Carpe Diem: Seizing Life Through Literature and Music

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The Johns Hopkins University

Department of German and Romance Languages and Literature

Carpe Diem: Seizing Life Through Literature and Music

Intersession 2017 –AS.211.219 – 1 credit

Room: TBA. TThF 10.30 AM – 12.00 PM

Instructor: Francesco Brenna

Office hours by appointment()

Note: The syllabus is subject to change. Please make sure to check Blackboard regularly for the most recent version of the syllabus and for announcements on its variations, as well as for the assignments for each class.

(Update: November 2016).

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will address how literature and music help us to seize the day, live in the present, and experience life to the fullest instead of idealizing it. Readings and listenings include diverse genres: Classics (Horace, Catullus), Italian Renaissance (Lorenzo de’ Medici, Torquato Tasso), American poetry (Walt Whitman, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg), the Bible (Ecclesiastes), jazz (Bill Evans), songwriters (Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen), classical music (Daniel Barenboim).

LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION

The course is taught in English. Readings will be available both in English and in the original language (Latin, Italian).

COURSE OBJECTIVES

- Understand how literature and music help us to live in the present and enjoy life more.

- Be able to analyze and compare texts and music from different ages and traditions which deal with the same theme—i.e., time and living the present.

- Acquire the capability of connecting the portrayal of time in literature and music to the place, period, and tradition in which such artistic output was produced.

REQUIREMENTS

- Students must participate actively inclass discussion and must read and understand the texts, songs, movies, and artworks assigned for each session on Blackboard. Active participation will be evaluated (includinglate arrivals).

- Each student will present orally on part of the readings assigned for one class.

- Thefinal project will consistof a short paper (1500 to 1800 words) or, should the number of students allow, a short presentation (15 minutes)on a topic related to our class discussions to be chosen in consultation with the instructor.Alternative types of final projects will be taken in consideration depending on the needs of the class and the development of the course.

EVALUATION

This course isS/U only.Students will receive three grades out of 100 for their participation, presentation, and finalproject. The final composite grade will be calculated as follows:

30%Active participation

20% Presentation

50% Finalproject

A final composite grade of minimum 70/100 (C-)is required in order to pass the course.

TEXTBOOKS

No textbook is required. The instructor will upload texts and materials for each session on Blackboard.

ATTENDANCE POLICY

Attendance is mandatory. Students are permittedone unexcused absence. For each absence beyond the firstone,written documentation to excuse the absence (i.e.,a physician’s note, a note from the Office of the Dean of Student Life if you are experiencing a difficult situation, etc.) will be necessary. There is no need to justify the firstabsence. A 10%penalty will be applied to the final grade for each unexcused absence.

ETHICS

The strength of the university depends on academic integrity. In this course, you must be honest and truthful. Ethical violations include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of assignments, improper use of the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, and unfair competition. Report any violations you witness to the instructor. You may consult the associate Dean of Students and/or the Chair of the Ethics Board beforehand.

Please pay particular attention to the use of sources in presentations and final projects. The use of any uncredited source is considered academic dishonesty. Cite every source, whether an article, a book, a webpage, or any other media.Students cannot work with classmates on the presentation or on the Final Project.

DO NOT USE WIKIPEDIA! It is not a scholarly source.

DISABILITIES AND ACCOMODATIONS

Should you have a disability and need special accommodations, please contact the Office of the Student Disability Services (; 410-516-4720; 385 Garland Hall).

COURSE SCHEDULE

1. Introduction to the course (Tuesday, January 10)

2. The classics: Horace and Catullus(Thursday, January 12)

- Horace, OdesI.9 (on the Mount Soracte), I.11 (on Carpe Diem), II.10 (on the Aurea Mediocritas), I.14 (on the flight of time).

- Catullus, Carmen 5.

3. The Italian Renaissance: Lorenzo de’ Medici and Torquato Tasso (Friday, January 13)

- Lorenzo de’ Medici,Song of Bacco[Canzona di Bacco].

- Torquato Tasso, Aminta: Act I (including the chours on the “età dell’oro”), Act II scene 1.

