Literary Theory and Criticism

September 10: Introduction 

Lecture Outline:

  -  The History of Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction

An introduction to the main themes of the course. The two roots of literary theory in the traditions of Biblical Hermeneutics and in Philosophical Poetics (the traditions of Revelation and Reason) are explored. The fundamental questions that each literary theory must address in some way are enumerated: 

• The nature of language

• The status of the author and the author's "intention"

• The nature of the "work" of art, its relation to the world

• The role of the reader 

• The question of the historical situatedness of author and of reader, the question of tradition, of influence

• The question of value: what makes a work great? And the status of the "canon" of great works

September 17: Plato

Required Reading:

  -  Plato, The Republic, (ca 375 BCE) Books 2-3, 7 and 10

Lecture Outline:

  -  Plato: The Critique of Poetry in the Republic

September 24: Plato

Required Reading:

  -  Plato, Phaedrus (ca 370 BCE)

Lecture Outline:

  -  Plato: The Question of Writing in the Phaedrus

October 1: Aristotle

Required Reading:

  -  Aristotle, Poetics (ca 335 BCE)

Lecture Outline:

  -  Aristotle's Poetics: An Introduction

October 8: Horace

Required Reading:

  -  Horace, Ars Poetica (19-10 BCE)

Lecture Outline:

  -  Horace's Ars Poetica: An Introduction

October 15: Longinus

Required Reading:

  -  Longinus, On the Sublime (1st C CE)

Lecture Outline:

  -  Longinus's On the Sublime: An Introduction

October 22: Saint Augustine

Required Reading:

  -  Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine (426 CE)

Lecture Outline:

  -  Saint Augustine's On Christian Doctrine: An Introduction

November 5: Moses Maimonides

Required Reading:

  -  Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (1180), Introduction

Lecture Outline:

  -  Moses Maimonides' The Guide of the Perplexed: An Introduction

November 12: Saint Thomas Aquinas

Required Reading:

  -  Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1274) Question 1, Articles 9-10

Lecture Outline:

  -  Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica: An Introduction

November 19: Dante Alighieri

Required Reading:

  -  Dante Alighieri, Letter to Can Grande (1321) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Dante's Theory of Interpretation in the Letter to Can Grande

November 26: Sir Philip Sidney

Required Reading:

  -  Sir Philip Sidney, Defence of Poesie (1580) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Sir Philip Sidney's Concept of Mimesis in the Defence of Poesie

December 3: Alexander Pope

Required Reading:

  -  Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism: An Introduction

December 10: Samuel Johnson

Required Reading:

  -  Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare (1765) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare: An Introduction

January 7: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Required Reading:

  -  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön (1766) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Lessing's Laocoön: An Introduction

January 14: Johann Gottfried von Herder

Required Reading:

  -  Johann Gottfried von Herder, Treatise on the Origin of Language (1772) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Johann Gottfried von Herder's Treatise on the Origin of Language: An Introduction

January 21: Immanuel Kant

Required Reading:

  -  Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement (1790) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgement: An Introduction

January 28: Friedrich von Schiller

Required Reading:

  -  Friedrich von Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man: An Introduction

February 4: William Wordsworth

Required Reading:

  -  William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads: An Introduction

February 11: Friedrich Schleiermacher

Required Reading:

  -  Friedrich Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics (1819) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics: An Introduction

February 18: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Required Reading:

  -  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on Fine Art (1835-38) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Hegel's Lectures on Fine Art: An Introduction

March 4: Karl Marx

Required Reading:

  -  Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1845-46) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Marxism: An Introduction

March 11: Charles Baudelaire

Required Reading:

  -  Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life (1863) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Baudelaire's The Painter of Modern Life: An Introduction

March 18: Matthew Arnold

Required Reading:

  -  Matthew Arnold, The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (1864) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Matthew Arnold's Theory of Criticism and Culture: An Introduction

March 25: Walter Pater

Required Reading:

  -  Walter Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) (Preface)

Lecture Outline:

  -  Walter Pater's Theory of Criticism and Culture: An Introduction

April 1: Stéphane Mallarmé

Required Reading:

  -  Stéphane Mallarmé, Crisis in Poetry (1896) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Mallarmé's Theory of Poetry: An Introduction

April 8: Friedrich Nietzsche

Required Reading:

  -  Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) 

Lecture Outline:

  -  Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy: An Introduction