Literature Workshop: Poetry and the Beautiful

The nature of beauty has long been the subject of debate. What is beauty, for starters? In what (or whom) is it found? This workshop explores these and other questions both in the abstract (philosophically) and concretely through the lens of poetry. Students read and discuss excerpts from the aesthetic philosophies of thinkers like Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche before turning to English-language poems renowned for their beauty. Students will also try their own hands at creating beauty out of words using various rhythms, tones, and rhyme schemes. Space is limited.

Skills Acquired:

In this workshop, students will:

  1. Learn about aesthetics through philosophy

  2. Apply their understanding of aesthetics to reading poetry

  3. Apply their understanding of aesthetics to the writing process

Materials:

Students should read the assigned texts (philosophy and poetry) in advance of the workshop; electronic links to the texts will be provided. Students should bring a lunch.

Registration Cost:

Limited scholarships are available.

About the Instructor:

Chris Alderman is a tutor at Gutenberg College, where he teaches writing and German. He holds a BA in English from Washington & Lee University and an MA in Language and Literature from the University of Chicago; he has also done work as a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the University of Michigan. Chris has self-published two collections of poetry, Poems in Verse and Ephemerides, and is currently at work on a semi-autobiographical historico-science-fiction novella set in a future Ancient Greece.