Literature 204A,204B,204C - Comparative Literature I,II,III

Institution:

Bard College

Subject:

Description:

Classical Studies This three-semester sequence examines literature from the time of its emergence and first developments in the West. Each course may be taken independently. The first semester explores the interactions of two crucial terms: "text" and"reader." What sorts of texts were there in antiquity,what sorts of readers, and how did they relate to each other? Course readings, all in English translation, include whole texts and excerpts from authors writing originally in Greek (Sappho, Plato, the gospels); Latin (Cicero, Virgil, Augustine); and Biblical Hebrew (Genesis, Song of Songs, Job). The second semester explores two currents of Enlightenment thought and how their competing visions of human nature inform representative literary texts of the period. The first current considers the individual to be governed primarily by self-interest. The second argues against the reduction of human nature to self-interest by drawing attention to benevolent passions such as sympathy, generosity, and good will. Readings include works by La Rochefoucauld, Hobbes, Pope, Congreve, Addison and Steele, Molière, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Mendelssohn, Diderot, Rousseau, Lessing, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe. The third semester examines the peculiar and perplexing European literary transformation from Romanticism to modernity. Careful reading of selected texts emphasizes the relationship between the self and others, as it occurs in language. What is it to meet others in words? Authors studied include Apollinaire, Balzac, Baudelaire, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Goethe, Gogol, Hoffmann, Hofmannsthal, James, Kafka, Lautréamont, Mallarmé, Novalis,Rilke, Schlegel, Schiller, Wilde, and Woolf.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.bard.edu

Phone Number:

(845) 758-6822

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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