Episodes in Literary Cultures: Literature and History

From antiquity to the present, writers and artists have addressed the question of how to lead a good life, as well as addressing the obstacles--fate, the gods, our own divided psyches--that have made it difficult for us to do so. They have presented conflicting notions of what the good life is, and what its relationship is to happiness and happenstance. In this course, we will explore a range of ancient and modern takes on these questions. We will read texts by Homer, Sophocles, Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Virginia Woolf and Kazuo Ishiguro. We will also spend some time talking about how to develop a writing style (your own!) that combines creativity, originality, and analytical power.