LOVE AND CREATIVITY
BBNAN13500
(Barcsák János: barcsak.janos@btk.ppke.hu)
Requirements: regular attendance (missing more than 3 classes automatically results in failing the course)
familiarity with reading assignments
three questions about the texts to be e-mailed to my address (see above) no later than 8pm
on the day preceding the class in which we discuss that particular text (note that at least
three such sets of questions must be sent to me)
participation in class discussion (be prepared to present your three questions in class!)
Assessment will be based on the questions, and on your class activity.
Schedule (may be subject to change)
Date
Topic
Task
8 Sep.
Origins: Caedmon’s Hymn
Read Genesis 1-2:3 (Please use the New Revised
Standard Version [NRSV] available for example at
biblegateway.com; for commentary you may consult
this website:
http://indepthbible.org/commentaries/genesis/genesis
1-50.pdf)
15 Sep.
The creation of humanity in Genesis 1:26-30
Read Genesis 2:4-25; Please read Phyllis Trible’s “A
Love Story Gone Awry” (Ch. 4 of God and the
Rhetoric of Sexuality)
22 Sep.
The story of Eden
Read William Shakespeare’s “The Phoenix and
Turtle” and John Donne’s “The Canonization”
29 Sep.
Renaissance versions of the paradoxes of
love
Read Genesis 2:4-25 again
6 Oct.
Creativity as the relation between the sexes:
man and woman as same and other
Read Genesis 2:26-3:24
13 Oct.
Sexual division and the fall: creativity before
sin
Read Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (ll. 1325)
20 Oct.
Pope’s “Essay on Criticism”: Nature
and the Rules as the Other and the
Same
Read Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” again
with special attention to the concept of “licence”
(deviation from the rules)
3 Nov.
The classics and licence in Pope’s “Essay on
Criticism”
Read Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry” (paragraphs 1-4;
9-11)
10 Nov. Shelley’s radical scepticism
Read Shelley’s “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”
17 Nov. Shelley: “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”
Read Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry” (paragraphs 12;
33-43; 49)
24 Nov. Figures of creativity in Shelley’s “Defence”
1 Dec.
Conclusion, assessment, grading