General Education Requirements
Not currently certified for a requirement. Courses are typically considered for Ways certification a quarter in advance.
Course Description
Starting from a vision of literature and art transfiguring life, this class goes back to basics. How close can we get to the short poems of three truly life-transfiguring poets: William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, and Rainer Maria Rilke? How is nature, or one’s own room, re-enchanted by human speech? Can a short poem be an object of meditation? Of vision? Of mystical experience? Why do precise groupings of words have power? Can we explain, in words, the power of words? What is brevity in a poem, and how do these three poets’ propensity for very short poems connect to their very long poetry sequences, too? Skills taught in this class include close reading (at every level of experience) and how to do literary criticism.
Meet the Instructor: Mark Greif
"I teach literary criticism at Stanford, but at different times in my life I’ve also been a 'working critic.' I’ll be happy to talk in this seminar about what literary art can be, and mean, in a person’s life, and what sorts of futures lie in store for people who love literature and art. I used to teach a first-year seminar called 'Modern Meanings of Life,' but was reminded first that I, myself, can’t choose between the possible meanings of life—and, second, that my students would most benefit from a 'back to basics' focus on literary criticism as it can be done at universities, for one’s own benefit and spirit, and not as it’s done in high school or for a college requirement. So this course is my response to both problems, and will try to pursue the meaning of life through the deep practice of literary reading."
