LARTS 352 — Noonday Demon: Depression in Literature

3 credits
Spring
Jo Sarzotti

Prerequisite: LARTS 112 The literary theme of descent to the underworld can be analogized to a descent into depression. This course starts with exploration of this idea by reading Dante’s Inferno with reference to ancient and classical descents, as well as reading modern versions, essays by Loren Eiseley, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the discussion of which will also include viewing the film Apocalypse Now. Then we will take up modern clinical ideas about depression, starting with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, William Styron’s Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, and poetry by Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and others. Background reading will include Freud, Jung, and Andrew Solomon, whose memoir provides the course title.