ENG 410 - Art and The Artist

Semester Hours: 4

The focus of “Art and the Artist” is on the most basic-and paradoxically the most complicated- question one can ask of a text: What is the meaning of art? The critical perspective of this question is called aesthetics, a branch of philosophical and critical analysis dealing with the intrinsic question and definition of beauty and the relationship between beauty and other values, such as truth. Essential to this study is the notion that the work of art is the supreme value among human products precisely because it is self-sufficient, and has no use or moral aim outside its own being (Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 2-3). The course will examine several literary texts, including works by Oscar Wilde, Stephen King, Robertson Davies, and an assortment of poems by English and American authors. In addition, we will study films, such as Amadeus, The Agony and the Ecstasy, and Bright Star, which focus on art and the artistic process.