English 202

Book List

Arendt, Hannah: Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy; Aristotle: Poetics; Augustine: On Christian Doctrine; Kant, Immanuel: Critique of Judgment; Longinus: On Sublimity; Plato: Phaedrus; Plato: Republic; Sidney: Defense of 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 discourse of the sublime. Readings in Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Augustine, Sidney, Erasmus, Kant, Adorno, and Arendt. The syllabus is designed to be particularly helpful to students in English, but 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.