ENG 510 Practical Criticism
Fall semester, 1999
Main Classroom 318 -- MW 6:00-7:50PM
Dr. Earl Anderson
Professor & Chair, Department of English
Rhodes Tower 1815; Phone 216-687-3951
Mail questions, comments and suggestions to
Professor Anderson.
Texts
Textbooks may be purchased at the University's Barnes &
Noble bookstore, or they may be ordered through
amazon.com,
which provides a discount on most books.
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (Harcourt
Brace). Note: the paperback edition has been ordered
for the bookstore (price, $14.00; amazon.com price $11.20). If you want the
hardcover edition for an additional $6.00, you should
order this title through amazon.com
Theresa Coletti, Naming the Rose: Eco, Medieval Signs
and Modern Theory (Cornell University Press). Price: $39.95. Note: a copy
of this book will be placed in the Reserve Library for students
who cannot afford to purchase it.
Edgar Allan Poe, Complete Stories (Knopf, 1993). Publisher's price, $23.00;
amazon.com price, $16.10.
Arthur Conan Doyle, Complete Sherlock Holmes (Doubleday, 1960);
publisher's price, $27.95; amazon.com price, $19.75.
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths (W. W. Norton & Co.) Publisher's price: $10.75;
amazon.com price, $8.76.
Italo Calvino, The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven
Viscount (Harcourt Brace). Publisher's price, $11.00; amazon.com price, $8.80.
Paul Auster, New York Trilogy (Penguin USA). Publisher's price,
$14.95; amazon.com price, $11.96.
Angus Fletcher, Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic
Mode (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982). $24.95
(amazon.com price, $21.95). [An
important "anatomy" of allegory.]
Click here for a list of Books
on Reserve in the Library.
Internet links of general interest:
A recommended "first look" at Umberto Eco's biography
and career as a semiotician and writer is
the Porta Ludovica website
A second site to explore is North Carolina State University Eco website. This site
includes an email discussion service that is used by
students around the country who are working on projects relating to Eco.
A third site, of some general interest for Eco, is the Paris Left Bank website.
The Porta Ludovica website includes a page of links to popular magazine articles about Eco's fiction.
Quite a lot of good supporting material on the Middle Ages
is available through the Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook. Links
to some of the Fordham University materials will be included in our Practical
Criticism syllabus at places where they are needed.
The Catholic
Encyclopedia has useful articles on a number of topics germane to
The Name of the Rose. Sometimes these are too brief to
be helpful, but other times they are quite good. The website
study pages provide links to selected articles in this source.
How to use this syllabus
For the first 4 weeks, we will read authors who are
important to our understanding of Eco's fiction: Poe, Doyle,
Borges, and Calvino (and also Auster, an American author who
was, in turn, influenced by Eco and by the others).
Following that, our time will be divided between
(A) discussion topics in the practical criticism of The
Name of the Rose--these are numbered serially throughout
the syllabus-- (B) reports by students, also numbered
serially (below), and (C) discussion of theoretical issues in
literary criticism. A website study page has been established
for each chapter in The Name of the Rose. The
discussion topics (item A) are described in detail in
separate websites, which should be consulted as they
are needed. Links to supporting material appear at
points in the syllabus where they seem to be the most
useful.
A general index to the Name of the Rose study pages
has been established in order to facilitate cross-checking
and movement throughout the website materials.
Writing assignments for ENG 510
:
(1) Beginning the week of Sept. 22, and once each week until
the end of the semester, each student must prepare an
analytical comment about some detail, character, event, or
chapter in The Name of the Rose, with the goal of
publishing this comment in our website "study pages." The
professor will review each student's contribution, and
will either post it on the website (which implies it is "A"-
level work), or send it back to the student for revision
until it is ready for website publication. Characteristics of this
assignment are as follows:
(a) Length can vary from a paragraph
to an essay, depending on the requirements inherent in the topic.
(b) The comment must combine scholarship, analysis, and criticism;
that is to say, the comment brings forward cultural
information that is relevant to our understanding of some detail in
The Name of the Rose, and relates it to the text
by means of close reading. (No one is interested in mere
"literary criticism" that offers no new research information.)
(c) The comment must include bibliographic information, so
that website visitors can follow up on it in their own
research.
(d) The author must identify the most appropriate website
study-page in which to publish the comment. Where necessary,
we will create a new study-page.
(2) A research paper of 12-20 pages, with documentation
as complete as possible such that the "secondary literature"
on the topic is fully represented in the paper. Click here
for suggestions about possible topics.
