English 190

Other Readings and Media

Milton, J: Complete Poems (Penguin); De Quincey, T: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (Oxford); Austen, J: Sense and Sensibility (Oxford); Brockden Brown, C: Wieland (Penguin); Crane, H: Complete Poems (Liveright)

Description

This course aims to follow the strange history of “enthusiasm” by tracing its manifestations in a variety of literary and historical contexts. Today, “enthusiasm” carries the generally positive meaning of “rapturous interest or excitement,” but the word derives from the ancient Greek “ethousiasmos” (“the fact of being possessed by a god”), and in eighteenth-century Europe it generally carried negative connotations. Samuel Johnson defined it as a particularly dangerous form of error: “a vain belief in divine revelation.” After exploring some ancient sources (Plato, Longinus, and biblical texts), we will focus on modern representations of enthusiasm in four historical phases: 1) The English Revolution (with emphasis on Milton); 2) Eighteenth-Century Britain (Locke, Shaftesbury, Hume, and Smart); 3) The Romantic Period (Blake, Brockden Brown, Austen, and De Quincey); and 4) the rhapsodic tradition in American poetry (Emerson, Whitman, Crane, and Ginsberg). Students will write two essays and take a final exam.

English 190 replaced English 100 and 150 as of Fall '09. English majors may fulfill the seminar requirement for the major by taking one section of English 190 (or by having taken either English 100 or English 150 before Fall '09). Please read the paragraph on page 2 of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.