10639 Landmarks in Western Literary Criticism

Credits: 6 intermediate credits in Comparative Literature

Prerequisites: none

Recommended: At least three courses in Comparative Literature, including Poetics of Narrative Fiction

Authors: Nilli Diengott, Dwora Gilula, Vered Lev Kenaan, Shlomit Levy, Isabel Martin, Yoav Rinun

This course deals with theoretic aspects of poetics in the Western tradition of literary criticism from Plato to the 19th century. Various fundamental issues are discussed in texts by some of the most prominent philosophers and thinkers over two millennia.

Topics: Ancient times – Plato and his predecessors; Aristotle, Poetics; Horatius, The Art of Poetry; The Italian Renaissance: the Ariosto-Tasso controversy; Corneille, Trois discours sur le poème dramatique; Dryden, An Essay of Dramatick Poesie; Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare; Voltaire, Lettres Anglaises (18, 19, 20); Arnold, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time.”