more alertly and to enjoy the different ways in which stories may be told. The fiction-reading public reads for pleasure — and so should we. When you complete this course, you should be able to read with more insight into fiction as a literary genre and this will add to your reading pleasure. The chosen texts provide for you ways of appreciating different methods of telling a story as well as different types of fiction in British and American English by writers born in England, America and Africa. The inclusion of activities, self-tests and online materials will help you to understand and analyse these texts.
You will explore several kinds of fiction, such as short stories, longer stories and novels. All these sub-genres of fiction or storytelling have their attractions for readers. You should be alert to the language used, and you will be able to discuss more easily the stories you have read. Here are the aims and learning outcomes of this course.
Course aims
ENGL A131 aims to:
Course learning outcomes
Upon completion of ENGL A131, you should be able to:
This is the nuts-and-bolts, informative section, providing information such as what materials are needed, and how the assignments and marking are arranged. Please read it carefully.
Course materials
In addition to this Course Guide, your course materials will include your study units for the course, your set texts and references, the Assignment File and the Presentation Schedule.
This course has seven study units, each with activities and self-tests designed to help you work on what you are reading. Answers are suggested, but please do the activities and self-tests before consulting the answers. Useful supplementary readings and websites are also provided, from which you will be asked to read selected pages.
Now look at the outline of the study units below:
Study units
Unit 1: Introduction to English Fiction
We consider the definition of fiction, specifically as a form of literature. Also, we review different kinds (sub-genres) of fiction and some key concepts and terms used in analysing and discussing it. You have to read 'The Zebra Storyteller' as an example of flash fiction.
Unit 2: Characterization in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily'
The setting is a small town in the American South, where the sense of place, historical circumstance, changing social conditions, and crime are all inextricably linked to the characterization of Emily. Faulkner's treatment of crime falls into the tradition of Edgar Allen Poe and 'American Gothic' fiction and leads on to films, such as Hitchcock's Psycho.
Unit 3: Point of view in Henry James's 'The Tone of Time'
Here, we look at another aspect of telling a story: point of view. Henry James, a master of the use of point of view in his major novels, provides an example in this short story: 'The Tone ofTime'. James's subject is art, the art of portraiture, and a particular painting. The point of view is that of a very astute narrator, himself an artist. The narrator gives us a shifting point of view, moving from that of artist to that of buyer, and finally to that of emotionally wounded women. The story's unexpected opening is matched by its equally unexpected finale.
Unit 4: Gender and class in D H Lawrence's 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'
'Odour of Chrysanthemums' is a concise and profound evocation of the kind of working-class industrial milieu Lawrence knew as a child. The story bears witness to the interpersonal pressures and heartbreaks that are part of a very tough way of life. Gender issues emerge through the depiction of the strictly separate roles of men and women in the mining community, the men being referred to as 'masters' of their wives rather than as 'husbands', a more neutral term. Class background is clear in the type of houses the miners occupy, their work, and their speech and clothing.
Unit 5: Fable, feminism and 'history' in Doris Lessing's The Cleft
This book contains female and male 'chronicles' of the origin of the human species that depends on a matriarchal social structure rather than a Darwinian explanation. Doris Lessing's The Cleft is an 'alternative history' novel that uses the ancient form of fiction known as a fable, which is a story that may include animals as well as human beings as characters and which attempts to teach the reader or listener by means of the narrative of events. The novel also features the supposed writings of a Roman senator who compiles a 'history' of the earliest human beings by using the fragmentary ancient writings of females and males containing their 'chronicles' or narratives of events. The behaviour described raises gender and feminist views of female and male. Modern feminists have sometimes objected to male versions of history as 'his story' and attempt rewritings of history to reveal the roles of women, calling this 'herstory' or 'her story'. Doris Lessing's novel may be a fable that could be taken as the 'herstory' version of evolution. However, she also includes the male chronicle of events and supplies the more sophisticated commentary of the Roman senator.
Unit 6: Feminist criticism in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse
To the Lighthouse is a portrait of a middle-class family in which the mother of eight children, Mrs Ramsay, is a creative life force, while her husband, though intellectually brilliant, is essentially remote and sterile. Woolf was of a generation of women who lived to witness and benefit from the feminist agitation to get the Married Women's Property Act and voting rights for women through the British Parliament. The vitality of Mrs Ramsay, in contrast to the 'thinker' Mr Ramsay, certainly links with the work of D H Lawrence, as does Woolf's symbolism, though their respective social backgrounds were very different.
