Dying for Love in Two Genres


Tristan und Isolde


Course Information:

CSEM 23012-37

  • Professor Shields
  • Class Meetings: TR 12.30-13.45, DeBartolo Hall 143



Prospectus

Milton’s Paradise Lost introduces sexual love as the first moment of death: it presages the end of innocence, the awakening of sin, our fall from paradise. Milton is not alone in making this connection.  Poets, dramatists, novelists, painters, opera composers, and film directors make love and death coincide: love, whether consummated or unconsummated, whether, indeed, sexual or altogether asexual, turns the lover towards death, sometimes in tragic failure, other times in glorious transcendence.  We see the connection most readily in romantic and sexual contexts, but it emerges no less elsewhere, among the martyrs in their love of God, among patriots in their love of country, and among local heroes in their spontaneous love for perfect strangers.  

We investigate love’s connection to death in several different genres, sometimes, but not always, tracing the same story or myth through various representations or adaptations.  

In addition to Milton, we will read Euripides’ Medea  and Sophocles’ Antigone, contemporary treatments of which we will also read in addition to watching performances of the ancient plays; Plato’s Phaedo (according to Plato, philosophy, the love of wisdom, is but a preparation for death); Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the Baz Luhrmann film version of which we will view;  the libretti of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, both of which operas we will watch; Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, two different film treatments of which we will see; Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, a film version of which we will watch before reading the novel; and Goethe’s Faust, together with two operatic treatments, one by Gounod and another by Berlioz.  We will also read various pieces of poetry, including Tennyson’s In Memoriam and Mary Robinson’s Sappho and Phaon, as well as various epistles, including Wilde’s De Profundis

The class will also make a trip to Chicago to see Carmen at the Lyric Opera, after spending an afternoon in Art Institute of Chicago viewing depictions of the martyrs. 


Office Hours and Contact Information:

  • Office: Malloy Hall 327
  • Office hours: T 8.30-10.30 and by appointment
  • e-mail: CJIShields@nd.edu 

  • N.b. I prefer e-mail to telephone as a manner of student contact.  I make an effort to answer student e-mails promptly, but please be aware that I measure promptness in this domain in days rather than hours or minutes. 


Required Texts:

  • Sophocles, Antigone (Hackett Pubs.: 2001)
  • Euripides, Medea (University of Chicago Press: 2014)
  • Plato, Phaedo (Hackett Pubs.: 1977)
  • Milton, Paradise Lost (W. W. Norton: 2005)
  • Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Pocket Pubs: 1992)
  • Greene, The Quiet American (Penguin: 2004)
  • Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (Penguin: 2005)


Requirements and Protocol:

CSEM stresses oral communication in favour of writing.  We will, of course, do some writing, but the lion’s share of your assessed work will involve discussion and oral communication.  Oral communication is here understood broadly to include informed discussion, active and attentive listening, performance, presentation, interviewing, and debate.  

Assignments include:

  • One written discussion starters, of approximately 300-500 words.  A discussion starter presents the key points of the day’s reading or viewing in order to frame our seminar discussion.  Each such piece should have a discernible thesis, either exegetical or critical.  
    • Discussion starters will be distributed to all seminar participants no later than 17.00 two days before the discussion in question.  No late submission will be accepted.
    • Two brief responses, of approximately 150-200 words,  intended as preparations for informed discussion.  
  • Two prepared interviews, one as interviewer and one as interviewee.   
  • An oral presentation of an original philosophical monologue or dialogue.  This can be done individually or in groups of two or more.
  • An analyzed self-transcription of a recorded seminar presentation.  
  • On-going, engaged, and informed participation in seminar discussion.  
  • Fluent, informed responses to questions put in an oral final examination.


Attendance is expected at all seminar meetings. Given the discussion-intensive focus of the College Seminar programme, failure to attend will deleteriously affect your mark for this course.  


Topics and Schedule:

Please adhere to this reading and viewing schedule.  


© Christopher Shields 2014