ENGL 109 - Complaints, Rants, and Grievances

Institution:

Williams College

Subject:

English

Description:

We complain in order to voice our dissatisfaction with things as they are. It is a rhetorical form that seems to demand change or, at minimum, acknowledgement. As a genre, however, the complaint and its companions, the rant and the grievance, often speak to deaf ears: a distant and uncaring beloved; a bureaucracy that may not recognize one's humanity; abstractions, systems, and machines. In literary form, complaints introduce questions such as: What is the relationship between literary complaints and legal ones? What effects can such expressions have on social and political realities? Is it necessary that someone hear our dissatisfaction, or might the simple act of voicing complaint relieve our frustrations? We will explore texts that engage thematically or formally with the genres of the complaint, the rant, and the grievance, including complaint poems; stories that thematize repetition, frustration, and disillusionment; and political forms such as the manifesto. We will read writers including Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Herman Melville, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Willa Cather, Valerie Solanas, David Wojnarowicz, and Jamaica Kincaid; we will also consider some alternative and collective forms, such as the harmonized frustrations of the Helsinki Complaints Choir.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Seminar

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.williams.edu

Phone Number:

(413) 597-3131

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Four-one-four plan

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