Readings | Studies in Poetry: "What's the Use of Beauty?" | Literature

The required readings for the course are presented in the table below.

Required Texts

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems. New York, NY: Dover, 1992. ISBN: 0486272664.

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0192833677.

Keats, John. Complete Poems. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. ISBN: 5553068290.

Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0691089590.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0192834878.

Wordsworth, William and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads. New York, NY: Routledge, 2005. ISBN: 041535529X.

Readings by Class Session

Course reading.
LEC #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction
2	Elaine Scarry	Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just.
3	Elaine Scarry (cont.)	Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just.
4	Plato	Hamilton, Edith, and Huntington Cairns, eds. "Ion (complete)." The Collected Dialogues of Plato. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, Bollingen series, 1961, pp. 216-228. ———. "The Republic, Book VII and X." The Collected Dialogues of Plato. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, Bollingen series, 1961, pp. 747-753 and 822-833. ———. "Phaedrus." The Collected Dialogues of Plato. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, Bollingen series, 1961, pp. 747-753 and 491-503. ———. "Symposium." The Collected Dialogues of Plato. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, Bollingen series, 1961, pp. 747-753 and 553-563.
5	David Hume	Hume, David. "Of the Standard of Taste." In Selected Essays. Edited by Stephen Copley and Andrew Edgar. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 133-154. ISBN: 0192836218. ———. "Of Refinement in the Arts." In Selected Essays. Edited by Stephen Copley and Andrew Edgar. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 167-77. ISBN: 0192836218.
6	Immanuel Kant	Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Translated by J. H. Bernard. New York, NY: Hafner, 1951, pp. 25-29, 37-39, 45-51, 62-65, and 196-200 (Introduction, section vii; Book 1, sections 1-2, 6-8, 15, 59). ISBN: 0028475003.
7	Friedrich Schiller	Schiller, Friedrich. Essays. Edited by Walter Hinderer and Daniel O. Dahlstrom. New York, NY: Continuum, 1993, pp. 86-90, 92-95, 127-139, and 144-165 (Letters 1-2, 4, 15-18, 20-25). ISBN: 0826407137.
8	William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge	Wordsworth, William, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Preface." In Lyrical Ballads.
9	William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (cont.)	Wordsworth, William, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Simon Lee," "The Thorn," "Goody Blake and Harry Gill," "We are Seven," "The Idiot Boy," and "The Old Cumberland Beggar." In Lyrical Ballads.
10	William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (cont.)	Wordsworth, William, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Michael," and "Hart-Leap Well." In Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
11	William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (cont.)	Wordsworth, William, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Expostulation and Reply," "The Tables Turned," "Tintern Abbey," and "Lines Written in Early Spring." In Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "Frost at Midnight." In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems.
12	Samuel Taylor Coleridge (cont.)	Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "Dejection: An Ode," and "Kubla Khan." In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems.
13	John Keats	Keats, John. "To one who has been too long in city pent," "To my brother George," "How many bards gild the lapses of time," "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "Addressed to Haydon," "Addressed to the Same," "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles," "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again," and "When I have fears that I may cease to be." In Complete Poems.
14	John Keats (cont.)	Keats, John. "Sleep and Poetry," and "To My Brother George." In Complete Poems.
15	John Keats and Walter Benjamin	Keats, John. "Lamia." In Complete Poems. Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In Illuminations. Edited by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York, NY: Schocken, 1968, pp. 217-243. ISBN: 0805202412.
16	John Keats and Walter Benajmin (cont.) Theodor Adorno	Keats, John. "Ode to Psyche," "Ode to a Nightingale," and "Ode to Indolence." In Complete Poems. Adorno, Theodor, and Walter Benajmin. "Lyric Poetry and Society." In The Complete Correspondence, 1928-1940. Edited by Henri Lonitz. Translated by Nicholas Walker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 127-133. ISBN: 0674154274. Adorno, Theodor. Notes to Literature. Vol. 1. Edited by Rolf Tiedemann. Translated by Shierry Weber Nicolson. New York, NY: Columbia, 1991, pp. 37-54. ISBN: 0231063326.
17	Thomas Love Peacock and P. B. Shelley	Peacock, Thomas Love. "The Four Ages of Poetry." In Prose of the British Romantic Movement. Edited by John R. Nabholtz. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1974, pp. 655-661. ISBN: 0023858400. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Defence of Poetry," and "Ode to the West Wind."
18	Mary Shelley	Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Vols. 1-2.
19	Mary Shelley (cont.)	Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Vol. 3.
20	Lord Byron and George Gordon	Byron, Lord, and George Gordon. "Cantos 1-2." In The Complete Poetical Works, vol. V: Don Juan . Edited by Jerome McGann. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 3-157. ISBN: 019812757X.
21	Lord Byron and George Gordon (cont.)	Byron, Lord, and George Gordon. "Cantos 10-11." In The Complete Poetical Works, vol. V: Don Juan. Edited by Jerome McGann. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 437-492. ISBN: 019812757X.
22	Charles Dickens	Dickens, Charles. "Book 1." In Hard Times.
23	Charles Dickens (cont.) Martha Nussbaum	Dickens, Charles. "Books 2-3." In Hard Times. Nussbaum, Martha. Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston, MA: Beacon, 1995, pp. 1-52. ISBN: 0807041084.
24	Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater	Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. Edited by Samuel Lipman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 28-66. ISBN: 0300058675. Pater, Walter. Studies in the History of the Renaissance. Edited by Adam Phillips. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. xxix-xxxiii, and 150-3. ISBN: 019281737X.
25	Oscar Wilde	Wilde, Oscar. The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Selected Critical Prose. Edited by Linda Dowling. New York, NY: Penguin, 2001, pp. 105-6, 122-3, and 127-160. ISBN: 0140433872.
26	Student Presentations