English 202

History of Literary Criticism

Book List

Recommended: Arendt, Hannah: Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy; Aristotle: Poetics; Kant, Immanuel: Critique of the Power of Judgment; Longinus: On Great Writing (On the Sublime); Plato: Republic; Sidney, Philip: Apology for Poetry

Description

An introduction to Western literary theory from antiquity to the present, focusing on the historical shift from the disciplines of poetics and rhetoric to that of aesthetics, with special attention to the concept of mimesis and the discourse of the sublime. Readings in Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Longinus, Sidney, Erasmus, Milton, Kant, Arendt, Heidegger, Adorno, and others. The syllabus is designed to be particularly helpful to students in English, but, if there is room for them, students from other departments are welcome and may write their final paper on a primary text or texts in other languages.

This course satisfies the Group 6 (non-historical) requirement.

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