E314J FAll 2007 Literature and Popular Music

Welcome to E314J Literature and Popular Music

This course will examine several aspects of the interrelations between popular music and literature in the 20th century. The course will examine various literary texts with a specific emphasis on how music and musicality functions in each work. Another component of the course will be the converse and complimentary task of exploring popular music using the tools of literary study. The course will concern itself with a number of related questions/themes including: searching for an inherent musicality in various literary forms, the role of music and literature in socialization and identity formation, musical/literary cross-fertilization, and the divergent implications of studying music and literature as both combined and distinctly separate media.