From Plato to Post-modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author Audiobook – Original recording

The Teaching Company has a large variety of courses, many of which are very, very good. I have to isolate this one as being among my all-time favorites, and definitely in my current top ten, maybe top five. Markos is one of those rare lecturers that seems to be able to rattle off information, at whim, and he does so energetically, enthusiastically, and, above all, coherently. Probably the only thing that I dislike about lecture formats is that you can have professors who speak so slowly, pausing at every opportunity, and, by the end, you feel like you didn't come away with much. Markos is not like that, at all. In fact, I think he pushes the envelope, finding precisely the right amount of information to convey in a lecture, while achieving clarity and providing substantial content; and it is hard to imagine someone presenting more information than he does, in the time given, without bombarding the viewer or listener, inundating them.

As far as the course content, my interests have only recently moved toward an interest in aesthetics, and poetry is one of the areas of aesthetics where I am hurting for knowledge: my background was nil. (I am trained in the sciences.) What helped me in the getting so much out of this series was that Markos is a "big picture" kind of guy, which means he appreciates the philosophical underpinnings of any given subject --and the basis for any intellectual discipline is philosophy. He thoroughly employed philosophy and history to build a picture of what the poets had in mind, as they developed their modes of poetry, and this especially made much more sense of later literary thought. Between the biographies, the philosophies, and the styles/literary theory, I found this lecture series to be wildly productive and informative. I can't imagine this series getting any negative criticism, because of just how insightful and thoroughgoing it is.

There is not a person interested in literary theory that I would not recommend this to. (Note: As with always, I recommend the CD or DVD over the audio, because the quality is lacking.)

I am currently exploring Greek Mythology through one of the Great Courses and love the incredibly well-informed professor, the flow of the material and am nearly drunk on the rich imagery presented therein. If I have any constructive criticism it is: student beware! If you have already achieved your degree and this is simply for personal enrichment--enjoy. If you believe you can purchase these wonderful audiobooks and complete some core curriculum, have a library with supplemental texts handy. These audiobooks do not include the printed textbooks, the supplemental, printed textbooks or workbooks that are required when the professor teaches these courses. For all of us who have actually taken college classes, we know supplemental materials are critical for studying, review, and long-term retention of the material (not to mention valuable for visual learners).

Well, enough said. These are wonderful courses taught by some brilliant scholars and worth these few pennies. Indeed, they are below any tuition I have ever paid for a college course, I can tell you. I simply wanted to point out, it will benefit you to go to your local library to find the supporting documents for these courses. I wish only the documents or a list of suggested reading were offered for an additional fee for those interested.

...but not offensively Christian, if I may put it that way. Think C.S. Lewis rather than fundamentalist (Markos is, in fact, a Lewis scholar, and describes himself in one lecture as evangelical, but not fundamentalist). Ethical monotheists and scientific materialists don't have much in common, but we do share the charmingly old-fashioned, unprovable belief that there is an external reality that can be known to some extent, so it was fun to listen to his carefully fair descriptions of modern near-sense and nonsense. The most radical modernists and postmodernists know that only one thing is really, truly True: that nothing is true in any privileged way. (The tap dancing done to dodge the obvious self-contradiction depends on the honesty and intellectual background of the proponent.)

Climbing partway down from my soapbox: I wish his several references to biological evolutionary theory, linguistics, and gender differences were better informed. I also would have enjoyed more detailed comments on actual literary works (excuse me, texts), especially from the (shudder) Western canon, but that probably would have made the course too long. It was still 12 hours (24 lectures) well spent.

I would also highly recommend Michael Drout's Modern Scholar lecture series, “Way with Words II: Approaches to Literature”, for a more secular overview (and recommend all of Drout's other series, for that matter).