Early Modern Love Songs

Catalog description

In this course, we will consider how love-of bodies, of minds, of ideas, of God, of poetry itself-has provided both the content and the driving force of a surprising variety of early modern poems, or as their authors sometimes called them, “songs.” Our focus will be on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century short lyric poems in English, but we will also explore how those poems fit into longer traditions of poetry and songwriting, and of thinking about love in all its forms, into the present day. Assignments include essays (with revisions), annotation exercises, and poem recitations. Offered regularly.