All the King’s Men
English 490: Senior
Seminar
Fall 2007
Professor Bryant Mangum
Schedule of Assignments
(Updated
INTRODUCTION AND CLOSE
(Weeks 1-6)
We will
begin our class with a close reading of All the King’s Men using
something close to a “new critical” or “formalist”
approach, the background for which (and Warren’s role in the development
of this New Critical approach) we will study as we go. During this reading you will annotate
sections of the novel, and we will use these annotations as we proceed through
our close reading.
Week One (23
August)
Course Introduction:
Week Two (28,
30 August)
Chapter
1
Week Three (4,
6 September)
Chapter 1
Robert Penn Warren as
fugitive-agrarian
Week
Four (11, 13
September; No Class Thursday)
Chapter
2
Week Five (18, 20
September)
Chapters
3, 4, 5
Week
Six (25, 27 September)
Chapters
6, 7, 8
BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND
(Weeks 7 and 8)
This
section of the course will involve uncovering biographical details from
Warren’s life that are directly related to the composition, setting, and
story line of the novel. We will also be
working to establish bibliographical information about the contemporary (to the
novel) reception of All the King’s Men and to survey
Week Seven (2, 4 October)
(Chapters
9, 10 carried into Week 7, 8)
Chet Jordan: Composition of the novel
Amber Hancock:
Week Eight (9, 11 October)
Laura Ashworth:
Aine
Norris:
Robyn Shady: The Cass Mastern material (Warren and Jack as Historian)
Annotations (Drafts) Due Wednesday, 11
October
(Weeks
9-11)
In this part of the course we will go into the life
of Huey Long, the world of Louisiana politics in the 1930’s, and realm of
southern history—social and literary—with the idea of establishing
historical context for the novel.
Week
Nine (16, 18 October; No Class 18 October: Reading Day)
Close
Reading Hour Test: Monday, 16 October
Week Ten (23, 25 October)
Tyler Bass:
Kirsten Nason:
Week Eleven (30 October, 1
November)
William Batty : Huey
Long; Other novels based on Huey Long
Stephanie Pace: Huey Long; Other novels based on Huey Long
Short Paper Due on
SECOND
(Week 12)
As it turns out, the text we have is not the text that
Week
Twelve (6, 8 November)
POPULAR
CULTURE
(Weeks 13
and 14)
All the King’s Men has thoroughly worked its way into American popular culture since its publication in 1946. There are, for example, two film adaptations of the novel (one of which won numerous Academy Awards in 1949) and a more recent one (in which James Gandolfini plays Willie Stark); there have also been three stage versions. In this section of the course we will examine the influence of All the King’s Men on American print and media culture—and the influence of popular culture on the reading of the novel as well.
Week Thirteen (13, 15 November)
Jessica Martin:
The stage versions of All the King’s
Men
Lindsay McFeely: The 1949 film version
Week
Fourteen (20 November; No class 22 November: Thanksgiving)
Katie Enroughty: 1996 film version
Draft
of Final Paper Due with Bibliography
THE CRITICAL REPUTATION OF THE NOVEL
(Weeks 15 and 16)
Finally we
will attempt to determine how All the King’s Men has fared with
literary critics during the more-than-half century since its original
publication.
Week
Fifteen (27, 29 November)
Lindsay
Ripley: Contemporary reputation of the novel
Lynn Cowles: A Feminist reading of All the King’s Men
FINAL PAPERS WITH BIBLIOGRAPHIES DUE AT
13 DECEMBER IN OUR SEMINAR ROOM