The course will approach directly the question of why it is often difficult to “understand” a literary work.  Is obscurity a necessary or an accidental quality of literary works?  Does it belong inherently to a particular work or does it arise only in the process of interpretation?  What is the political dimension of this whole area of thought?  The course will begin with several texts of Kafka that appear to suggest relatively cynical answers to these questions, but in the end only generate further questions.  Works discussed in the course will be mainly poems, short plays, and short prose works.  Authors treated will include Shakespeare, Eliot, Rimbaud, Goethe, Melville, Rilke, e.e. cummings, Hölderlin, Ionesco, Jarry, Kokoschka, Beckett.  Space will be left in the syllabus for texts suggested by the students.  All non-English texts will be read in English translation.