Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An intensive study of some of the major works which have had a formative influence on the structure and development of western thought. Reading and discussion of primary texts and the major themes which emerge from them will introduce students to essential philosophical, literary, social, and religious themes of western civilization. Texts for this course will be drawn from the Ancient World, Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

The Literary Witch

Powerful women are terrifying. At least, that is how ancient authors represented them. There is a very thin line separating queen or goddess from witch, and this course will explore the way that Western literature has looked at powerful women from the beginning: imbued with supernatural power and preternatural malevolence, they are both desired and despised by the male heroes who encounter them.

The course begins in the Ancient Near East, with Gilgamesh, the earliest recorded epic, and with Eve, the mother of humanity in the Abrahamic faiths. It moves on to Ancient Greece, where we will spend time with the gods and monsters of Classical mythology, from high epic to theatre to what can almost be described as a novel, Apuleius’s Golden Ass.     

The shift to Christianity in the West removes the possibility, but not the memory, of powerful goddesses, and the figure of the witch gets stronger. At the same time, real-world women increasingly find their own voices, and Western tradition starts to worry about women who are too skilled with words. The second half of the course concentrates on medieval women whose speech gets them into and out of trouble, before ending on an examination of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in light of the literary women who came before Lady Macbeth and the three witches.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: