English 189H: English 189H:
sbehrend@unlinfo.unl.edu
* = this work is available on line in PDF format, on the seminar Blackboard site
Aug 25 Introduction: what do we mean by “art”? What makes “art” different from other objects?
— in class: introduction to ideas and principles
More intro: why do we call them works of art? What does “work” mean?
— Some in-class examples: are they “art”? Why or why not? Does “art” mean the same thing in each case?
C. P. E. Bach Sinfonia excerpt
Mound City Blues Blowers, “Lola”
Sarah, Hannah, and Leah Peasall, “In the Highway”
Aug 27 Group work on works of art: getting definitions and concepts
read Susanne Langer, “Deceptive Analogies: Specious and Real Relationships among the Arts”*
— in-class work with list of terms for arts analysis and criticism
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Sep 1 Recognizing and evaluating influence, borrowing, copying, allusion I: Manet, Picasso, and Co.
read Aristotle Poetics* and Plato, Ion*
— Le dejeuner sur l’herbe: Manet (Raphael/Raimondi engraving) and Picasso
— the four principal varieties or approaches to criticism:
Sep 3 Influence relationships of another sort: Poussin, David, Picasso
Poussin, Rape of the Sabine Women
David, Battle of the Romans and Sabines
Picasso, Rape of the Sabine Wonmen
West, The Death of General Wolfe
Gillray, The Death of the Great Wolf
Aristotle, Plato and the aims and limitations of art
— writing for class: one page on what seems most important in Poetics
— in class: working our way through the Poetics
Sep 4 Friday: Last day to drop this course without it appearing on your permanent record. After today a “W” will appear on your record if you drop the course.
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Sep 8 What do we mean by imitation in the various arts?
Begin reading Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and Thonrton Wilder, Our Town
(We will get to these in class beginning the week of 6 October)
— in class: group discussion: What is the single most important distinction between Plato’s and Aristotle’s views about imitation and the role and function of the artist?
Sep 10 Language, image, and imitation: three poems
read Charlotte Smith, “Sonnet: Written in the Churchyard. . .”
Adrienne Rich, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”
Heinz Gappmayr, “White”*
More on the poems, plus writing by e.e. cummings and William Carlos Williams*
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Sep 15 What do we mean by expression in art?
read T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”*
What are the differences between MATERIALS and QUALITIES of works of art?
For Thursday: bring in one piece of writing you consider to be particularly “expressive”
Sep 17 Musical examples of expression: Ellington, Ginastera, etc.
[play-in]: Duke Ellington, “The Opener” (“Open Road”)
1. Duke Ellington, “C Jam Blues”
2. Alberto Ginastera, “Danza de la moza donosa” (“Dance of the Graceful Girl”) [1937]
3. Stan Kenton, Intermission Riff
4. Morgana King: Medley, “The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else” / “You’re Driving Me Crazy”
5. Giuseppi Verdi, Requiem: “Dies Irae” (beginning)
How is poetry expressive? Is prose expressive in comparable ways? What about “non-literary” writing?
What makes language expressive? And expressive of what?
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Sep 22 What makes art didactic? What is meant by pragmatic criticism?
read Horace, selections from Ars Poetica*
The arts as vehicles for persuasion and propaganda
Sep 24 What do we mean by formal approaches to the arts? How is movement achieved in visual art?
Are there comparable phenomena in verbal art? In music?
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Sep 29 What is “the aesthetic experience”? Is there such a thing? How do we know?
read Joseph Addison, “The Pleasures of the Imagination”*
Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text”*
Oct 1 Evaluating the aesthetic experience, I: visual arts
Evaluating the aesthetic experience, II: music and the sound arts
Concrete music, concrete poetry
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Oct 6/8 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
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Oct 13 Assessing the experience of (reading) Frankenstein
—What is it like to read the novel? What is it like if it’s the first time you’ve read it?
—How is analyzing literary art different from “experiencing” it more directly and “unfiltered”?
Oct 15 Frankenstein and adaptation
Richard Brinsley Peake, Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein
all those movies . . .
16 F Last day to change your registration to or from “Pass / No Pass” status
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Oct 20 “The pregnant moment” and the expectations of narrative in the arts
read G. E. Lessing, selections from Laocöon*
Oct 22 Modern fiction, the pregnant moment, and the reader as audience
read Alain Robbe-Grillet, “The Dressmaker’s Dummy,” “The Replacement,” “The Wrong Direction,” “The Secret Room”*
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Oct 27 Pictures and poems, I: Brueghel and Williams
read William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Brueghel*
— consider the relationships among Williams’ poems, Brueghel’s pictures, and their audiences
Oct 29 Pictures and poems, II: poems from the PDF file anthology*
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Nov 3/5 Drama (script), Theatre (performance), Opera (composite art in time and space)
Thornton Wilder, Our Town
Ned Rorem and J. D. McClatchy, Our Town
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Nov 10 The fully interdisciplinary artist: William Blake
read Blake, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
Nov 12 Blake
Nov 13 F Last day to withdraw from this course and still have a “W” appear on your permanent record instead of a conventional letter grade.
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Nov 17 One artist encounters another: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Gustave Doré
read Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated by Gustave Doré
— the role and function of the illustration and the illustrator
Nov 19 Coleridge / Doré
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Nov 24 Musical form in literature: the fugue
read Paul Celan, “Todesfuge” and Behrendt translation, “Fugue of Death”*
Sylvia Plath, “Little Fugue”*
download, print, and bring to class the J. S. Bach musical scores*
Nov 26 Thanksgiving Holiday – NO CLASS
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Dec 1 COURSE PROJECT DUE IN CLASS TUESDAY, 1 DECEMBER
Words, Images, Sounds – revisited
Dec 3 More . . .
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Dec 8 Concluding matters, making sense of it all, summing it up (including course evaluations)
Dec 10 Looking (way) ahead. Literature and the Arts Tomorrow