CSP 77 Remaking Literature, Revising History

While classic literary texts such as Arthur Miller's play The Crucible and Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre continue to be read year after year, they have also inspired film adaptations that transition these familiar stories from page to screen, as well as literary rewritings that radically change their plots and characters. In this seminar, we will read Miller's and Brontë's texts and then examine literary rewritings of The Crucible and Jane Eyre by Caribbean novelists Maryse Condé and Jean Rhys. In the process, we will consider how Condé's and Rhys's acts of rewriting shed new light on the histories of the United States, England, Barbados, and Jamaica -- including the problems of slavery, colonialism, and racial prejudice. We will also analyze contemporary film adaptations of Miller's and Brontë's work, seeking to determine whether bringing The Crucible and Jane Eyre from page to screen has had similar implications for the two texts' vision of history.