(3) A 20-minute version of the research paper (8 1/2 pages
double-spaced), to be presented during the English-department
sponsored three-part Colloquium on Umberto Eco's The
Name of the Rose on December 6, 8, and 15. This
colloquium will be open to the public and graduate
students and academics from other institutions will be
invited to submit papers, in addition to the students
in ENG 510.
(4) A one-paragraph abstract of your Colloquium presentation,
due Monday, Nov. 22. This will be included in the Colloquium
program.
(5) Outlines and reports to the class on selected articles (numbered
consecutively throughout the syllabus). The number of articles
that each student is responsible for will depend on the
size of the class, but ideally we would want each student to
contribute reports on a regular basis--one every two weeks or so
when our schedule allows it.
Philosophy of ENG 510
The goal of ENG 510 is to teach graduate students to think
about literature as professional critics, teachers and
writers, rather than as "consumers" or recreational readers.
The professor has selected The Name of the Rose as
the central text because (1) it is a complex postmodern work with
roots in medieval studies and in 19th-century detective fiction;
(2) several literary genres converge in it; (3) it lends
itself to source studies; (4) its author has also written
about topics in literary criticism, especially on intentionality
and reader response theory.
Monday, August 30: Course introduction
Lecture topics:
(1) The goals of ENG 510 Practical Criticism: to present
models of "close reading," or "explication de texte," in
the context of modern and contemporary critical theories and
approaches to literature.
(2) Overview of authors to be examined: postmodern authors Juan Luis Borges,
Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, and Paul Auster; 19th century
predecessors Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle
(3) Overview of critical approaches and theories to be
considered
Wednesday, September 1: Genre (with specific reference
to the detective story as genre):
Reading assignments: the following stories by Edgar Allan
Poe: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of
Marie Roget," "The Gold-Bug," and "The Purloined Letter."
Class discussion will concentrate on "genre criticism"
in general, and detective fiction as a genre. Also read
Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia," which is
a "game of opposites" played with "The Purloined Letter." Analytical
issues with regard to Poe's stories will be postponed until September
8.
Monday, September 6: Labor Day (no class)
During the long weekend, please read the following from Jorge Luis Borges'
Labyrinths: "The Garden of Forking Paths," pp. 19-29; "Death and the Compass" (pp. 76-87); "Avatars
of the Tortoise" (pp. 202-8); "Partial Magic in the Quixote"
(pp. 193-96).
Wednesday, September 8- Mon., Sept. 13:
Topic: The detective story as a genre: Mainly on Poe
REPORTS:
#1. John T. Irwin, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue,"
American Literary History 4, no. 2 (Summer 1992):
187-206.
#2. Burton R. Pollin, "Poe's `Murders in the Rue Morgue':
The Ingenious Web Unravelled," Studies in the American Renaissance:
1977, ed. Joel Myerson. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Pp. 235-59.
#3. Joseph J. Moldenhauer, "Murder as a Fine Art: Basic
Connections between Poe's Aesthetics, Psychology,
and Moral Vision," PMLA 83 (May 1968):284-97.
#4. Lianhna Klenman Babener, "The Shadow's Shadow: The
Motif of the Double in Edgar Allan Poe's `The Purloined
Letter'." In The Purloined Poe, ed. John P. Muller
and William J. Richardson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1988. Pp. 83-99.
#5. David Van Leer, "Detecting Truth: The World of the Dupin
Tales." In New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, ed. Kenneth
Silverman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993),
pp. 65-91. PS2642.F43N48 1993 (on reserve).
#6. Jacques Lacan, "Seminar on `The Purloined Letter'." In The
Purloined Letter, ed. John P. Muller
and William J. Richardson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1988. Pp. 28-54.
#7. Claude Richard, "Destin, Design, Dasein: Lacan, Derrida and `The Purloined
Letter'," Iowa Review 12, no. 4 (Fall 1981):1-11.
#8. Servanne Woodward, "Lacan and Derrida on `The Purloined
Letter'," Comparative Literature 26, no. 1 (1989):
39-49.
#9. Nancy Harrowitz, "The Body of the Detective Model:
Charles S. Peirce and Edgar Allan Poe," in The Sign of
Three, ed. Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 179-97. On abduction
as the method of reasoning in Peirce and Poe. PR 4624 .S53 1983.
