Writing About Literature
MIT OpenCourseWare presents a literature seminar on how writers rework the texts of others into new creative work. The course examines Mary Shelley's blending of Milton's Paradise Lost, German fairy tales, and scientific writing into Frankenstein, Herman Melville's transformation of a travel narrative into the Gothic novella Benito Cereno, and Alison Bechdel's rewriting of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest in her graphic memoir Fun Home. Film adaptations of some of these works are screened alongside the readings to trace the remixing process into other media. Materials include the syllabus, reading assignments, and writing prompts used in the MIT course, free to access through OpenCourseWare with no certificate offered. The focus throughout is on writing as a form of critical and creative engagement with earlier texts rather than on literary history for its own sake.