4. The Bible: Ecclesiastes(Tuesday, January 17)

- Selections from the Ecclesiastes.

5. American poetry: Walt Whitman, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg (Thursday, January 19)

- Walt Whitman, selections from Leaves of Grass.

- Jack Kerouac, selections from On the Road.

- Allen Ginsberg, Howl.

6. Jazz and improvisation (Friday, January 20)

- Jack Kerouac, selections from On the Road.

- Charlie Parker, Confirmation.

- Bill Evans, The Universal Mind of Bill Evans [interview].

- Bill Evans, B Minor Waltz.

- Wynton Marsalis, selections from Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life.

7. Songwriters—with some Fellini as well (Tuesday, January 24)

- Bob Dylan,Mr. Tambourine Man.

- Federico Fellini, La strada.

- Federico Fellini, selections from Fare un film and from the interview with Gideon Bachman (1964).

- Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah and selections from The Favourite Game.

Choose a topic for the final project.

8. Classical music: Daniel Barenboim (Thursday, January 26)

- Daniel Barenboim, selections from Music Quickens Time.

9. Final project (Friday, January 27)

- Discussion of final projects / final remarks.

Have a draft or an outline of your final project ready.

WORKSCITED IN THE READINGS

Barenboim, Daniel. Music Quickens Time. London: Verso, 2008.

Catullus. Ed. D. F. S. Thomson. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1997. [Critical edition only in Latin, but useful English comment].

Catullus. The Poems of Catullus. Trans. and ed. Peter Green. Berkeley: U of California P, 2005.

Cohen, Leonard. Hallelujah. Various Positions. Columbia, 1984.

——. Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.

——. The Favourite Game. Afw. Paul Quarrington. Toronto: New Canadian Library, 1994.

De’ Medici, Lorenzo. Selected Poems and Prose. Ed. Jon Thiem. Trans. Jon Thiem et al. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1991.

——. Selected Writings. Ed. Corinna Salvadori. Dublin: Belfield Italian Library, 1992. [In Italian, but useful and detailed comment in English].

Dylan, Bob. Lyrics: 1962–2001. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

——. Mr. Tambourine Man. Bringing It All Back Home. CBS, 1965.

Evans, Bill. B Minor Waltz. You Must Believe in Spring. Perf. Eddie Gomez and Eliot Zygmund. Warner Bros., 1981.

——. The Universal Mind of Bill Evans: the Creative Process and Self-Teaching. Interview by Harry Evans. 1966.

Fellini, Federico. “Interview with Federico Fellini.” Interview by Gideon Bachmann. 1964. Rpt. in Federico Fellini. Interviews. Ed. Bert Cardullo. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006. 23-34.

Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems: 1947–1997. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.

Horace. Odes I: Carpe Diem. Trans. David West. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.

——. Odes II: Vatis Amici. Trans. David West. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin, 1991.

Marsalis, Wynton. Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life. New York: Random House, 2008.

Parker, Charlie. Confirmation. Played and recorded several time by Parker as early as 1945.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible:New Revised Standard Edition with the Apocrypha. 3rd Ed. Ed. Michael D. Coogan et al. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Three Renaissance Pastorals: Tasso, Guarini, Daniel. Ed. Elizabeth Story Donno. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1993. [Edition of the seventeenth-century translation by Henry Reynolds, printed by Augustine Matthews].

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. Ed. Michael Moon. New York: Norton, 2002.

OTHER STUDIES

Horace and Catullus

Putnam, Michael C. J. Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006.

Italian Renaissance

De’ Medici, Lorenzo. Canti carnascialeschi. Ed. Paolo Orvieto. Rome: Salerno, 1991. [Great comment].

Gigante, Claudio. “«Ardite sì, ma pur felici carte». Tradizione letteraria, potere e misteri nella pastorale di Tasso. Un’interpretazione dell’Aminta.” Tra res e verba: studi offerti a Enrico Malato per i suoi settant’anni. Ed. Bruno Itri. Cittadella: Bertoncello, 2006. 169-205.

