road-map

So I've arrived at a provisional syllabus for the seminar; over the next few months, here is the map of our reading (to be supplemented with various secondary texts). The primary course texts are as follows, though one can easily work along with the downloadable volumes from the Library Edition (all of these texts by John Ruskin):

Praeterita, ed. Francis O’Gorman (Oxford UP, 2012)
Selected Writings, ed. Dinah Birch (Oxford UP, 2004)
Sesame and Lilies, ed. Deborah Epstein Nord (Yale UP, 2002)
The Seven Lamps of Architecture (Dover, 1989)
Unto this Last and Other Writings, ed. Clive Wilmer (Penguin, 1985)

Week 1: 22 August: INTRODUCTION

 •“The King of the Golden River” (Wilmer 45-71, or available online)

Week 2: 29 August: EARLY MODERN PAINTERS

•Modern Painters I – IV (Birch 3-15, 68-81, 82-92)
•Modern Painters I, “Of Water, As Painted by Turner” (in The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from his writings, ed. John D. Rosenberg, 32-41 – handout)
•Ruskin’s early years, as recalled in Praeterita (O’Gorman 5-78)

Week 3: 5 September: THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

•The Seven Lamps of Architecture (entire book)

Week 4: 12 September: THE STONES OF VENICE

•The Stones of Venice I, “The Quarry” (Birch 28-31)
•The Stones of Venice II, “The Nature of Gothic” (Wilmer 77-109); NB: when you reach the end of Wilmer’s selection, shift to Birch, and read 59-63 in her selection.
•The Stones of Venice III, “Grotesque Renaissance” (Birch 64-68)

Week 5: 19 September: MID-PERIOD LECTURES AND LATE MODERN PAINTERS

•“Cambridge School of Art: Inaugural Address” (Birch 93-104)
•The Two Paths, “The Work of Iron” (Birch 105-135)
•Modern Painters V, “The Two Boyhoods” (Wilmer 141-154)
•Modern Painters V, “The Hesperid Aeglé” (Birch 136-139)

Week 6: 26 September: THOMAS CARLYLE, RUSKIN’S “MASTER”

Thomas Carlyle:
•On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, Lecture V, “The Hero as Man of Letters: Johnson, Rousseau, Burns”
•Past and Present, Book III (“The Modern Worker”), Chapters II (“Gospel of Mammonism”), IV (“Happy”), VII (“Over-Production”), and VIII (“Unworking Aristocracy”)
•Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. IV, “The New Downing Street”

Week 7: 3 October: UNTO THIS LAST
•Unto this Last (Wilmer 155-228) 

Week 8: 10 October: SESAME AND LILIES
•Sesame and Lilies (Nord 3-93)
•Elizabeth Helsinger, “Authority, Desire, and the Pleasures of Reading” (Nord 113-141)

Week 9: 17 October: LECTURES AND MYTHOLOGY

•The Crown of Wild Olive, “Traffic” (Wilmer 229-250)
•The Queen of the Air, “Athena Chalinitis” (Birch 175-185)
•Lectures on Art, “Inaugural” (Birch 186-204)

Week 10: 24 October: CULTURE AND AESTHETICISM: MATTHEW ARNOLD AND WALTER PATER

•Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, Chapters I (“Sweetness and Light”), III (“Barbarians, Philistines, Populace”), and IV (“Hebraism and Hellenism”)
•Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Literature, Preface, “The School of Giorgione,” and “Conclusion”

Week 11: 31 October: FORS CLAVIGERA I

•Fors Clavigera Letter 1: Looking Down from Ingleborough (Library Edition vol. 27, 11-26)*
•Letter 2: The Great Picnic (Library Edition vol. 27, 27-44)*
•Letter 7: Charitas (Wilmer 294-305)
•Letter 10: The Baron’s Gate (Wilmer 306-315)
•Letter 11: The Abbot’s Chapel (Library Edition vol. 27, 181-198)
•Letter 13: Every Man His Due (Library Edition vol. 27, 229-242)
 (Download Fors letters in Library Edition from above link)

Week 12: 7 November: FORS CLAVIGERA II; WILLIAM MORRIS, RUSKIN’S DISCIPLE

•Fors Clavigera Letter 13: Every Man His Due (Library Edition vol. 27, 229-242)
•Letter 20: Benediction (Birch 205-215)
•Letter 23: The Labyrinth (Library Edition vol. 27, 394-416)
•Letter 48: The Advent Collect (Birch 216-224)
•Letter 88: The Convents of St Quentin (Birch 225-236)
•William Morris, “Art under Plutocracy”
•William Morris, “Useful Work versus Useless Toil”

Week 13: 14 November: PRAETERITA I
Read: •Praeterita Vol. I (O’Gorman 1-153)

Week 14: 21 November: PRAETERITA II
Read: •Praeterita Vols. II and III (O’Gorman 155-363)

Week 15: 28 November
Read: •Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying”

I'm hoping this will keep us all busy, out of trouble, off the street, etc...