Spring 2004

HUMS 630
Epic Tradition from Homer to Milton

Friedberg,Harris A.

01/26/2004 - 05/08/2004
Thursday 05:30 PM - 08:30 PM

285 Court Street

This course will study how our ideas of human nature--categories like life and death, body and soul, shame and guilt, love and sex, honor and glory--evolve while exploring the most important literary genre before the novel. We will be reading those canonical works that constitute the very idea of Western Civilization, articulate its values, and define the heroic--the ideology or implicit value system of patriarchy. They are also works of great power. Starting with the dawn of history and ending with the dawn of the modern era, we will interrogate how those ideas and ideals construct the idea of human nature by seeing how they are constructed chronologically.

We will study Homer's IILIAD and ODYSSEY, Virgil's AENEID, Dante's INFERNO and Milton's PARADISE LOST.

Students are responsible for two papers, a class presentation, and class participation.


Harris Friedberg (B.A. Harvard University; Ph. D. Yale University) is associate professor of English. Recent publications include: "Prose and Poetry: Wimsatt's Verbal Icon and the Romantic Poetics of New Criticism," Poetics Today, 26 (2005). Click here for more information about Harris Friedberg.

ENROLLMENT INFORMATION

Consent of Instructor Required: No

Format: Seminar

Level: GLSP Credits: 3 Enrollment Limit: 18

Texts to purchase for this course:
Dante THE INFERNO (Anchor) paperback

Homer THE ILIAD (Penguin USA) paperback

Homer THE ODYSSEY (Penguin USA) paperback

John Milton PARADISE LOST (W.W. Norton) paperback

Virgil THE AINEID (Bantam) paperback

READING MATERIALS AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323

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