REL 267
The Art of Friendship Fall 2016
Division II
Cross-listed CLAS 212 / COMP 267
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

The idea of friendship has captivated poets, philosophers, and their audiences for over three millennia. The subtle dynamics of this fundamental relationship between humans have been a source of inspiration, consolation, and consternation for countless writers and readers. What are the different types of friendship? How does one make a friend, and what makes a good friend? How does a friend differ from an acquaintance, an ally, an accomplice, an enemy? Can the beloved also be a friend? Ancient Greek and Latin writers took up these and other questions about friendship in philosophical dialogues and treatises, epic and lyric poems, tragic and comic plays, oratory, and correspondence. This course will explore ancient theories and representations of friendship through readings from many of the most important texts and authors of antiquity, including Gilgamesh, the Hebrew Bible, Homer, Sappho, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, and the Epistles of Paul. We will also consider the wide-ranging responses to these meditations and depictions in later traditions from the Middle Ages to modernity, in such writers as Heloise and Abelard, Aelred of Rievaulx, Aquinas, Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Jack Kerouac, and Susan Sontag. All readings are in translation.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 25
Expected: 25
Class#: 1347
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: class participation, short written assignments, and a final paper/project
Prerequisites: none
Distributions: Division II
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under CLAS or COMP; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under REL
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
REL 267 Division II CLAS 212 Division I COMP 267 Division I

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