From Plato to Post-modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author

By: Louis Markos, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Louis Markos

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Any lover of Shakespeare or the Romantic poets can concede that poetry is pleasurable. But is it good for you? Can it teach you anything? These are questions that have beguiled and engaged eminent critics for millennia, and now you can develop your own answers and options with these 24 lectures.

The source of poetry's wellspring; the relationship between poetry and human progress; the possible truths (and lies) involved in the literary arts; the role of the author; these lectures tap into an enormous range of material to explore these and other provocative issues. You'll follow the strands of this "conversation" between philosophy and the literary arts down the millennia, profiting from in-depth analyses of works by Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Sir Philip Sidney, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, Northrop Frye, Foucault, Derrida, and more.

Throughout these lectures, you'll meet the poet in many guises. These include: the divine poet (a supernatural creator who transcends the laws of nature), the alchemical poet (the inspired individual who fuses humanity's divided nature into one), the common poet (the poet who roots himself or herself in the real world and speaks for the common individual), the playful poet (who champions sensitivity of feeling, contradictory truths, and uncertainties), and the prisoner poet (who's a product of, and a slave to, his or her own subconscious suppositions).

By concentrating on critical reflections about poetry - the oldest of the literary arts - you'll come away with lessons on how to understand literature, and all of the arts, more generally. More importantly, you'll be prepared to join in these critical conversations yourself.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©1999 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1999 The Great Courses

this might be the most beneficial thing on audible

huge fan of getting the great courses from audible for less than the cost of a fast food combo, but this one really resonated with me. i did read Plato's republic after the first lecture and I think I have several other titles to get through before i re listen to this. I'm always impressed at the abilities of great teachers to summarize thousands of years of human thought into digestible chunks. markos is among the best. well worth your time.

too advanced for my understanding at this point

the course is too advanced for me at this point, I'm lacking the knowledge or the time to sit down and study it properly

Great!

Very informative. We are listening to this from our seminary class. There is so much to learn from this it takes several times listening to really take it in. Thank you

Fast, Furious - And Fun

I loved Professor Markos riveting presentation - in itself worth listening to - however the ambitious scope of the course led to sweeping and at times superficial generalizations that exposed a clear bias - detracting from its overall affect - not for everyone - more entertainment than substance perhaps - still enjoyed the subject and unique synthesis of poetry, philosophy and lit criticism

Aside from his views on feminism...

Prof Louis Markos makes no bones about his personal leanings. He is a long-time professor at an evangelical Christian college. But don't let that deter you if you are left-leaning like myself. There's plenty to love here. I intend to listen to this multiple times. My only displeasure is his dismissal of Feminist theory. But I can get my Kristeva hit elsewhere.

Great series of lectures by the brilliant Louis Markos

Louis Markos is an amazing lecturer and Professor and this expansive course brought me back to the place I love -- studying literature. But it is Prof Markos that made it work for me. I'm going to get his other course. INSPIRING!

Great Start but did disservice to 20th century

Any additional comments?

This course started out very strong, and the professor's performance was outstanding. My major criticism, and it is important, is that he was not very generous to the modern and postmodern critics. He clearly doesn't like them, and he spent at least as much time arguing against them as explaining how their arguments work, and his arguments against them were, frequently, against very reductive versions of their arguments. We get that you don't like arguing with deconstructionists, but there is a lot more to Derrida and company than simple sophistry or being unwilling to give concrete truths. And the idea that gender is performative is important, widely accepted, and rather than simply mocking it, it is worth explaining and clarifying.

The professor is also, unsurprisingly, perhaps over-committed to biblical scholarship, and so more time was spent giving examples from theology than I personally was particularly interested, though of course that is not a criticism; other listeners might find that much more helpful than I did.

Worthwhile Listening

Would you consider the audio edition of From Plato to Post-modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author to be better than the print version?

I enjoyed hearing the lectures as they were originally given.

What did you like best about this story?

The vast amount of information rendered.

Any additional comments?

I was amazed at how well this lecturer took us over such a great expanse of time and made sense of the paradigms and paradigm shifts in the field of literature.

What a great series!

One of the best series I’ve listened to (and I’ve listened to many). A great combination of deep insight with engaging and entertaining delivery. Highly recommended!

Good teacher

This course is great, it covers a lot of material throughout the whole history of the theory of art criticism. The lecturer really is a vaguely conservative evangelical Christian, as others pointed out, but the fact that you can notice this doesn’t take away from the course in the slightest, unless this just makes you too angry to think. Some of the coverage was shallow, but way less than you expect from the format – he’s better than many of the other Great Courses lecturers on intellectual topics. And his course guide is peculiarly thorough, so you can check the (extensive) bibliography yourself – my copy of the audiobook came with the typical PDF course guide, although I know that not getting the guide is a common issue on this app. His lectures are energetic and engaging. He’s a bit excited to say that one author “destroyed” another author’s ideas, which I find to be a simplistic way to talk, but he’s not too tendentious about that. He clearly loves his subject and is very interested in each author he covers, it strikes me as unkind to be hard on him over these interpretive quibbles.