Spring 2005

E 316K • Masterworks of Literature: World (31890-31935)

Course Description

This is a course in early Classics—Classics of the West, of Africa, of the Middle East, of the Far East. We will read nothing written after 1600. Class lectures will tell you how and why the selections are Classics--that is, how they influence your culture. It will take you several weeks to figure out what is meant by "Classics." You will have to stay ahead of me in the readings. I will start slowly and be flying through the readings.

Grading Policy

Attendance and quizzes 33%
Mid-term essay 33%
Final exam 33%

Texts

The Harper Collins World Reader: Antiquity to Modern Sundiata, ed. D.T. Niane
Timaeus and Critias, ed. Desmond Lee

Readings:
Contents of Harper Collins World Reader: Confucius, Selected Analects, Genesis 1-11, Lao-Tzu, Tao-Te Ching, Homer, Iliad, Bks. 1 and 22, Li Po, Drinking Alone in the Moonlight, Homer, Odyssey, Bks. 1 and 9, Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book, Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. 6, Master Wolmyong, Requiem, Gospel According to Luke The Seafarer, Ovid, Amores, Guillaume de Lorris, Romance of the Rose, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, The Mahabharata, Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Canto 4, Ashva Ghosha, The Life of Buddha, The Qur'an, Surah 2, Anonymous, Love Poems from the Sanskrit,Plato, Timaeus, Love Poems from the Tamil Sundiata, Petrarch, Sonnet, Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Christopher Columbus, Journal