Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead" can be a useful text in an undergraduate English class, helping students think through issues of individualism. Rand's own concept of the self, however, ignores its social dimensions. (Contains 7 notes.)

This essay explores a reading of "Robinson Crusoe" that suggests the novel has taken on new gravity after the first "preemptive" war in U.S. history, a war justified by the attempt to "spread freedom" to Iraq. It examines how Crusoe comes to understand the relationship between the state and the individual. Robinson…

Explores questions about the use of history in teaching literature and about the relation between academic reading (with its emphasis on form and the objectification of the reading process) and naive reading (which depends on a psychological identification with a character). Illustrates these issues through a discussion of a feminist reader's…

Discusses William Beatty Warner's "Reading Clarissa: The Struggles of Interpretation," a study of Samuel Richardson's role as eighteenth-century critic and interpreter of his own novels. Examines the treatment of character by both Richardson and Warner, focusing on Richardson's humanist interpretation and Warner's anti-humanist…

Examines students' difficulties in reading literature and suggests methods for helping them to develop and improve skills necessary for the mature reading of literature. (MM)