English 40-5 - Winter, 2021

Renaissance Love Poetry

Topic: TO BE ANNOUNCED

 

Class Information

Instructor: Emrich, Lee
CRN: 44493
Time: MWF 2:10-3:00
Location: Remote Instruction
GE Areas: Writing Experience

Description

This course examines the forms and themes of love poetry in Renaissance England (1530-1630). Focusing heavily on the sonnet, we'll begin by considering Francesco Petrarch's groundbreaking sonnet sequence from Italy (c. 1400) before landing in England in the 16th century to watch its effects play out in the works of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Sir Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Lady Mary Sidney and more--the great poets of the English Renaissance. We'll consider constructions of masculinity, femininity, desire, sex, exile, political power, and physical/spiritual transfiguration in the poems. We will also contextualize the poetry against the political and cultural backdrop of the tumultuous reigns of Tudor monarchs Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and their Stuart successor, James I.

Grading

Reading Responses (4 of them) (50%)
Discussion Questions (25%)
Final Paper (25%)

Texts

Il Canzoniere, Francesco Petrarch
Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
Selected Poems, Sir Thomas Wyatt
Selected Poems, Henry Howard, Ear of Surrey
Sonnets, William Shakespeare
Love's Labours Lost, William Shakespeare
Selected Poems, John Donne
Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, Lady Mary Sidney
Selected Poems, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmund Waller