HUM 201 MAJOR WORKS OF LITERATURE

Humanities and Literature: Introduction

N. Zeynep Yelçe, October 04, 2022

A little something to taste from the menu…
A little something to taste …
 A brief journey in time
POETRY EPIC DRAMA

2100 1800 1200 800 0 300

 A brief journey in time
PROSE NOVELLA STORY TRAGEDY POETRY

1300 1400 1500 1600

 PROSE A brief journey in time

SATIRE AUTOBIOGRAPHY NOVEL

1700 1750 1800 1850

Scientific Revolution The Enlightenment

 A brief journey in time
PROSE NOVELLA STORY

1770 1800 1850 1900

The American Revolution
The French Revolution
PROSE A brief journey in time
ESSAY STORY

1890s 1900s 1910s

1940s 1960s
 Humanities
disciplines of memory and imagination,

telling us where we have been and

helping us envision where we are going

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

For the image, click

The Heart of the Matter (Report of the American Academy of Arts & Science’s Commission on the Humanities and Social
Sciences to the U. S. Congress in June 2013)
 Humanities

those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with

human beings and their culture or
analytic and critical methods of inquiry

derived from
an appreciation of human values and
of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself

(Encyclopedia Britannica)
 Humanities

languages and literatures

the arts
history
philosophy

(Encyclopedia Britannica)
 Humanities

SPS 101 – Thank you Marloes Hocam!

 The Liberal Arts Studias Humanitatis
“studies of humanity”
grammar
rhetoric the trivium grammar
logic
rhetoric
poetry
arithmetic
history
geometry
the quadrivium moral philosophy
music
ancient Greek and Latin studies
astronomy

The Renaissance
Early Modern Era
 What is a Major Work?

a supreme artistic or intellectual achievement

a milestone in the development of art and human thought

Classic
Masterpiece
Canon
 A political scientist questions our approach to the Western canon:

Through study of these books we can at least understand the ideas underlying the
world we inhabit,

and we might even achieve a kind of liberation from the tyranny of our unconscious
submission to

the ideas that dominate our age by considering others that have been discarded.

We ignore these books at our peril –

not because they will make us more urbane and cultured, but

because they shape us whether we know it or not.

Patrick J. Deneen, «Against Great Books,» First Things, Jan. 2013, 38.
 A political scientist questions our approach to the Western canon:

CHAT TIME

Only by understanding the competing teachings of the great books can we

reconsider the lessons that our age has embraced – lessons that have led us to
think that we can dispense with reading the great books – and even ponder whether
it would be wiser to commend the teachings of the humble books as we witness the
accumulating wreckage amid our progress.

Patrick J. Deneen, «Against Great Books,» First Things, Jan. 2013, 38.
The question is, says a pragmatist,

who really needs to know about Shakespeare these days?

This is an enthusiasm, a leisure-time pursuit, but not a necessary

skill for the twenty-first century?

POLL TIME

Tim Gillespie, «Why Literature Matters,» The English Journal 83/8 (Dec., 1994), 16.
What makes a major work?

lasting effect (influence) on art, literature,

music, and culture in general
lasting effect (influence) on art, literature, music, and culture in general?
What makes a major work?

lasting effect (influence) on art, literature,

music, and culture in general

highly representative of an epoch, an

aesthetic system, or intellectual (cultural)
outlook

original and creative in expression

profound in meaning

universal in its message

“In our context and from our perspective, the
Western Canon is a kind of survivor's list.”

Harold Bloom