17th Century Poetry

Catalog description

The sexual elegy, the Doctrine of Signatures, the cult of revenge, Attic prose and the plain style will be the principal topics covered. Also to be considered: the poetic conceit (=extended, at times bizarre metaphor); the prosody of English prose (it too had “feet” and measure); and Moderns (Eliot, Barnes) who revived the Baroque. The themes of love, nature, art, death, and God will be surveyed through close readings of Jonson, Donne, Edgeworth, Marvell, Milton, Waller, and Lovelace; essays by Bacon, Burton, and Browne; and (in facing translation) Góngora, Marino, Ronsard, Sor Juana, and Kuhlmann. Assignments include short papers, imitations, and variations.