Great Books (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: David Denby
- First Published: 1996
- Type of Work: Social issues
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction
- Subjects: Culture, Philosophy or philosophers, Authors or writers, Literature, Feminism, Higher education, Learning or scholarship, Humanities
In 1961, David Denby entered Columbia University as a first-year student and took two required “great books” courses: Literature Humanities (Lit Hum for short) and Contemporary Civilization (dubbed C.C.). Lit Hum centered on a collection of classic Western texts, from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (ninth or eighth century b.c.) to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust (part I, 1808; part II, 1832); the basic list had changed little since its institution as a “core course” in 1937. C.C. featured bedrock political (and scientific) treatises such as the...
[The entire page is 2126 words long]
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