Wednesday, September 15:
Readings: Jorge Luis Borges'
Labyrinths: "Death and the Compass" (pp. 76-87); "Avatars
of the Tortoise" (pp. 202-8); "Partial Magic in the Quixote"
(pp. 193-96).
#10. Maurice J. Bennett, "Detective Fiction of Poe and Borges,"
Comparative Literature 35 (1983):262-75.
#11. John T. Irwin, "Double You, Double V: Borge and
Poe in the Labyrinth," Critica Hispanica 15, no. 2
(Fall 1993):85-84. Copy on file in the English office.
#12. John T. Irwin, "A Clew to a Clue: Locked Rooms and Labyrinths
in Poe and Borges," Raritan 10, no. 4 (Spring
1994):40-57.
#13. Jeanne F. Bedell, "Borges' Study in Scarlet: `Death and
the Compass' as Detective Fiction and Literary Criticism,"
Clues: A Journal of Detection 6, no. 2 (Fall-Winter,
1985):109-22. Copy on file in the English office.<
#14. Martin J. T. Johnston, "Games with Infinity: The Fictions
of Jorge Luis Borges," Variaciones Borges 5 (1998):
177-202. Copy on file in the English office.
#15. Thomas L. Cooksey, "The Labyrinth in the Monad: Possible Worlds
in Borges and Leibniz," Comparatist: Journal of the Southern
Comparative Literature Association 17 (May 1993):51-58.
Monday, September 20:
Reading: Paul Auster's City of Glass
Topics:
Paul Auster's City of Glass as a detective story
The idea of a labyrinth in Auster's novel
The "recovered manuscript" topos in Auster
REPORTS:
#16. Madeleine Sorapure, "The Detective and the Author:
City of Glass," in Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays
on Paul Auster, ed. Dennis Barone (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1995), pp. 71-87.
#17. Chris Tysh, "From One Mirror to Another: The Rhetoric
of Disaffiliation in City of Glass." Review of
Contemporary Fiction 14, no. 1 (Spring, 1994):46-52.
#18. William Lavender, "The Novel of Critical Engagement:
Paul Auster's City of Glass," Contemporary
Literature 34, no. 2 (Summer, 1993):219-39.
#19. Norma Rowen, "The Detective in Search of the Lost Tongue
of Adam: Paul Auster's City of Glass," Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
32, no. 4 (Summer, 1991):224-34. Copy on file in the
English office.
#20. Alison Russell, "Deconstructing The New York
Trilogy: Paul Auster's Anti-Detective Fiction,"
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 31, no. 2 (Winter,
1990):71-84. Copy on file in the English office.
Wednesday, Sept. 22 Monday, Sept. 27:
Readings: Italo Calvino's The Nonexistent Knight,
and Angus Fletcher, Allegory: Theory of a Symbolic Mode.
Topics:
Calvino's career as a writer. Research links about Italo Calvino include an on-line
Encyclopedia
Britannica entry for Italo Calvino, and a website by
Paul Willenberg at Swarthmore College.
Calvino's Nonexistent Knight as an exploration
of the problem of universals:
Agilulf as an Allegory
of Universals
Gurduloo as an Allegory of
Attributes
The Nonexistent Knight as an exploration of
style in narrative, in comparison with Calvino's Six
Memos for the Next Millenium:
Rauimbaut as an Allegory of Lightness
Bradamante as an Allegory of
Exactitude
Sophronia as an Allegory of
Quickness
Medievalism in The Nonexistent Knight
The "recovered manuscript" tradition
Allegory as a literary mode in Calvino: Angus Fletcher's and Umberto Eco's
approaches to allegory, using Italo Calvino's The
Nonexistent Knight as a test case
REPORTS (on parts of Angus Fletcher's Allegory: Theory of
a Symbolic Mode):
#21. Personification and topical allusion, Fletcher, pp. 26-35.
#22. The conceptual hero: his generation, Fletcher, pp. 35-38.
#23. Daemonic constriction in thematic actions, Fletcher, pp. 38-48.
#24. Daemonic possession, Fletcher, pp. 48-55.
#25. Daemonic mechanism and allegorical machines, Fletcher, pp. 55-69.
#26. The isolated image, as talisman, insignia, astral symbolism,
diagrammatic isolation, Fletcher, pp. 87-100.
#27. Symbolic action, Fletcher, pp. 145-80 (note contrast to
Aristotle's "mimetic" action, and note particularly
Fletcher's discussion of philosophical tales (pp. 152-53)
in the same genre as Calvino's The Nonexistent Knight.
