Intertextuality, Realism and The Classic: The Case of Coetzee and Defoe

Instructor: Maya Klein

This class will explore the relationship between 20th century writer J.M. Coetzee and the “father of the English novel” Daniel Defoe. We will pay particular attention to Coetzee’s dual position as a writer and critic and the interplay between his nonfiction and fictional works. We will also address the political significance both of Coetzee’s stance as a South African writing during the apartheid years and his decision to rewrite Defoe’s classic work of fiction in the voice of a female narrator.

We will read Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) alongside Coetzee’s rewriting of the novel some 250 years later in Foe (1986) as well as three of Coetzee’s essays:  “He and His Man” (Nobel Laureate Address 2003), “What is a Classic?”(1993) and “What is Realism?” (1997).

Coetzee’s unique relationship with Defoe will open up key questions of literature, including the notion of original creation; realism; the form of the novel; intertext and influence; gender; “textual transvestism”, the double, and the classic.

Primary texts are Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Coetzee’s Foe and the three essays by Coetzee. Secondary texts include (but are limited to) works by the following critics: Erich Auerbach, M.M Bakhtin, Georg Lukács, Ian Watt, Harold Bloom, Gilbert and Gubar, Ankhi Mukerjee, Derek Attridge, Lucy Graham, and Marc Sanders.