This course explores the ways that literature is grounded in the very act of reinventing -- or reclaiming, or redirecting -- earlier stories, themes, rhythms, grievances, and passions for the author’s own purposes. We read Shakespeare's The Tempest, Honore de Balzac’s Cousin Bette, poems by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, James Baldwin’s essays, and the novel Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Together they represent a chronological spread from the early seventeenth century to the present day, and they span literary genres from drama to life-writing, poetry, and fiction. Weekly full-course meetings will alternate lectures and panels (which will include students); section meetings will engage in discussions and close reading of texts. Students must register for both the lecture and discussion section (LLST 2006) of this course. This course fulfills the Core Course requirement in Literary Studies.