In this course, “The Ideal of a Gentle(man): A Mirror Held Up to Paradise,” we will examine a persistent archetype in the history of human culture: the ideal of the Gentleman. Once nearly inseparable from civilization itself, in recent times that ideal has been displaced by other desired qualities like talent, wealth, celebrity, even notoriety. What did it once mean to be a “true gentleman”? What does it mean today, if anything?