Summer Classics 2011
Week III
July 25- 29, 2011
- William Shakespeare | The Merchant of Venice
- Homer | The Odyssey
- Herman Melville | Moby Dick
- Plato | Phaedrus
- Charles Dickens | David Copperfield
- Plutarch | Lives
Morning
William Shakespeare | The Merchant of Venice
Judith Adam and Warren Winiarski
Reflecting the diverse qualities of the commercial city in which it is set, The Merchant of Venice brings together antithetical themes, characters and the competing claims of love and duty, virtue and wealth, justice and mercy, and the old and the new faith.While the play has many light and comic aspects— with a surfeit of marriages, including that of Portia, one of Shakespeare’s most memorable female characters—it also presents a dark struggle between the inexplicably sad merchant Antonio and the ill-starred Shylock, one of the poet’s most troubling characters.
Homer | The Odyssey - Full. Please call to be added to the wait list.
Michael Golluber and Susan Stickney
Homer’s Odyssey is about the homecoming of Odysseus, the man of many ways who struggles to save his own psyche (“life” or “soul”)while simultaneously struggling for the homecoming of his companions. Homer twice mentions, though, that soon after returning home to Ithaca, Odysseus will set sail once again away from his kingdom and his family. We wonder what the meaning of “home” is for Odysseus, but also about its meaning for less heroic beings like ourselves. This poem, which takes us from the island paradise of the beautiful goddess Calypso to the shadowy beyond of Hades, allows us to explore the human condition in its widest possible range. Political justice, family relationships, the longing for human wisdom, and the meaning of mortality will be but some of the themes we will discuss.
Herman Melville | Moby Dick
Arcelia Rodriguez and Greg Schneider
Considered by many to be the greatest American novel, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick operates on a number of levels.On one level it puts forth a thrilling adventure at sea, and on another it offers an allegorical tale of good and evil. Along with the tale of one captain’s insane quest for vengeance, readers encounter commentaries on American commercial culture and the nature of religious sentiment and absorbing details about whaling and whaling ships. Throughout it all, onemeets an author grappling with the darkest aspects of human existence yet capable of wicked moments of lightness and humor.
Plato | Phaedrus
John Cornell and Topi Heikkerö
What’s love got to do with it? Plato’s Socrates takes the original meaning of the Greek word philosophia — the love of wisdom— rather literally. Somuch so that he appears to understand philosophy as a refinement, indeed a perfection, of erotic desire. How is that possible? How is eros, which we think of as the desire to enjoy another’s body, involved in the pursuit of wisdom? In the dialogue Phaedrus, we eavesdrop on Socrates’ conversation with a young aesthete who is enamored with a famous rhetorician and his art of seduction. Will Socrates succeed in drawing him away from his beloved and introducing him to true love? Whether Socrates wins Phaedrus’ heart or not, he is likely to win ours once we have heard his breathtaking speech on love as the Divine Madness.
Afternoon
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield
Guillermo Bleichmar and Richard McCombs
David Copperfield was not just Charles Dickens’ favorite novel. It was also a favorite with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Freud for what it has to say about the growth of the soul in the world, and what it can possibly mean to become “The hero of one’s own life.” It is also great fun: a feast of language and a sojourn with themost vivid people you will ever meet.
Plutarch | Lives - Full. Please call to be added to the wait list.
Susan Stickney and Margaret Kirby
Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans escapes our categories. Is it biography, political science, history, philosophy, or propaganda? Probably it is all of the above.Plutarch himself was a Greek, writing at a time when the glories of Greece are past. One of his abiding concerns was the effect the Greeks continue to have on the Romans, their conquerors and imitators.One of his gifts, cherished by Montaigne, was to illuminate the whole course of a life with one small anecdote from the childhood of his subject. Through his vivid portraits of some of history’s most remarkable figures, Plutarch invites us to ask just what it is that occasions and shapes a noteworthy life.