Introduction to Literature: Literary History:
Love and Literature
Ask 100 different people to define love and receive 100 different answers. Words like affection, adoration, devotion, desire, connection, commitment, may emerge as patterns, but to borrow, and rephrase, the words of Raymond Carver, what are we really talking about when we talk about love?
Let’s take a literary journey to consider some of the ways that love has been depicted in literature through time. Along the way, and through a variety of different genres, historical periods, and forms, we will work to identify central themes and questions that emerge around the subject of love in the different texts.
We will spend time considering questions such as: how do we define love? What makes the subject of love such a common literary preoccupation for writers? How do authors write about love differently (or similarly) to one another depending on their historical time? How is love connected to faith? How is love connected to concepts of mortality or immortality? As we consider philosophical and theoretical questions that pertain not only to literature, but also to everyday life, we will be working to develop skills in critical and analytical reading, writing, and the study of literature.
This course will be taught in-person (F2F) format.
*Tentative Text List
Plato, The Symposium
Marie de France, Lais
Shakespeare, Antony & Cleopatra
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese
Selections from:
Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Martin Hägglund, This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions