Ideas matter. Words and music are powerful; they can profoundly alter how we view ourselves, everything outside ourselves, and the intersection of the two. What can the works of composer Ludwig van Beethoven and poet William Blake teach us about the power of imagination and the possibilities of human freedom? Through close listening and reading, we will study the textures of their work in the context of the 19th century, as well as consider several of their late 19th-century inheritors and 20th-century transformers and critics: in poetry, the experimental formalism of Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky (“upper level music, lower level speech”); and in music, the compositions of Richard Wagner and John Adams. Other readings will include Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy Out of The Spirit of Music, Georg Buchner's Lenz, and Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, as well as essays by Maynard Solomon, Richard Taruskin, Edward Said, and Theodore Adorno. Particular works of Beethoven to be considered are the 3rd, 5th, and 9th symphonies, piano sonata No. 17, and his late string quartets.