#28. Allegorical causation, Fletcher, pp. 182-219 (doubling,
ritual, contagion, microcosmic reduction of the symbolic
center).
#29. Umberto Eco, "Symbol and Allegory," in his Art
and Beauty in the Middle Ages, trans. Hugh Bredin (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1986):52-64.
#30. Umberto Eco,
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 130-63.
Wednesday, September 29: Name of the Rose, "Naturally,
A Manuscript" (pp. 1-5) and Eco's notes on the liturgical hours (pp. 7-8); and Jorge Borges' "Tlon," in Labyrinths.
Topics
The title Il noma della rosa
The "recovered manuscript" topos
"Difficulties in translating" the fictive-author
Writing as a labor of love, or as an obsession
Structure of the narrative -- symbolism of Creation,
apocalypse, and the liturgy, introduced in Eco's paratext
on liturgical hours
Monday, October 4: The Name of the Rose, Prologue (pp. 11-18)
REPORTS:
#31. Umberto Eco and G. B. Zorzoli, The Picture History
of Inventions, trans. Anthony Lawrence (New York:
Macmillan, 1963), pp. 290-94, "Human Flight", pp. 78-80,
"Compass, Astrolabe and Sextant," and pp. 123-32 "The
Measurement of Time."
#32. "Universals," in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(New York: Macmillan, 1967), vol. 8:194-206. [The English
department library has this reference work.]
Topics:
"Ageing of the world" as a medieval topos
Physical description of characters avoided
William of Baskerville's appearance--like Sherlock Holmes
Papal, French, and Italian history prior to 1327
Realist-Nominalist controversy, Roger Bacon, and William of Occam
Wednesday, October 6: First Day: Prime (pp. 21-26)
Topics:
"Wandering scholar" topos
Aedificium described in terms of superimposed geometric shapes
Brunellus episode, I: preliminary mystery in a detective story
Brunellus episode, II: abduction
Brunellus episode, III: symbol, index, and icon
Brunellus episode, IV: Relationship between William of Baskerville and Adso, based on that of Serenus Zeitblom and Adrian in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus
Brunellus episode, V: quotation from Alanus de Insulus
Brunellus episode, VI: allusion to Isidore of Seville's Etymologies
Brunellus episode, VII: allusion to Jean Buridan
REPORT:
#33. Umberto Eco, "Horns, Hooves, Insteps: Some Hypotheses
on Three Types of Abduction," in The Sign of Three,
ed. Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 1983), pp. 198-220.
#34. John J. White, "On Semiotic Interplay: Forms of
Creative Interaction between Iconicity and Indexicality in
Twentieth-Century Literature," in Form Miming Meaning,
ed. Max Nanny and Olga Fischer. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999.
Pp. 83-108. [Copy available in the English office.]
Monday, October 11: Columbus day observed.
Wednesday, October 13: Readings: Arthur Conan Doyle,
"The Blue Carbuncle" and "Charles Augustus Milverton;
Eco, The Name of the Rose,
First Day: Terce (pp. 26-39)
Topics:
The Benedictine Rule
Benedictines and other monastic orders
Franciscans and other mendicant orders
Universals and signification
The Inquisition
William's encomium for the Library: the encomium as a constituent genre
"Translatio imperii" and "translatio studii" as apocalyptic signs
The Library as labyrinth--in Borges and in Eco
The "forbidden knowledge" topos
"Labors of the months"--slaughter of pigs in November
Monday, October 18: First Day:
Sext (pp. 40-64).
Topics:
Romanesque and Gothic church architecture implicitly compared
Pictures in the church as apocalyptic vision; role of images in religious life
Ubertino de Casale
Dante Alighieri
REPORTS:
#35. Henry Osborne (ed.), Oxford Companion to Art
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1970, articles on "Romanesque" (pp. 1000-6),
and "Gothic" (pp. 490-94).
#36. Umberto Eco and G. B. Zorzoli, The Picture History of Inventions,
trans. Anthony Lawrence (New York: Macmillan, 1963), pp. 95-104, "The
Gothic Cathedral."
#37. Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, trans.
William Weaver (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986),
"The Gods of the Underworld," pp. 87-132. PQ 4865 / .C6 / 77 / 1986.
Apocalypticism as a contemporary theme.
#38. Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages,
trans. Hugh Bredin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986),
pp. 16-27, "Transcendental Beauty," and pp. 28-42, "The
Aesthetics of Proportion."
