Divine Madness: Erotic Love, Lunacy, and A Life of Learning

Catalog description

When the ancient Greek philosopher Plato called erotic love a form of divine madness he was expressing a familiar truth: love makes you crazy. But he also thought that this same kind of love and its lunacy were essential to a life of learning. How could this be? Its true that love heightens our awareness, awakens our curiosity, and opens us to exploration and experimentation; but it also shatters our objectivity, casts impartiality aside, and inspires us to celebrate our clouded judgment and prejudiced opinions. This course will explore some of the delightfully rich and dizzyingly complex relationships between love, lunacy, and learning as they are revealed in works of literature, philosophy, psychology, and film. In addition to the common reading, we will study texts by Plato, Shakespeare, Freud, Thomas Mann, Andre Dubus, and the films The Lady Eve, Moonstruck, and Smiles of a Summer Night.