Modern Literature

OFFERED 2024-2025

  • 2024-25 Time: Wednesdays, 1:45 – 3:15 pm Eastern
  • 2024-25 Tuition:
    • Seminar with writing tutorial: $80 per student per month (10 months, August – May)
    • Seminar only: $65 per student per month (10 months, August – May)
  • Location: Signal Mountain, Tennessee
  • Prerequisites: Writing II or equivalent writing skills AND, 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:
  • 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), 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.
  • Books Needed – Final book list will be posted by mid-summer but books will be the same as or similar to those listed below – Not all books will be required; choices will be available in several categories – (Hard copies are required; recommended editions/translations are listed below)
    • Shakespeare, Hamlet (Recommended ISBN: 9781586172619, Ignatius)
    • Shakespeare, The Tempest (Recommended ISBN: 978-0743482837, Folger)
    • Milton, Paradise Lost (Recommended ISBN: 978-0199535743, Oxford World’s Classics) OR Austen, Emma (Recommended ISBN: 978-0141439587, Penguin Classics)
    • Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Dover, ISBN: 978-0486264646) OR Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (Ballantine, ISBN: 978-0449213940) OR Kafka, Metamorphosis (Schocken, ISBN: 978-0805210552)
    • Huxley, Brave New World (Harper Perennial, ISBN: 978-0060850524) OR Orwell, 1984 (Signet Classics, ISBN: 978-0451524935)
    • Hugo’s Les Miserables OR Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo
    • Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (Recommended ISBN: 9780679420293, Pevear-Volokhonsky translation)
    • Lewis, That Hideous Strength (ISBN: 978-0743234924)
    • “The Clean Sea Breeze of the Centuries” EITHER:
      • Homer’s Iliad (Recommended: Lattimore translation, ISBN: 9780226470497)
      • 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)