CMLT 255 - The Devil, the Hero, and God

Den Göttern gleich ich nicht! Zu tief ist es gefühlt. (“Not like the gods am I - profoundly it is rued!”) - Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe In this course, students heroically pursue excellence in thought and written expression by reading, discussing, and writing about The Iliad, Dante’s Inferno, Goethe’s Faust, Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. Autonomy, integrity, perseverance, rationality, empathy, humility, courage, and probity-essential traits of literary heroes and hero students- are topics of daily discussion and debate. This course is equally concerned with the tradition of thought behind hero stories. Readings from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Gregory the Great’s Moralia of Iob, Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, Capellanus’s On Love, and Vladimir Solovyov’s Lectures on Divine Humanity provide essential context for the literary texts read in this course. (Group III) (Writing Course)