Wednesday, October 20 - Monday, Oct. 25: First Day: Toward Nones (pp. 65-70): William of Baskerville
and Adso visit Severinus in his herb garden; First Day: After Nones (pp. 71-83); and
First Day: Vespers (pp. 84-92).
REPORTS:
#39. Karen Reeds, "Albert on the Natural Philosophy
of Plant Life," in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences,
Commemorative Essays 1980, ed. James A. Weisheipl.
Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980. Pp. 341-54.
Q 143 .a42 A7. Reserve Library.
#40. Jerry Stannard, "Albertus Magnus and Medieval Herbalism," in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences,
Commemorative Essays 1980, ed. James A. Weisheipl.
Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980. Pp. 355-77.
Q 143 .a42 A7. Reserve Library.
#41. Umberto Eco and G. B. Zorzoli, The Picture History
of Inventions, trans. Anthony Lawrence (New York:
Macmillan, 1963), pp. 105-11, "The Development of Optics."
Relevant particularly to William's debate with Lawrence
the glazier about optics, in "Vespers," pp. 84-92.
#42. Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality,
trans. William Weaver (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986),
"The Return to the Middle Ages," pp. 59-85. PQ 4865 /
.C6 / T7 / 1986. Eco's analysis of "postmodern" medievalism.
#43. Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages,
trans. Hugh Bredin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986,
pp. 4-16, "The Medieval Aesthetic Sensibility."
#44-45. [collaborative report by 2 students]. Lorna
Price, The Plan of St. Gall in Brief (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1982. NA 5843 .P74 1982.
Synopsis of a 3-volume study by Walter Horn and Ernest
Born (Berkeley 1979) that probably was Eco's major source
for the architectural plan and much of the physical
description of the monastery.
[At this point in the course, having completed the chapters on
William's and Adso's "First Day" in the monastery, we will
step back from the novel to consider some larger critical
issues, viz. the theoretical stances of structuralism
and of intentionality and reader response theory.]
Wednesday, October 27: Structuralism
#46. Susan Rubin Suleiman, "What Can Structuralism Do for Us?"
in What is Criticism? ed. Paul Hernadi (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1981), pp. 67-82. Defense
of structuralism as an approach to literary criticism. PN85 .W47
Monday, Nov. 1: Intentionality
#47. W. K. Wimsatt (with Monroe C. Beardsley), The
Verbal Icon (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press,
1954), chapter on "The Intentional Fallacy." (First
published in Sewanee Review 54 (Summer 1946):468-88.
Classic structuralist attack on recovering the "author's intention"
as the basis of validity in criticism.
#48. E. D. Hirsch, "Objective Interpretation," PMLA
75 (1960):463-79. Defends authorial "intention," which
establishes a "horizon" of possible meanings (and therefore
of valid interpretations) in terms of phenomenology. The
weakness of this approach is its dependence upon Husserl's
phenomenology, a philosophy that is no longer in fashion.
#49. E. D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 1-23, "In
Defense of the Author." A much stronger defense of
intentionality because it is grounded in practical criticism
rather than in Husserlian phenomenology.
#50. Goran Hermeren, "Allusions and Intentions." In
Intention and Interpretation, ed. Gary Iseminger.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. Pp. 203-20.
We will want to look closely at this artument in view
of the importance of allusion in Eco's The Name of
the Rose.
#51. Joseph Margolis, "Robust Relativism." In Intention and Interpretation, ed. Gary Iseminger.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. Pp. 41-50.
Margolis brings to the debate on intentionality the Peircean
concept of "abduction," which, incidentally, is important
in Eco's thinking and characteristic of William of Baskerville's
methos as a "detective."
Wednesday, Nov. 3: Reader Response Theories
#52. Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in this Class?
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 21-
67, "Literature in the Reader."
#53. Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1979), pp. 3-43, "Introduction." P 909 .E28.
#54. Umberto Eco, The Open Work, trans. Anna Cangogni (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 1-23, "The Poetics
of the Open Work." BH 39 .E2913 1989.
#55. Deborah Parker, "Answering Idle Questions: Open
and Closed Readers in The Name of the Rose." In
M. Thomas Inge, ed., Naming the Rose: Essays on Eco's
The name of the Rose. Jackson: University Press of
Mississippi, 1988, Pp. 146-56.
Monday, Nov. 8: Second Day: Matins (p. 101) -
Nones (p. 155)
Second Day: Terce (pp. 121-41): Debate between William
and Jorge on the appropriatness of laughter.
