Click here for Bloom's notes on Blake's poems (pdf file)

Click here for notes on Kant's "Model of the Mind" (pdf file)

Click here for outline notes on Kant's Critique of Judgment (pdf file)

Shelley, selections from Prometheus Unbound (pdf file)

There will be no final exam.

Revised Reading schedule is now online.

Here is the correct link to the online version of Longinus, “On the Sublime” (focus on parts 1-35)

You can use any edition of this text, which is also available in many anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Adams' Critical Theory Since Plato, and Richter's The Critical Tradition.

Description

Often described as indescribable, the sublime is a concept that has for centuries generated debate amongst writers, artists, and philosophers. A mountain, a landscape, a building, a poem, a particularly good meal can all be sublime, as can a heroic deed or a thought. The sublime can also describe a state of mind. The roofless chancel of Rievaulx Abbey fills us with awe and delight; the giant chasm of the Grand Canyon frightens and amazes us; the ocean at night makes us think of infinity; the idea of the divine challenges our sense of space and time.

The idea of the sublime fascinated many eighteenth century writers and thinkers who sought to describe this indescribable concept. Their conception of the sublime as power, immensity, and indefiniteness gave rise to literary responses, like the Gothic with its emphasis on terror and the Romantic with its emphasis on transcendence. In this course, we will begin by examining foundational writings on the sublime, with special attention given to those by Longinus, Burke, and Kant. We will then look at some of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century responses to the sublime, beginning with the popular sublime of the Gothic novel, moving to the Gothic-Romantic of Coleridge, Byron and Shelley, and concluding with the philosophical sublime of Blake and Wordsworth.

Because this is a seminar class rather than a formal lecture course, active and informed contribution to class discussion is expected from all students.

Reading List

The following texts are required for this class:

Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. New York: Penguin, 1995. (0141438793)

Blake, William. “America: A Prophecy” and “Europe: A Prophecy”: Facsimile Reproductions of Two Illuminated Books. New York: Dover, 1984. (0486245489)

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. (0192835807)

Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgment. Trans. Werner Pluhar. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987. (0872200256)

Lewis, Matthew. The Monk. New York: Penguin, 1998. (0140436030)

Wolfson, Manning, eds. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2A. Third Edition Preferred (Second Edition lacks Keats’ “Lamia”). New York: Longman. (0321333942)

Optional Texts:

Shaw, Philip. The Sublime. New York: Routledge, 2006. (0415268486)

Optional Activity: “From Caspar David Friedrich to Gerhard Richter: German Paintings from Dresden” October 5, 2006–April 29, 2007 (Getty Museum)