amimetobios

More on  Virgil's relation to Homer and the Aeneid as a response to Homer. Virgil's sublimity: sunt lachrymae rerum and facile descensus Averni. Descents into the underworld in Homer, Virgil, and Dante.  The treacherous Sinon in Virgil and in the Inferno.  Self division ubiquitous and deep in Virgil, whereas only found in this mode in Achilles in Homer.  Three scenes of supplication from Aeneas's point of view as the one supplicated.

10/21/10 Conclusion of analysis of Pope's pyrotechnical mimesis in the Essay on Criticism; exposition of the difference between rules (artificially formulated and imposed) and laws (discovered in nature and in the poets who discovered them in nature); consideration of the variety of his tones; analysis of the conclusion of Eloisa to Abelard with her describing how later people like Pope will write poems in her voice; beginning of an account of Rape of the Lock, including the relation of mock to serious epic as being in some ways like the relation between true criticism and poetry.

An introductory class on Pope, in particular the Essay on Criticism.  Pope's poetic mode compared to Dryden's.  Some account of Pope's effects in the essay.  The difference between judgment and creation; and the similarities between them: how Virgil was a great critic of Homer and had to be in order to use Homer as the model for the Aeneid.  Pope's own critical theories and his holism.

A mixed class, with some more attention to Ovid, especially the myth of Narcissus and its way of thinking through mirror image representations and parallelism; and then some examination of both the parallels and the differences between Homer and Virgil -- what it was that Virgil was attempting to refigure within Homer and how.  Consideration of the way Virgil likes to give Homeric scenes a perspective from the other important figure in the scene, reversing subject and object.

First class on Ovid -- Milton's versions of Ovidian creation (from Chaos and pure matter, not ab nihilo) and of Proserpine gathering flowers.  Ovid's mythic consistency compared to Plato's theory of the consistency or coherence of truth.  Brief account of the parable of the cave in the Republic,

Swift in a more serious mode: his honesty about himself as well as others.  The verses on the death of Dr. Swift.  His view of himself at the end.  His praise of Pope.  La Rochefoucauld on human folly.  Swift's version of this.  His lovely realism with respect to Stella.

Philosophy vs. comedy: this world and the world of forms. The competition between them. Theories of truth: coherence vs. correspondence. Philosophy wants consistency, whereas comedy isn't interested in consistency but simply in correspondence. Aristophanes and Jon Stewart: political commentary.

Second class on Plato: the through line in Socrates being his ambivalence about poetry: in the Republic, in the Ion, for example.  His penchant for quoting Homer despite this.  Compared to Hamlet quoting Aeneas's Tale to Dido.  What threat does poetry represent to philosophy? Both seek the same ground as discourses of everything.  The idea of divine inspiration: the magnetic influence of poetry.  More on forms.  The form of mud in the Parmenides.

FIrst (of two) classes on Swift.  Swift's vividness compared to Rochester's.  His misanthropy and also his sense of human wrong: how it's the fact that humans do wrong that makes them hateful, but the wrong they do is to humans.  Corinna and Celia as human and as holding it together when everything is falling apart.  Swift's sense of how hard aesthetic surface or "varnish" is.  Virgilian description of a city shower.

Rochester's range, the beauty of some of his poems, their psychological acuity.  His account of fear and the self-sustaining paradoxes of mutual fear, including the fear of being thought fearful. Dr.  Johnson's quotation of his bon mot: "All men would be cowards if they durst."  Obscenity of "The Imperfect Enjoyment" but even there Rochester's surprising acknowledgment of women's experience. Definitely not safe for work!