Early Modern Subjects
- Spring 2016
Additional Details:
The early modern period has been traditionally viewed as marking a radical re-orientation in how human beings think about their place in the world. Starting with Burckhardt’s highly influential study of the Renaissance in the mid-nineteenth century, the problem of subjectivity has become one of the signature concepts through which the literary manifestations of this historical development have been understood. This course will undertake a distinctly historicist approach to this topic. After a brief look at some important classical and medieval texts, we will proceed to examine a series of early modern writings from a variety of genres in order to gain a fuller appreciation for this key concept of subjectivity. Extracts from more contemporary literary criticism will round out our reading list, allowing us to consider some of the more recent paradigms for interpreting this material.
Readings for the class will include the following:
Plato, Ion; Republic (selections)
Aristotle, Poetics
Horace, Ars poetica
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
Augustine, The Confessions
Petrarch, “Ascent of Mont Ventoux”
Dante, Inferno
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy (selections)
Montaigne, Essays (selections)
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Cervantes, Exemplary Novels
Góngora, The Solitudes
Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (selections)
Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations (selections)
Foucault, The Order of Things (selections)
Maravall, Culture of the Baroque (selections)