ENGL 213 - Imagining Apocalypse

An introduction to literary study that explores the tradition of apocalyptic imagination and its relationship to practices of reading and interpretation. Why has the idea of apocalypse been so pervasive in Western literature and civilization? How has apocalypse been variously conceived as the destruction or uncovering of meaning (and sometimes as both at once)? Is apocalypse a full stop, or a transfiguration? Is reading by nature an apocalyptic pursuit? Students consider apocalyptic texts as anticipations of millennial promise, as works of political protest, and as dire prophecies of impending ecological catastrophe. Students also think about the particular character of apocalyptic imagination in contemporary American culture. Writers to be studied include William Blake, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sigmund Freud, Samuel Beckett, Jorie Graham, and Margaret Atwood.

Credits: 1.00
Corequisite: None
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior
Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Liberal Arts CORE: None

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