Masters of Style
F06
Doug Bauer
This course will ask students to read from an eclectic gathering of great writers, and to compose their own narratives that closely follow the distinctive styles they’re reading. First and importantly, students will become uniquely familiar with exemplary works, ones chosen without regard to the customary categories of region, century, nationality, ethnicity. Among those included might be Hemingway, Bellow, James, Faulkner, Beckett, Doctorow, Paley, DeLillo. The course is founded on the notion that the progress toward one’s own authorial voice begins with unapologetic imitation. Also, that through such intimate attention to the sound and sinew of brilliant prose, students will grasp the mundane essences of language—grammar, sentence construction, and so on.