SCHC 367 H04 20897

Humanities, HistoryCiv, AIU

Notes:

** Open to honors students from any major.  No prior training in music is assumed.** Focusing primarily on music, the visual arts, and literature, this class undertakes a comprehensive survey of the political, social, and artistic upheavals that shaped modern Western culture. Although historians rightly stress the importance of the revolutions of 1776, 1789, 1830, and 1848, changes in other arenas were no less dramatic: the industrial revolution and urbanization created new stresses in European society, and the period saw the emergence of new concepts of the human personality, a new distinction between individuals and their social class, and a growing emphasis on the importance of originality in creative work. These developments are evident in the arts, and they may be explored as leading to—rather than flowing from—the political revolutions of the era. This course explores these changes through introductions to important musicians (Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Berlioz), characteristic artists (Greuze, Fragonard, Fuseli, David, and Friedrich), and notable authors (including selections from Richardson’s Pamela, Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro, Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, and Hector Berlioz’s Memoires). Examinations of such artists and artworks, along with readings from contemporaneous political and economic theorists, will lead to a detailed understanding of European society as it approaches modern times.