COM LIT S170X
3 Units
Theory and Practice of the Essay
Offered through
Comparative Literature
About this Course
Catalog Course Description
Since the Renaissance the essay has been the principal literary genre for exploring issues involving the relationship between the self, language, and knowledge. This course will investigate the close relationship between the development of the essay in the West and the invention of modern forms of subjectivity. We will read selections (Plutarch, Erasmus, Montaigne, Bacon, Emerson, Hazlitt, Woolf, Ortega, Benjamin, Adorno, Barthes, Sontag, Cixous, Calvino, Paz) by major practitioners of the form, and by contemporary critics and theorists who have analyzed its workings. And, of course we will write essays of our own.
Classes Offered
Hours & Workload
Summer Term
15 hours of Outside Work Hours per week and 7.5 hours of Instructor presentation of course materials per week.