College Seminar 002
Tragedy and Horror: The Aesthetics of Literary Response

Curtis Bowman
Office: Thomas 121
Office Hours: MW 4:30-5:30
cubowman@nous.phil.upenn.edu
http://www.phil.upenn.edu/~cubowman

Course Description

The purpose of this course is to read and reflect on literary works that provoke responses in us that we are bound to find puzzling, in particular our responses to the representations of tragic or horrifying events. Normally, witnessing such events is painful, yet in literary contexts we can derive great pleasure from the representations of events that would be anything but pleasurable to us if were they real. Understanding how we can take pleasure in these representations is one of the foundational questions of aesthetics, a philosophical discipline devoted to the elucidation of the nature of art and our responses to it.

We will alternate between literature and aesthetics, using philosophical commentary to deepen our appreciation of the literature. The literary works that we will read will include Homer's Iliad, Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. The philosophical readings will be drawn from works by Plato, Aristotle, Simone Weil, Sigmund Freud, and Noël Carroll.

Required Texts

Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror    (Routledge)

Homer, The Iliad    (Penguin)

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House    (Viking Press)

D. A. Russell & M. Winterbottom (eds.), Classical Literary Criticism    (Oxford)

Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus    (Penguin)

Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays    (Penguin)

Simone Weil, The Iliad, or The Poem of Force    (Pendle Hill)

(Also, there will also be a package of photocopies containing the material from Hoffmann, Freud, LeFanu, and Lovecraft.)

Readings

Ancient Tragedy and Aesthetics

(1) Homer's Iliad

Commentary: Weil's The Iliad, or The Poem of Force

(2) Sophocles' Oedipus the King

Commentary on Tragedy and its Effects:

(a) Plato's Critique of Tragic Poetry: Ion and Books 2-3, 10 of The Republic

(b) Aristotle's Analysis and Defense of Poetry: Poetics

Modern Tragedy and Horror

(1) Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus

(2) The Horror Tale:

(a) E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman"

Commentary: Sigmund Freud's "The Uncanny"

(b) J.S. LeFanu's "Schalken the Painter" and H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror"

Commentary: Carroll's The Philosophy of Horror (pp. 1-11, 12-58, 59-96, 158-195)

(3) Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House

Course Requirements

Students will write one short paper (2-3 pages) and three longer papers (5-10 pages in length). I will read and comment on first drafts of each paper, and then students will meet me for conferences to discuss the comments. Students will then revise the paper for a grade. The papers will contribute to the course grade as follows: first paper (10%), second paper (20%), third and fourth papers (25% each).

Policies concerning papers

(1) Any student requiring an extension should arrange for one at least three days in advance of handing in the paper. A paper without an extension will be considered late and penalized accordingly. A letter grade will be deducted from the grade for every full week or fraction thereof that the paper is late.

(2) I expect that first drafts will be complete papers: that is, not just a collection of notes or a few paragraphs without a conclusion. I will not comment on or hold conferences about drafts that are not complete.

(3) Papers must be printed when they are handed in. I will not accept e-mail attachments.

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This page last modified on January 14, 2000.