Spring 2006 Course Calendar
Class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:00-3:15 in Grainger 101.
Unless otherwise indicated, the Arabic numerals following the titles of the works listed below refer to the major divisions of the work in question--for Homer and Vergil, "books"; for Dante, "cantos"; and for Petrarch, individual poems.
The instructor will provide the password for hyperlinked texts below.
| 17 January | Course introduction: Why is literature important? A close reading of the Akedah (the binding of Isaac) [pdf], from the Hebrew Bible. Other versions of the story: Abraham and Ishmael (the Qur-an) [pdf], and Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" [pdf]. Go here for an audio file [wma]. |
| 19 January | The Hebrew Bible, Genesis 1-3, 6-9 (creation stories, Noah) [pdf]; the story of Lilith, from the Alphabet of Ben Sira; Sumerian creation and flood myths [pdf]; The Qur'an, Sura 11 (Noah) [pdf]. Be prepared to compare and contrast (1) all of the creation/garden stories, and (2) all of the flood stories. |
| 24 January | Homer, Iliad 1, 2 (lines 1-583 only), 3. |
| 26 January | Homer, Iliad 4, 5, 6. |
| 31 January | Homer, Iliad 8 (lines 1-90, 566-654 only), 9, 16. |
| 2 February | Homer, Iliad 18, 19 (lines 333-356 only), 22, 24.. |
| 7 February | Vergil, Aeneid 1-2. |
| 9 February | Class Cancelled. |
| 14 February | Vergil, Aeneid 4, 6. |
| 16 February | Vergil, Aeneid 8 (lines 793-992), 10 (lines 606-1276), 12 (lines 963-1298). |
| 21 February | The Bhagavad Gita, chapters 1-11. |
| 23 February | EXAM #1. Please bring a blue book to class. |
| 28 February | The New Testament, Sermon on the Mount (King James Version) (Matthew 5-7) [pdf]; selections from Augustine's Confessions [pdf]; and selections from Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. [pdf] |
| 2 March | Dante, Inferno 1-4. |
| 7 March | Dante, Inferno 5-6, 10, 13. |
| 9 March | Dante, Inferno 14-15, 21-22, 26-27. |
| 14/16 March | Spring Break. |
| 21 March | Dante, Inferno , 30-34, selections from Purgatorio and Paradiso. [pdf] |
| 23 March | Selections from Li Po. [pdf] |
| 28 March | EXAM #2. Please bring a blue book to class. |
| 30 March | Petrarch, "The Ascent of Mount Ventoux" and selections from the Canzoniere. [pdf] |
| 4 April | Cervantes, Don Quixote, part I, chs. 1-8. |
| 6 April | Cervantes, Don Quixote, part I, chs. 9-15. |
| 11 April | Cervantes, Don Quixote, part I, chs. 20, 22, 25, and 52. |
| 13 April | Milton, Paradise Lost 1 (lines 1-270), 9. [pdf] |
| 18 April | Milton, Paradise Lost 9, continued. [pdf] |
| 20 April | Voltaire, Candide, chapters 1-17. |
| 25 April | Voltaire, Candide, chapters 18-30. |
| 27 April | Samuel Beckett, "Krapp's Last Tape." [pdf] |
| 5 May Friday |
Final Exam: 11:30-2:00. Please bring a blue book to class. |