OLLI@DU / 2023 FALL / COURSE DESCRIPTIONS Kafka and Camus Consider the Absurdity of Life LWRL 1003
Wednesday Dates: 9/20 to 11/8 (8 weeks) Time: 1–3 PM Facilitator: Ann Cohen, Diamond Facilitator Location: Online Class Limit: 20 Participants Sponsoring Site: Central This will be a discussion course in which we will read two novels: The Trial by Franz Kafka and The Stranger by Albert Camus. We will compare how the two authors use the device of the trial to tell their stories, and what possible meaning we can glean from these readings.
The Mechanics of Poetry LWRL 1006
Wednesday Dates: 9/20 to 11/8 (8 weeks) Time: 1–3 PM Facilitator: Carol Anthony, Diamond Facilitator Location: Jefferson Unitarian Church Class Limit: 25 Participants Sponsoring Site: West What is poetry? There are a hundred definitions, few of them remotely the same. Poetry is like art: I know it when I see it. However, all poetry has one key similarity: an intense effort to condense meaning into a smaller space than prose by use of devices: rhythm, metaphor, simile and an extensive host of others, some familiar and common, some unusual and rare. To quote our textbook: “Poetry is multidimensional language... [it] achieves its extra dimensions—its greater pressure per word and its greater tension per poem—by drawing more fully and more consistently than does ordinary language on a number of language resources, none of which is peculiar to poetry.” Come along with me on a voyage to explore how these devices give richness and meaning to poems. We will define and discuss the devices and how they work by reading and analyzing a wide variety of poems.
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