BC 3194 History of Criticism

BC 3194 History of Criticism		C. H. Plotkin
Spring term, 2002		401b Barnard
T/Th 10:25 – 11:50		x42101
406 Barnard Hall	*Synoptic Syllabus*	cplotkin@barnard.columbia.edu

I. Classical points of departure: setting the terms

Jan.	22	Introduction and theoretical orientations
	24	Plato [ - ] Ion; from Cratylus Plato: Republic, from Books II, III, VI, VII, X
	29	Aristotle [ - ]: Poetics [Sophocles, Oedipus Rex]
	31	Horace [ - ]: The Art of Poetry “[Dionysius] Longinus” [fl. ] On the Sublime Plotinus [ - ]: “On Intellectual Beauty” (Ennead V.8) Summary and discussion of classical topics

II. Medieval inflections: recovering the pre-Christian, theologizing literature

Feb.

Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine) [     -     ]: On Christian Doctrine bks. I and II
Thomas Aquinas (St. Thomas) [     -     ]: from Summa Theologica, “The Nature and Domain of Sacred Doctrine” (Ninth and Tenth Articles)
Dante Alighieri [     -     ]: from The Banquet; from “Letter to Can Grande della Scala”
James Joyce [     -     ]: from Stephen Hero*; from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*

III. Renaissance discoveries and inventions: the past as seedbed of the present

	7	Giovanni Boccaccio [ - ]: from Life of Dante; from Genealogies of the Gentile Gods Lodovico Castelvetro [ - ]: from Aristotle’s Poetics Translated and Explained Iacopo Mazzoni [ - ]: from On the Defense of the Comedy of Dante Torquato Tasso [ - ]: from Discourses on the Heroic Poem, bk. I
	12	Sir Francis Bacon [ - ]: from The Advancement of Learning Sir Philip Sidney [ - ]: An Apology for Poetry Summary and discussion of Renaissance topic [A Midsummer Night’s Dream]

IV (a). Neo-classical rules and universals

	14	Pierre Corneille [ - ]: Of the Three Unities of Action, Time, and Place John Dryden [ - ]: An Essay of Dramatic Poesie
	19	Alexander Pope [ - ]: An Essay on Criticism Samuel Johnson [ - ]: The Rambler, No. 4 [On Fiction]; from Rasselas, ch. X; from Preface to Shakespeare [The Cid]

(b) Questioning certainties

Gottfried Ephraim Lessing [ - ]: from Laocoön, ch. XVI
David Hume [ - ]: Of the Standard of Taste

	26	Joseph Addison [ - ] The Spectator nos. 411, 416, 418 [The Pleasures of the Imagination] [Sentimental Journey] Edmund Burke [ - ]: from A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (Introduction, §§ VII, X, XXVII)
	28	Immanuel Kant [ - ]: from The Critique of Judgement, bks. 1 & 2

V. Romantic revolution: myth-makings and recenterings; rejection and fulfilment of the critical Enlightenment

Mar.	5	William Blake [ - ]: from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; from Annotations to Reynolds’ Discourses; from A Descriptive Catalogue, “The Ancient Britons”; from A Vision of the Last Judgment Percy Bysshe Shelley [ - ]: A Defense of Poetry
	7	William Wordsworth [ - ]: Preface to the Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads [Selected Poems]
	12	Samuel Taylor Coleridge [ - ]: “Shakespeare’s Judgment Equal to His Genius”; from The Statesman’s Manual; from Biographia Literaria, chs. XIII & XIV
	14	Friedrich von Schiller [ - ]: from Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man Arthur Schopenhauer [ - ]: from The World as Will and Idea, bk. I* Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling [ - ]: from On the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature [from The Prelude, episode on Mt Snowdon] Summary and discussion of Romantic topics

SPRING BREAK

VI. Post-romantic divisions: historical earnest, scientific method, esthetic autonomy

	26	Matthew Arnold [ - ]: Preface to the 1853 Edition of Poems; The Function of Criticism at the Present Time; from The Study of Poetry
	28	Hippolyte Taine [ - ]: Introduction to History of English Literature Karl Marx [ - ]: from The German Ideology; from Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Émile Zola [ - ]: from The Experimental Novel {fast forward to Georg Lukács [ - ]: “The Ideal of the Harmonious Man in Bourgeois Aesthetics”}
Apr.	2	Charles Baudelaire [ - ]: from The Salon of 1859; from “Richard Wagner’s Tannhaeuser in Paris”; “Correspondences” Walter Pater [ - ]: from Studies in the History of the Renaissance
	4	Stéphane Mallarmé [ - ]: “The Evolution of Literature”; “The Book: A Spiritual Instrument”; “Mystery in Literature” [Mallarmé, The Afternoon of a Faun, A Throw of the Dice] Friedrich Nietzsche [ - ]: from The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music [Heart of Darkness] Summary and discussion of post-romantic topics

VII. Continuities and adumbrations: the early 20th century

	9	Sigmund Freud [ - ]: “Creative Writers and Daydreaming” Karl Gustav Jung [ - ]: “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry"
	11	Jacques Lacan [ - ]: “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” [from Finnegans Wake]
	16	Walter Benjamin […..-…..]: “On Language as Such and On the Language of Man Viktor Shklovsky [ - ]: “Art as Technique" Roman Jakobson [ - ]: “The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles”
	18	Mikhail Bakhtin [ - ]: “Epic and Novel: Toward a Methodology for the Study of the Novel” Georges Bataille [ - ]: “The Notion of Expenditure”
	23	T.S. Eliot [ - ]: “Tradition and the Individual Talentö; “Hamlet and His Problems” I.A. Richards [ - ]: from Practical Criticism
	25	W.K. Wimsatt [ - ] & Monroe Beardsley [ - ]: “The Affective Fallacy”; “The Intentional Fallacy” Cleanth Brooks [ - ]: “The Heresy of Paraphrase”
	30	Northrop Frye [ - ]: from Anatomy of Criticism: “Ethical Criticism: Theory of Symbols”
May	2	Selected by the class

An asterisk refers to a handout.

Two 7-pp essays, the first due before mid-term, the second by the end of classes.

Course synopsis

Course text: Hazard Adams, Critical Theory Since Plato (revised ed.) (HBJ). On order at Labyrinth Books.

Literary references: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex; Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Corneille, The Cid; Sterne, Sentimental Journey; Wordsworth, The Prelude; others TBA

Strongly recommended: a glossary or handbook of literary criticism such as M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms