Classes in the Study of Literature
Recent Courses Offered
Chaucer—Canterbury Tales
This course will introduce you to the wonderful world of fourteenth-century London and the characters that come to life in Chaucer’s descriptions of the pilgrims that head towards Canterbury. You will be surprised how easy it is to read Chaucer in Middle English and to get a feel for the life of the people who inhabited what we now call the Middle Ages. This is a very unique and colorful course.
Beowulf
This is one of the most talked-about names in English literature, but how few people have ever taken the time to read the poem or think about the history it proclaims. This well may be the moment for you. The text we will use is a reading edition of the epic, which means we will give what is virtually a theater performance in the class, thus making it a very dramatic and memorable experience. The book we will be using is Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery by Dick Ringler, a paperback by Hackett Publishing Co. (available from Amazon at about $9). We will also read John Gardner’s famous short novel called Grendel, a book famous in its own right.
History of the English Language and Our Fascination with Words
We begin by examining the nature of language itself and such theories as there being a common ancestor to all languages in the world. We then track the coming of the Germanic languages in c.450 A.D. to the shores of the island now known as England that gave us the roots of our language, and we examine the vocabulary that the Normans brought with them when they conquered England in 1066. The latter part of the course is given over to the modern influences and trends in our language of today and the words we favor and those we don’t.
The Richness of Poetry
One way of describing this course is ‘pearls on a string.’ This is a chance to see poetry as a living and fascinating world of thought and guile. We will read and study poems from many periods of English literature but always keeping an eye and ear on the fine poets of our time. This is not a history of poets but rather a procession of poems that help us to define who we are.
Homer’s The Odyssey
The Odyssey reads like a modern romance but it charts the story of man’s journey from the beginning of time. We will read Robert Fagles’ translation of this seminal work together with related material. The Odyssey is a work rich in human experience and is surprisingly modern in its presentation. This classic work is a wonderful adventure in itself and provides perfect background information for a study of James Joyce’s Ulysses. You will need a copy of Fagles’ book, available in Viking paperback.
Shakespeare – Richard II, Hamlet, and A Winter’s Tale
We will read each play in great detail and discuss the main themes that Shakespeare uses again and again. We will also look at the way these plays were received and understood in their time and in subsequent centuries. Any good edition of the complete plays should work well or you may like to read the plays from well-edited and footnoted individual volumes. The material is rich and the themes unforgettable.
The Bloomsbury Group * NEW COURSE
Who were the people who made up this illustrious and sometimes notorious group? We will follow the lives of those closest to the Group’s center – sometimes through the diaries of Virginia Woolfe. All were creative and controversial men and women and their beliefs, their views on politics, sex, and art help us to understand the cultural climate of English life in the years following the Great War. As a reference text we will read Bloomsbury Recalled by Quentin Bell, available online for $24.00 at www.columbia.edu, ISBN #0-231-10565-7.
Summer Shakespeare Theater: Three Plays – A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest.
All three plays show Shakespeare at his most imaginative. A Midsummer’s Night Dream is full of supernatural effects: love potions, dream sequences, celestial spirits and the like. Antony and Cleopatra is a true history that through Shakespeare’s imagination has been turned from a political and a military defeat into a romantic and enduring triumph of love. The Tempest, Shakespeare’s last play, is set on a magical island on which, through Prospero’s spells, wrongs are righted and past injustices are forgiven. You will need any good edition of these plays.
Humor in Literature
We will take a long look at humorous poetry and prose from the earliest time up to the present moment. We will also look at how puns and jokes have worked over the centuries. Be ready to tell a funny story or two yourself.
The Art of the Short Story: Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway’s short stories are a treasure trove of adventure, experience and emotion – enough to keep us busy all summer long. We will be reading a generous selection of these stores which will also include The Old Man and the Sea. The recommended book to bring is the readily available Finca Vigia edition of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway and any copy of The Old Man and the Sea.
Writing Poetry – A Workshop
This is a new course for those who have already expressed themselves in verse and also for those who have thought about writing poetry but have not yet taken the plunge. We will do a lot of writing in class and also study some well-known poems, looking for strategies and ideas that can help us in the shaping or our own poetry. By the end of the course you can comfortably expect to have several of your own poems written and have enough skills to be your own poetry critic and guide.
Homer’s The Iliad
Homer’s story from the earliest of Greek times reads like a modern novel. The story opens dramatically with two Greek heroes arguing over the possession of a beautiful woman and ends with a young Greek warrior and an old man, the King of Troy, speaking poignantly about their lives and their imminent deaths. In between are scenes of battle, of humor, and of tragic events, and the ever-present wisdom of the storyteller. I suggest we read this epic story in Robert Fagles’ excellent translation (available in paperback form almost anywhere). This course, together with Homer’s The Odyssey (to be given Sept. 2007) and James Joyce’s Ulysses (to be given Nov. 2007), form a cycle that introduces some of the western world’s finest stories – cornerstones to any deep understanding of our literary heritage. Why not plan to take all three as the year unfolds?
Virginia Woolf – the 20th Century Novel
We will be reading closely To the Lighthouse, The Waves, and Mrs. Dalloway and variations on this last book. Woolf’s style is unique and she achieves in her writing a sense of what it is to be a woman that few other writers have ever been able to approach.
Thomas Hardy
This is a new course on Thomas Hardy, one of the great Victorian novelists and a poet of distinction. A new biography Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin (The Penguin Press) records his long life in fascinating detail and offers this tribute: “His legacy is a tremendous one, and extraordinarily varied, in the great novels in which character and landscape are handled with tragic power, and in poetry written and scanned with the idiosyncrasy of genius, that rises to a luminous beauty and catches the heart.” In our Hardy course we will read Return of the Native (1878) and Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) and a selection of his poetry. Any good edition of the novels will do and some participants might wish to read Claire Tomalin’s biography of Hardy.
Virgil's Aeneid
We have a new course that coincides with the publication of a new translation of Virgil's Aeneid by Robert Fagles. We will trace the journey of the man who was destined to be the founder of Rome and get a better understanding of the vital connection between the Greek and Roman empires. The dust jacket of Robert Fagles' new translation of Virgil's great poem informs us that this is 'the story of an epic voyage in which Aeneas crosses the stormy seas, becomes entangled in a tragic love affair with Dido of Carthage, descends to the world of the dead-all the way tormented by the vengeful Juno, Queen of the Gods-and finally reaches Italy, where he will fulfill his destiny: to found the Roman people. A stirring tale of arms and heroism, dispossession and defeat, and an unsparing portrait of a man caught between love, duty, and fate.' What more needs to be said? Please make sure you obtain the Fagles' translation and please read through Book Six before class begins.
The Great Gatsby and The Jazz Age
The Great Gatsby is acknowledged to be one of the greatest novels in the English language and one that the American reader should be justly proud of. We will examine the events that were to be called The Roaring Twenties, a period that gives life and meaning to this work. The work remains as colorful and as fresh in modern memory as The Jazz Age itself. As well as a close reading of the novel, we will study Fitzgerald's life and recapture the atmosphere of the 1920's in America: its heroes, its thirst for money, and its insatiable appetite for fun.
