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This course traces the development of the concepts of the Greek, Shakespearean, and modern hero. We establish the basis for students to understand the transitions from a Greek deterministic world to a more contemporary existential or morally ambiguous world. There is also a strong focus on gender issues, analyzing how male-female relationships are portrayed in literature, and how our texts become a lens through which we question ourselves. The primary literary sources include, Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantic poets, Ibsen, and Anouilh. As the course materials are mostly in verse form until Ibsen, students will study the complex aspects of poetic narrative: metaphor, diction, syntax, image, and convention, to name a few elements. The pace of the course is intense and will require maturity, independence, and sophistication from the student.
While we are concerned with the "what" literature means, we are as concerned with the "how" a work comes into meaning. The latter is somewhat more complex and will serve to challenge the honors student. Such examination will inform much of the written analysis of the course.
Students will also study aspects of grammar and will have the opportunity to expand their vocabulary through frequent formal and informal exercises. Finally, enrollment at the honors level presumes a student's commitment to participate in seminar structured discussions. I would refer all involved to the section regarding expectations related to affective or habits of mind.
The English Department intends that all Milken students develop the capacities to write effectively, to read sensitively, to speak convincingly, and to engage all aspects of the discipline imaginatively. The Department is committed to the premise that the study of literature and the exercise of language are the cornerstones of a liberal education that itself is of intrinsic value, serving to liberate the individual’s mind and soul, and to create the capacity for civil and informed discourse within the immediate and broader community. In the context of Milken’s commitment to a pluralistic vision, the pursuit of the understanding of divergent views and the ability to read all forms of experience represent the essential origins of a young person’s emergence as an artist of life, fully competent to live a soulful, committed, intelligent life.
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