Courses

(Seminar). This course of distinguished poetry about warriors and warfare goes to the intersection of disciplines, where warrior and poet together compete and excel--ingeniously, formally, passionately, consequentially--as allies in dire contest against annihilation and despair. Homer's Iliad heads our list of exemplary titles selected from ancient and classical, mediaeval and early modern sources, including, among others, Sophocles' Ajax, and Philoctetes; Beowulf; Song of Roland; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; The Tale of the Heike; Shakespeare's Henry V; and Milton's Paradise Lost. We also will read histories, memoirs, oratory, and guidebooks, from Yuzan's Budoshoshinshu to General Patton's "The Secret of Victory," from Vegetius' De Re Militari to U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 6-22. Our reading is historically broad enough to prove the range of virtues, precepts, codes and rules of martial character and action. Yet our poetry also excels in vision and in virtuosity quite apart from how it might cultivate the norms of aristeía, chivalry, or bushido, so that certain of our questions about form and style or imaginative effects might differ in kind from other questions about the closeness or disparity of the practical warrior and the poetic warrior, and the extent to which the latter elevates and inspires the former's conception of himself in times of war and peace. We shall consider how battle narratives which excel as poetry and ring true for the warrior, appealing to his wit and outlook, might replenish the aggrieved and battle-weary mind; how a war poem's beautifully formed and lucidly rendered chaos remembers and regains for him the field of action. Toward my interest in the range of possibilities for military literature as a discipline of study, I welcome not only the novice whose interest is avid but the student knowledgeable about military topics in literature, history, political and social philosophy, and especially the student, who, having served in the Armed Forces, can bring to the seminar table a contemporary military perspective and the fruits of practical wisdom. Application instructions: E-mail Professor Giordani ([email protected]) with the subject heading "Poetics of Warrior seminar." In your message, include your name, school, major, year of study, relevant courses taken, and a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available.