College Seminar 002
Tragedy and Horror
Curtis Bowman
Thomas Hall 121
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 issues in aesthetics.
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's Oedipus the King and Philoctetes, Euripides's The Trojan Women, several weird tales by E. T. A. Hoffmann and H. P. Lovecraft, and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. The commentary will be drawn from works by Plato, Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, and Noël Carroll.
Required Texts
Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror (Routledge)
Diana Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual, 3rd ed. (Bedford/St. Martin's)
Homer, The Iliad (Penguin)
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (Viking Press)
H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin)
D. A. Russell & M. Winterbottom (eds.), Classical Literary Criticism (Oxford) [Abbreviated as CLC]
Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays (Penguin)
(Also, there will also be a package of photocopies containing plays by Sophocles and Euripides, as well as the material from Hoffmann and Freud.)
Readings
Tragedy
(1) Homer's Iliad
(2) The Paradigm of Ancient Tragedy: Sophocles's Oedipus the King
Commentary on Tragedy and its Effects:
(a) Plato's Critique of Tragic Poetry: Book 10 of Republic (CLC, pp. 36-50)
(b) Aristotle's Analysis and Defense of Tragic Poetry: Poetics (CLC, pp. 51-90)
(3) More on the Trojan War: Sophocles's Philoctetes and Euripides's The Trojan Women
Horror
(1) The Weird Tale:
(a) E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman"
Commentary: Sigmund Freud's "The Uncanny"
(b) H. P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," "The Colour Out of Space," and "The Haunter of the Dark"
(2) Carroll's The Philosophy of Horror (pp. 1-11, 12-58, 59-96, 97-128, 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 (30% each).
Participation will count towards 10% of the course grade. There will also be a showing of Robert Wise's The Haunting, a film adaptation of the Jackson novel, and perhaps some other films, if time permits.
Back to the spring 2002 course page.
This page last modified on January 18, 2002.