Modern Literature

OFFERED 2025-2026

  • 2025-26 Time: Tuesdays, 2:00 – 3:30 pm Eastern
  • 2025-26 Tuition:
    • Seminar with writing tutorial: $90 per student per month (10 months, August – May)
    • Seminar only: $75 per student per month (10 months, August – May)
  • Location: Signal Mountain, Tennessee
  • Prerequisites: [For tutorial portion] Writing III AND [For seminar and tutorial], because the ideas covered in Modern History and Literature need to be understood in light of the ideas of the previous historical eras, ONE of the following options:
    • Ideally, Ancient and Medieval Literature – NOTE: Students taking this course will find it useful to read or review works of Ancient and Medieval literature including Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Plato’s Republic, Virgil’s Aeneid, The Song of Roland, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Dante’s Divine Comedy.
    • Philosophy, Politics & Economics
    • Fine Arts
    • Please contact the tutor
  • Grades: 11-12 only; Students in the Humane Letters Diploma Program should take Moderns in their senior year
  • Pairing: You can pair this course with Modern History
  • Description: Through close reading of key works of modern literature (1500-1950) from across Europe, students deepen their understanding of the ideas that created modern culture and did much to destroy it as well as “the lights in the dark”: the great ideas that were preserved despite the disintegration of modern culture. Following the advice of C.S. Lewis in, “On the Reading of Old Books”, we will begin and end our studies with “the clean sea breeze of the centuries” – a review of ancient and medieval works, ideas, and culture.
  • Assessment:
    • All: Students must complete all readings and daily-work/commonplacing as well as oral exams.
    • Writing tutorial only: Each term, students compose one essay, one other written piece, and one project – choosing between an academic/artistic portfolio and a history-related handcraft. (Students in both history and literature courses only create one project per term.) In December and May, students participate in Defense Day by giving a brief presentation on one of their essays and responding to questions from the audience.
  • FINAL BOOK LIST for 2025-2026: (Hard copies are required; recommended editions/translations are listed below)
    • Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata [Jerusalem Liberated] (ISBN: 978-0801863233, Johns Hopkins University Press, translated by Anthony Esolen) <= Needed for first week of class
    • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote – Students may read optional abridged chapters or in full (Recommended ISBN: 978-0142437230, Penguin Classics, translated by John Rutherford)
    • Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell (ISBN: 978-0226738017, German Classics in Translation of University of Chicago Press, translated by William F. Mainland)
    • Victor Hugo, Les Miserables – Students may read optional abridged chapters or in full (Recommended ISBN: 978-0375403170, Everyman’s Library, translated by Charles E. Wilbour)
    • Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (Recommended ISBN: 9780679420293, Pevear-Volokhonsky translation)
    • C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (ISBN: 978-0743234924, Scribner)
    • William Shakespeare, A Winter’s Tale (Recommended ISBN: 978-1982122508, Folger Shakespeare Library)
    • RECOMMENDED FOR REVIEW: “The Clean Sea Breeze of the Centuries”:
      • Homer’s Iliad (Recommended: Lattimore translation, ISBN: 9780226470497)
      • OR Virgil’s Aeneid
      • OR Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Recommended: Tolkien translation, ISBN: 9780358652977)
      • OR Dante’s Divine Comedy (Recommended: Esolen translation; Inferno – ISBN: 9780345483577; Purgatory – ISBN: 9780812971255; Paradise – ISBN: 9780812977264)