Quinones, Ricardo J. “Time and historical values in the literature of the Renaissance.” Aspects of Time. Ed. C. A. Patrides. Manchester, UK: Manchester UP, 1976. 39-56.

——. The Renaissance Discovery of Time. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972.

Scarpati, Tasso. “Il nucleo ovidiano dell’«Aminta».” Tasso, i classici e i moderni. Padova: Antenore, 1995. 75-104.

Trionfi e Canti Carnascialeschi. Ed. Riccardo Bruscagli. Roma: Salerno, 1986. [Beautiful edition and introduction].

Vanacker, Janis. “«S’ei piace, ei lice». Il mito dell’età dell’oro nell’Aminta, Il pastor fido e lo Spaccio de la bestia trionfante.” Giorni, stagioni, secoli: le età dell’uomo nella lingua e nella letteratura italiana. Ed. Sabine Verhulst and Nadine Vanwelkenhuzen. Roma: Carocci, 2005. [Good synthesis of important scholarship on Aminta, such as Chiodo, Coda, Zatti, and Fenzi].

The Bible

Bundvad, Mette. Time in the Book of the Ecclesiastes. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. [Not focused on the theme of “seizing life,” but see at least chapter 4, “The Present in the Book of Qohelet,” 83-114].

Christianson, Eric S. Ecclesiastes through the Centuries. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

Maggioni, Bruno. Giobbe e Qohelet: la contestazione sapienziale nella Bibbia. Assisi: Cittadella, 1979.

Perry, T. A. The Book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) and the Path to Joyous Living. New York: Cambridge UP, 2015. [Interpretation of the Ecclesiastes particularly useful for our course and, at the same time, quite broad, scholarly, and which weaves together many important studies on this book].

Whitman and the Beats

Belgard, Daniel. The Culture of Spontaneity: Improvisation and the Arts in Postwar America. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998.

Cowley, Malcom. Introduction. Leaves of Grass: the First (1855) Edition. By Walt Whitman. Ed. Cowley. New York: the Viking Press, 1959.

Dardess, George. “The Logic of Spontaneity: A Reconsiderations of Kerouac’s ‘Spontaneous Prose Method’.” boundary 2 3.3 (1975): 729-46.

Deleuze, Gilles. “Whitman”. Essays Critical and Clinical. Trans. Daniel W. Smith and Daniel A. Greco. New York: Verso, 1998. 56-61. Print.

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First Public Reading, Legal Skirmishes, Precursor Texts and Bibliography. Ed. Barry Miles. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

Hrebeniak, Michael. Action Writing: Jack Kerouac’s Wild Form. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2006.

Mortenson, Erik R. “Beating Time: Configurations of Temporality in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.” The Beat Generation: Critical Essays. Ed. Kostas Myrsiades. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. 57-75.

Weinreich, Regina. The Spontaneous Poetics of Jack Kerouac: a Study of the Fiction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1987.

Dylan and Cohen

Dylan, Bob. Chronicles: Volume 1. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

Gilmour, Michael J. Tangled Up in the Bible: Bob Dylan and Scripture. New York: Continuum, 2004.

Johnson, Brian D. “Our Poet of the Apocalypse.” Macelan’s 114.42 (2001): 52-57.

Nade, Ira. Leonard Cohen: a Life in Art. Toronto: ECW Press, 1994.

Nicolet, Valerie. “Leonard Cohen’s Use of the Bible: Transformations of the Sacred.” Biblical Reception 3 (2014): 223-39.

O’Neill, Mary Anne. “Leonard Cohen, Singer of the Bible.” Crosscurrents 65.1 (2015): 91-99.

Ramnick, David. “How the Light Gets in: Leonard Cohen at eighty-two.” The New Yorker. 17 October 2016. 46-59.

Music, jazz, improvisation

Bailey, Derek. Improvisation: its nature and practice in music. London: The British Library National Sound Archives, 1992.

Theory

Clune, Michael W. Writing Against Time. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2013. [Interesting treatment of writers who tried to stop time in their writing, especially for the connections with music].

Eco, Umberto. Opera aperta: forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee. Milan: Bompiani, 1976.