The Beauty and The Beast. Jean Cocteau's version of the fairy tale. Time permitting we'll watch some of it in connection with  The Metamorphosis.  We'll talk about the function of fairy tale elements and of music in the story. How much do you know about the myth of Orpheus? The legend of St. Cecilia? About "Death the Fiddler" (Richard II "Sweet music do I hear"?)? Consult the nearest Encyclopedia. Read Dryden's Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687 (hand-out); Alexander's Feast or, The Power of Music; An Ode in Honor of St. Cecilia's Day: 1697. Time permitting we'll listen to Handel's musical settings of Dryden's poems. Of course, you can go to the music library and hear the music there. While there listen to Mozart's Magic Flute, it's at bottom an opera about music. We'll view some of it in class, Tamino encountering Sarastro's animals, Pamina and Tamino facing the two most destructive of the four ancient elements, fire and water.
A major problem is lack/impossibility of communication. How can insects and humans communicate with one another? How do animals communicate? See J.W.Bradbury and S.L.Vehrenkamp: Principles of Animal Communication (1998). In the same context "When Lizards Do Push-Ups" in Science News, 2-27-99.

Steven Berkoff adapted The Metamorphosis for stage and film. We'll watch some of it in class. Tim Roth is a terrifically agile Gregor Samsa. We'll watch Fred Astaire dance all over the walls and across the ceiling for comparison. Baryshnikov was Gregor on Broadway. The father is played by Berkoff himself.

Christopher Plummer is dreadfully pompous as Cornell's Vladimir Nabokov in a video version of Nabokov's essay on the short story. Shots of the Cornell campus, but the "lecture" itself is filmed elsewhere. We'll see some of it in class.
Nabokov's essay enthusiastically favors the changed Gregor, the animal. His indictment of the family is harsh ("Philistines"). And Berkoff plays the father with unusual cruelty. How does the text picture the various family members and household help? Nabokov points out that the changed Gregor may have wings, but that it never occurs to him. His family could take him around the block on a leash, it never occurs to them. At what point does Gregor give up and let go? How does the family react to his death and disposal by the charwoman?
How would you react if one morning, in the room next to yours, your brother's room, you find a bug as big as a Buick?