Precocity-knowing too much too early and without understanding the implications of what you know-is often the subject of literary texts, perhaps because it dramatizes the stakes of interpreting. Precocity can emerge in a character, in narrative posture, or in the very texture of the writing. It can produce highly charged dramatic situations, comic or ruinous; it can precipitate crises of character and of narrative. We will read Nabokov's Lolita, James' The Turn of the Screw, Stoppard's play Arcadia, and a range of poems and stories. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: students will write four short papers totaling 15-20 pages. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference given to first-year students.