REPORTS:
#56. Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages,
trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper, 1953), pp.
417-35, "Jest and Earnest in Medieval Literature."
Second Day: Nones (pp. 142-55)
#57. Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, trans.
Hugh Bredin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), pp.
74-83 "The Aesthetics of the Organism," and pp. 84-91 "Development
and Decline of the Aesthetics of the Organism."
Wednesday, November 10: "Second Day: Compline"
(p. 160) - "Night" (p. 178).
#58. Second Day: Compline (pp. 160-68), and Night (pp. 169-78); and
Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Dancing Men"
REPORTS:
#59. Shawn Rosenheim, "`The King of Secret Readers':
Edgar Poe, Cryptography, and the Origins of the Detective
Story," English Literary History 56 (Summer 1989): 375-400.
#60. Michael Cohen, "The Hounding of Baskerville: Allusion
and Apocalypse in Eco's Name of the Rose," in
Naming the Rose, ed. M. Thomas Inge (Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 1988), pp. 65-76.
Second Day: Night (pp. 167-78)
#61. Bernard McGinn, "Portraying Antichrist in the
Middle Ages," in The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle
Ages, ed. Werner Berbeke, Daniel Verhelst and Andries Welkenhuysen.
Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988. pp. 1-48.
Copy on file in the English office.
#62. Richard Landes, "Lest the Millenium be Fulfilled:
Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western
Chronology 100-800 CE." In The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle
Ages, ed. Werner Berbeke, Daniel Verhelst and Andries Welkenhuysen.
Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1988. pp. 137-211.
Copy on file in the English office.
#63. Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages,
trans. Hugh Bredin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986),
pp. 43-51, "The Aesthetics of Light," and pp. 65-73, "Aesthetic
Perception" [on optics].
Monday, November 15: Third Day (pp. 181-256)
Second Day: Night (pp. 251-56):
REPORT:
#64. Lois P. Zamore, "Apocalyptic Visions and Visionaries
in The Name of the Rose, in Naming the Rose,
ed. Thomas Inge (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
1988):31-47.
Wednesday, November 17: Fourth Day (pp. 259-332)
Fourth Day: Compline (pp. 307-9)
Monday, November 22: Fifth Day (pp. 335-407)
Particular attention to "Sext" and its sources, Poe's
"Purloined Letter" and Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia."
Monday, November 29 - Wednesday, December 6: Sixth Day (pp. 411-60),
and Seventh Day (pp. 463-502):
Sixth Day: Terce (pp. 426-35) and Sext (pp. 436-38)
Topics:
Dies irae
Adso's dream, and William's interpretation of it as based
on the Coena Cypriani:
#65. H. Aram Veeser, "Holmes Goes to Carnival: Embarrassing
the Signifier in Eco's Anti-Detective Novel." In H. Thomas
Inge, ed., Naming the Rose (Jackson: University Press
of Mississippi, 1988), pp. 101-15. Mainly on Eco's use
of the Coena Cypriani.
Sixth Day: Nones (pp. 444-52): the "language of gems"
Reports:
#66. Peter Kitson, "Lapidary Traditions in Anglo-Saxon
England, Part I: the Background; the Old English Lapidary,"
Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978):9-60. Summary of the
backround for Eco's "language of gems."
#67. Peter Kitson, "Lapidary Traditions in Anglo-Saxon
England, Part II: Bede's Explanatio Apocalypse and
Related Works," Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983): 73-123.
Relation of the "language of gems" to The Name of the
Rose as an "apocalypse."
Sixth Day: After Compline (pp. 456-60)
REPORT:
#68. Jean DelFattore, "Eco's Conflation of Theology
and Detection in The Name of the Rose, in Naming
the Rose, ed. M. Thomas Inge (Jackson: University Press
of Mississippi, 1988), pp. 77-89.
Mon., Dec. 6: Colloquium on The Name of the Rose, Part I.
University Center 361. Friends and family welcome. At
7:00-8:00 PM, Oscar Crawford and friends will give a presentation
on the "Dies irae and Medieval Ideas about Death and
Dying." The program will include a liturgical presentation
of the Dies irae.
Wed., Dec. 8: Colloquium on The Name of the Rose, Part II.
University Center 361. Friends and family welcome.
Mon., Dec. 13: Colloquium on The Name of the Rose,
Part III.
University Center 361. Friends and family welcome.
Wed., Dec. 15: Colloquium on The Name of the Rose, Part IV.
University Center 361. Friends and family welcome.