Unit 7: Autobiographical writing in J M Coetzee's Boyhood
Boyhood is a self-portrait of the author in his childhood and adolescence. He lived and was educated in a racist Afrikaner state, South Africa, under the Boer regime. It is thus a fascinating account of life in the provinces of a society that has undergone major changes ever since Coetzee went to study abroad. Boyhood indicates that fiction and autobiography have definite links. It also helps us to understand what drove Coetzee to excel as a student and a writer.
Assignment File
Your Assignment File contains information on the assignments: two essays (assignments) and one oral presentation by means of the OLE. There is also a two-hour examination at the end for the whole course. For more details, see the section on assessment in this Course Guide and in the Assignment File itself.
Presentation schedule
The Presentation Schedule is available on the Online Learning Environment (OLE). It gives the dates for completing assignments, and attending tutorials, together with other practical information.
Other print materials
For the ENGL A131 units listed above, the required texts are all the works of fiction studied in the course and some reference books (see below).
You are expected to read all the set fiction texts and selected useful pages from the reference texts. It will be useful, too, if you read materials online in relevant official websites listed for the course.
Required fiction texts:
Please note that online versions of some of these texts may be downloaded from the World Wide Web.
Reference books:
Set textbook
There is no set textbook for this course.
Online and multimedia materials
Video
There is a series of video presentations, which will be uploaded to the HKMU's Online Learning Environment (OLE).
Websites
The following websites are highlighted for your use (interactive use) as they embrace thematic topics within units:
www.archipelago.org/vol3-1/holst.htm
www.online-literature.com/ (This website supplies material on most famous novelists)
www.online-literature.com/dh_lawrence
www.online-literature.com/henry_james
www.theatlantic.com/doc/200608/fictionissue
Equipment needed (IT resources)
Hardware
Software
These will enable you to write and also consult information available through the Internet. Please note that you may also be required to download some free software to your computer for recording your oral presentation to be submitted online for assignment 3.
Assessment
Continuous assessment
Continuous assessment for ENGL A131 is built upon two approaches. The first is the traditional essay mode, which will be used in the first two assignments of the course. The second approach is the motivational mode of oral presentation assessment.
Assignments
Assignment 1 covers Units 1 to 3 and Assignment 2 relates to Units 4 to 6. The essays will require you to comment on interesting aspects of fiction, such as the vision of human life they offer the reader, their plotting and noteworthy characters, for which you should draw your evidence from the set texts for these units where relevant. You are encouraged to use some of the terms often employed in writing about fiction, such as 'characterization', 'narrator', 'theme' and 'setting'. While the first essay will be concerned with fiction only, the second will go further, perhaps to raise issues about the connection between autobiography and fiction or social history and myth or fable as inspiration for fiction.
Your main activity in preparing these assignments is to re-read the texts to find material appropriate for the points you want to make in your essays. Don't forget to take notes and pages numbers as you read. Begin by writing on what interests you most about the question.
The first assignment is worth 15% of your grade for the course, and the second is worth 20%.
Oral presentation
The second approach to continuous assessment requires you to make an oral presentation by audio recording, to be submitted through the OLE. This comprises 15% of the total course marks.
Final examination
The two-hour final examination will be course-wide in scope, covering all dimensions of ENGL A131. It will give you an opportunity to display your understanding and analytical ability in the areas you have learned about. Both short questions and essay questions will be included.
The assessment items are outlined in the following table.
| Assessment | Course area covered | Weighting |
| Assignment 1 | Units 1-3 | 15% |
| Assignment 2 | Units 4-6 | 20% |
| Assignment 3 (Oral presentation through audio recording) | Entire course | 15% |
| Exam | Entire course | 50% |
| Total | 100% | |
To pass the course, students must pass both the continuous assessment and the examination.
This table brings together the units, the time needed to complete them, and the assignments that follow them.
| Unit | Title | Study time (weeks) | Assessment (end of unit) |
| 1 | Introduction to English fiction | 2 | |
| 2 | Characterization in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily' | 2 | |
| 3 | Point of view in Henry James's 'The Tone of Time' | 2 | Assignment 1 |
| 4 | Gender and class in D H Lawrence's 'Odour of Chrysanthemums' | 2 | |
| 5 | Fable, feminism and 'history' in Doris Lessing's The Cleft | 3 | |
| 6 | Feminist criticism in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse | 3 | Assignment 2 |
| 7 | Autobiographical writing in J M Coetzee's Boyhood | 2 | Assignment 3 (oral presentation) |
| Final examination | |||
| Total | 16 | ||
The best way to study fiction is to read it. Make notes and answer the questions in the activities in a notebook or using your laptop (or mobile devices).
