English 211: Literature and the Arts: In the Museum

This course will use Emory's Carlos Museum as a site that calls for discussions of the intersections of
literature and art. We will begin by "visiting" John Hollander's collection of "poems speaking to silent
works of art" in The Gazer's Spirit as well as other written responses to art. Then, in conversation with
those collections housed in the Carlos, we will discuss a range of works by such figures as Homer, Ovid,
Walcott, Bernini, Michelangelo, Brueghel, Lewis Carroll, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, Carol Ann Duffy,
Ted Hughes, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, William Blake.

Throughout the course, we will discuss the works themselves but also the way meaning changes depending
on the contexts in which they are experienced, specifically those provided by the institutional structure of
the museum. Central to that experience are the written texts we encounter there. Consequently, we will
also explore the role of writing in the museum, specifically how the written word shapes a visitor's
experience of both the museum and the objects housed within it. Our final project will be to conceive an
exhibition that places the Carlos’ collection in conversation with other works of literature and visual art.

Date Reading Due Other

Friday Aug 28 Introductions
Mon Aug 31 Updike “Writers and
Artists”
Wed Sept 2 Hollander
Intro
Fri Sept 4 Hollander
Intro
Mon Sept 7 No Class
Wed Sept 9 Hollander (233-37, 285- Munch, The Scream
288) Da Vinci, Mona Lisa
Fri Sept 11 Updike, “Some Renoir Exhibition
Rectangles of Blue”
Updike, “Is Art Worth
it?”
Warren (Hollander 331-
33)
Mon Sept 14

Wed Sept 16 Hollander 249-253 Brueghel, The Fall of

Ovid, Daedulus and Icarus
Icarus (handout)
Duffy, “Mrs. Icarus” Wiki Response on Icarus
Williams, “Landscape (Image or Text)
with the Fall of Icarus”
Myth
Fri Sept 18 Zeus and Leda poems Wiki Response on Leda
 (handout) (Image or Text)
Museum
Mon Sept 21 Hollander – Statues Anon, Laoccon
Sadoleto (97-105) Anon, Apollo Belvedere
Rogers (127-28) Anon, Charioteer
Byron (137-141)
Merrrill (281-283)

Wed Sept 23 Homer, The Odyssey (5-6,

8)
Fri Sept 25 Homer, The Odyssey
Mon Sept 28 Odyssey Legacy Wiki Response on
Tennyson, “Ulysses,” Penelope
“Lotus Eaters,” (Image or Text)
Penelope Poems

Wed Sept 30 Walcott, from Omeros

Cheever, “The Swimmer”
Fri Oct 2 Museum Presentations Greek

Mon Oct 5 Faulkner, “A Rose for Paper 1 Due

Emily”
Le Guin, “The Ones
Who Walk Away
From Omelas”
Wed Oct 7 Venus Anon, Venus de Milo
De Lisle (Hollander, 171-
178)
Conquest (Hollander 263-
66)
Siebers (ereserve)

Fri Oct 9 Museum Presentations Roman

Mon Oct 12 No Class – Fall Break
Metamorphosis
Wed Oct 14 Ovid, from Metamorphosis Wiki Response on
Perseus Poems Medusa
Hollander 143-147 (Image or Text)

Fri Oct 16 Baxter, “The Gryphon”

Mon Oct 19 Ovid, from Metamorphosis Wiki Response on
Pygmalion Pygmalion
Updike, “Pygmalion” (Image or Text)
(online)
Wed Oct 21 Museum Presentations Egyptian
Fri Oct 23 Kipling
Mon Oct 26 Kipling Wiki Response on
Creation Story
Wed Oct 28
Fri Oct 30 Museum Presentations Ancient American
Mon Nov 2
Wed Nov 4 Alice in Wonderland
Fri Nov 6 Alice in Wonderland
Mon Nov 9 Contemporary Alice Wiki Response on Alice
Wed Nov 11 Duffy
Fri Nov 13 Duffy Wiki Response on a
World’s Wife
Mon Nov 16 Middlesex
Wed Nov 18 Middlesex
Fri Nov 20 Middlesex
Mon Nov 23 Middlesex
Wed Nov 25 No Class Thanksgiving
Mon Nov 30 Middlesex
Wed Dec 2 Middlesex
Fri Dec 4 Middlesex
Mon Dec 7 Wrap-up
Exhibition Projects Due