BASC70046 - How to Read Classic Texts: Expository and Literary

Course Description

This course is intended to address some of the more persistent and sometimes daunting difficulties that attend the effort to read classic works of the Western cultural tradition. We will begin from the now-canonical work by Adler and Van Doren, How to Read a Book, and move toward what we will propose as more fruitful approaches to reading expository and literary texts, based on more contemporary sources as well as on our own experience as both readers and teachers of classic works.

Each session will be divided into two parts. In the first we will consider the reading of classic expository texts—philosophical, social scientific, political, etc.—and especially how to read for a thesis and supporting argument (based on evidence and grounds). In the second, we will consider literary and poetic texts—what it means to interpret, understand, and comprehend them, with particular attention to how form (diction, structure, genre, etc.) and content (image, narrative, theme, etc.) work together to achieve specifically literary and poetic effects.

We will introduce short (1-2 page) writing exercises that we have found useful in the effort to appreciate and understand these various kinds of texts, which students will be encouraged—but not required—to bring to class and share with other students. Readings will be selected largely from the four-year Basic Program list, with the idea that not only will this be an opportunity to learn techniques for good reading, but also an occasion for reading and discussing—again—selections from some truly great works of the Western tradition (e.g., Aristotle, Kant, Freud, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Conrad).

We mean this to be challenging and productive, but also fun. Agonizing as it sometimes can be, few things are more conducive to humor than the attempt to become clear.