Read each study unit and the readings indicated within the units. Note unfamiliar words in the texts but don't look in a dictionary every time -- just do this for the main words that seem the most important. You may need to go over certain sections of the unit more than once in order to ensure you have grasped fully the essential ideas and terminology for understanding fiction. Remember that fiction, like stage drama and films, gives you an imagined world and imagined people that are a parallel to the real world, giving you insights into people and their ways of life. In studying fiction, it always helps to know the main facts of an author's life and the main historical developments that surround a work of fiction. You should consult information on the website(s) mentioned. Remember that reading the fiction itself is the major task. Critics can help, but they help most when you know what they are writing about.
The self-tests and activities supplied in each unit are very useful for helping you to make a habit of being brief, clear and always ready with page references that illustrate points you note. Nothing wastes more time than asking oneself 'Now what page was that on?' -- and then hunting through your text to find out! The activities and self-tests should stimulate your thinking and help you to check your progress. Make a serious effort to answer these questions on your own. Don't give in to the temptation to jump directly to the answers.
Review the study materials and/or consult your tutor if you are not sure that you have met the course expectations.
Fiction is all around you in bookshops and libraries. When you pick up any work of fiction, read a few pages and try to see whether the book is worth buying or borrowing by thinking about what you have learned and are learning about fiction. When friends recommend a fiction book, ask them why they found it worth reading. You will get more satisfaction and fulfilment from your studies once you are able to appreciate for yourself the impact and significance of recent fiction bestsellers for the modern world. You might even decide to give a friend a novel or book of stories you have liked reading.
Tutors and tutorials
This course has 14 hours of tutorials (i.e. seven two-hour sessions). During these sessions, you can discuss the set texts, raising any points about fiction and the language used that may be puzzling. Sometimes a difficulty could take hours to resolve by yourself, whereas in tutorials the point can be raised and discussed, and answers or pointers discovered in a few minutes. You can also use the telephone tutoring service. Please remember that the tutorials not only help you to consolidate what you have learned but also encourage greater use of discussion and allow you to meet others with different points of view.
Day school
In addition to the tutorials, there will be one two-hour day school session in which a guest speaker will give a talk on literature and various literary devices.
Although both the tutorials and the day school are optional, you are strongly encouraged to attend and participate in these learning opportunities.
Online Learning Environment
This course is supported by the Online Learning Environment (OLE). You can find the course materials and the latest course information on the OLE. Through the OLE, you can also communicate with your tutors, the Course Coordinator and fellow students. For details about the OLE and how to access it, please refer to the Online Learning Environment User Guide.
ENGL A131 Introduction to English Fiction is a five-credit, foundation level elective course for undergraduate students of all academic disciplines. It is one of the three five-credit English Literature courses offered by the School of Arts and Social Sciences. There are no prerequisites for taking this course. This Course Guide has provided an outline of how the course will be presented, including information on the course materials, study schedule, student support and assessment.
Above all, have fun learning by reading and re-reading the stories you enjoy in this course. I wish you all the very best of luck with finding inspiration for making clear, sensible points in your essays, as well as in discussions and the examination.
Andrew Parkin was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and in the Department of Drama at Bristol University, where he obtained his PhD in Drama. He is a poet and critic who taught in schools in England and Hong Kong early in his career and in tertiary education in Britain, Canada and Hong Kong. He became a Full Professor of English Literature at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he was Chairman of first-year English and also editor of The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies. When he stepped down from this editorial post, he gained the Council of Editors of Learned Journals award for Most Distinguished Retiring Editor of a Journal. He became Professor and Head of English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1991 and retired as Professor Emeritus and Honorary Senior Tutor of Shaw College. As a poet he won first prize in the international Martini Rossi Sonnet Competition in 1985.
He has published many academic books, including The Dramatic Imagination of W B Yeats (1978), an edition of W B Yeats's play, The Herne's Egg (1991), and, most recently, 'At the Hawk's Well' and 'The Cat and the Moon': Manuscript Materials (by W B Yeats) edited by Andrew Parkin (2010).His study guide to Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1980) was designed for sixth-formers and first-year university students. As a poet, Andrew Parkin has published Dancers in a Web (1987), Yokohama Days, Kyoto Nights (1992), Hong Kong Poems (1997) in collaboration with Laurence Wong and other distinguished translators, The Rendez-Vous: Poems of Multicultural Experience (2003), Shaw Sights and Sounds (2006), and a long poem to celebrate the 100th birthday of Sir Run Run Shaw, Star of a Hundred Years: a Scenariode for Sir Run Run Shaw (2009). This poem appeared in English with a translation into Hindi by the poet-critic Anuraag Sharma. His most recent books are Star with a Thousand Moons (2011) and Another Rendez-Vous: Poetry and Prose from the Cultural Crossroads (2011). Individual poems by Andrew Parkin have been translated into Chinese, French and German.
