Syllabus

By: Pam Reponen

Magic Lessons

Professor: Jonathan Mulrooney

Department: English

Description: An examination of the significance of literary—and some filmic—magic in the Anglo-American tradition, from the Renaissance to the present day, focusing on the study of its varied appearances as a literary device within changing historical contexts.

Content: Arrangement into six “Magic Lessons”: “Lesson One: Witches and Warlocks” focuses on Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Tempest.

Selected Texts: Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen; Mosses from an Old Manse, by Nathaniel Hawthorne; and The Once and Future King, by T.H. White

Requirements: Two essays, mid-term and final exams; and in-class and online participation

Class Topic: Considering a segment from the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban—and, also, selections from works by C.S. Lewis, and William Wordsworth—students explored magic’s capacity to elucidate the human experience by moving readers from the ordinary to the extraordinary. In these works, the magical child reconnects audiences with lost and forgotten experiences of childhood, history and time.

Professor quote: “Far from being an escape from the real, I see magic, and literary magic especially, as a way that authors re-engage the historical and social world in which they are writing. I want the students to consider the various narrative and stylistic techniques by which writers invite them—via “magic”—to encounter the real.”

Professor’s bio: Receiving his Ph.D. in 2001 from Boston University, Mulrooney joined the College faculty in 2004; his teaching interests include British Romantic literature, 19th-century British and American literature, poetry, and film and theatrical performance. The author of numerous articles for academic journals, Mulrooney recently completed a book manuscript, titled Romanticism and Theatrical Experience.

Student quote: “Before I took Magic Lessons, I thought magic was a way to escape the sad realities of the world around me,” says Brynn Olson ’10. “Now, after closely reading books and poems that I used to think of as an escape, I realize that the authors and poets were using the desire to escape in order to put me in closer contact with reality. In this way, magic becomes a way to look at our world through a different lens, using events beyond our understanding to shape the way we see reality.”