Pastoral Literature 

 

 

An entreaty from Christopher Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd to His Love - thought by many to be the crowning example of Elizabethan pastoral poetry. The traditions of pastoral poetry, literature and drama can be traced back to the third century BC and have principally offered a conventionalised picture of rural life, the naturalness and innocence of which is seen to contrast favourably with the corruption and artificialities of city and court life.

 

Contemporary English Language Literature
The following reading material is carried out in 2006-2007.
In this booklet a few extracts in the original are offered from outstanding books by contemporary English language fiction authors.
Each extract is preceded by a short introduction and followed by discussion questions and some vocabulary tasks. Among the authors there are best-selling ones, even "cult fiction" figures from the UK, the USA and Canada.
The collection is for upper-intermediate level of English.

Eric Rabkin is a Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. As a teacher, Rabkin is especially known for his large, popular lecture courses on science fiction and fantasy, and for his many teaching innovations, including the development of the highly successful Practical English writing program for those who will use writing in their work lives, and for his work at all levels, including faculty training, in research and communication applications of computer technologies.

Soul and the city – Art, Literature and Urban Living
(8 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 484
Taught by Arnold Weinstein
Brown University
Ph.D., Harvard University

"A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life." —Samuel Johnson
We spend our lives building in empty spaces. Out of nothing, we make something. We fashion jobs, relationships, structures, and meanings. Without these creations, we would live in a wasteland.
The Soul and the City: Art, Literature, and Urban Living is not a compendium of statistics on city life, a guidebook, or a historical look. This course focuses on complex artistic representations of city life from the 18th to the 20th century.
Brown University's Professor Weinstein (Ph.D., Harvard University) selects particular moments and cities to illustrate urban themes such as anonymity, orientation, and exchange. You visit St. Petersburg just before the Russian revolution, the industrial age in the novels of Charles Dickens, and the present global electronic era on the cinematic screen. Professor Weinstein serves as a literary theorist, cultural critic, and philosopher.
Portraits of humanity come through several great artists in a variety of mediums:
Painter Edvard Munch depicts the emptiness of urban living.
Poet Charles Baudelaire celebrates how crowds impact his imagination.
Author Daniel Defoe dramatizes the freedom the city offers people who want to change their identities.

Masterworks of Early 20th-Century Literature
(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 2539
Taught by David Thorburn
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ph.D., Stanford University