The goal of this course is to introduce students to classics of literary imagination from the dawn of human history to the cusp of our modern era. We’ll explore works of various kinds and forms—epic, lyric, dramatic. We’ll ask questions, compare responses, and think together about how literature and visual expression fruitfully coexist in ongoing conversation, and how they express the plight and glory of human experience. The goal is to heighten our appreciation of the arc and build of a centuries-old tradition of inspired storytelling, in words and pictures.
Literary Traditions is designed by the Department of the Humanities to cultivate, in students and instructors alike, the skill of participatory reading by studying formative literary texts from multiple traditions chosen for their aesthetic, imaginative, and cultural significance within their specific contexts and across histories and geographies.
- Teacher: Albert Lafarge