Early Modern Lyric Poetry 14 weeks; upper-level undergraduate seminar in English Literature Amrita Dhar

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1 Early Modern Lyric Poetry 14 weeks; upper-level undergraduate seminar in English Literature Amrita Dhar From Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, folio 26v; image from the collections of the Folger Shakespeare Library Course Description In this course we shall read a wide range of poetry, largely lyric, from Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard in the early sixteenth century to John Milton and Katherine Philips in the later seventeenth century. We shall work to situate poems amidst the careers and historical situations of their authors, but we shall also pay attention to form and genre. We shall explore the productive tension between formal control and insurgent passion in the poetry of early modern England. Why might a writer choose to articulate desire in formally patterned language? Is literary form the necessary vehicle, or the constraint, of desire? How do class, gender, and dis/ability mark lyric utterance? How does the material production and imagined audience of a poem alter its expression and meaning? Is there a politics of lyric form in the early modern period? With the close reading of a wide range of poems, we shall investigate a range of possible motives for putting into carefully patterned language the chaotic vagaries of emotion and appetite. Course Goals 1. Enabling you to read older poetry with ease and enjoyment;

2 2. Deepening your understanding of lyric form and conventions with respect to the social conditions of the individuals engaged in lyric composition in the early modern period; 3. Developing your close reading methods and strategies for intricate and sometimes challenging poetic language; 4. Encouraging your facility to express complex literary appreciation in writing. Course Requirements Attendance and participation Short paper (5 pages; close reading) In-class reports and presentations Final paper (12 pages; critical analysis) 40% of course grade Required Materials 1. The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse , ed. David Norbrook (Penguin, 1992) [PB] 2. The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems, ed. Colin Burrow (Oxford, 2002) 3. The Poems of Aemelia Lanyer: Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, ed. Susanne Woods (Oxford, 1993) 4. The Poems of Lady Mary Wroth, ed. Josephine Roberts (Louisiana State University Press, 1983) 5. Seventeenth-Century British Poetry , eds John Rumrich and Gregory Chaplin (W. W. Norton, 2006) [Norton] 6. Early Modern English Poetry: A Critical Companion, eds Patrick Cheney, Andrew Hadfield, and Garrett A. Sullivan (Oxford, 2007) [EMEP] Schedule Note: From the second week onwards, each class will include brief reports of critical essays pertinent to the poetry we are reading. Each student will be responsible for 2-3 reports. Week 1 Introduction Petrarch, selections from Rime Sparse (handouts) Wyatt, They fle from me, Who so list to hount, It may be good like it who list, My lute awake (PB ) Surrey, The soote season (PB 185) Turbervile, To his love (PB 186) Week 2 Sidney, Certain Sonnets 4 (PB 196), Astrophil and Stella 1, 2, 9, 72, 81, 83, Eighth Song, Eleventh Song (PB ) Spenser, Maye from The Shepheardes Calender, Amoretti 23, 64, 67, 70, 71, Epithalamion (PB , ) Catherine Bates, Wyatt, Surrey, and the Henrician Court (EMEP) William J. Kennedy, Sidney s Astrophil and Stella and Petrarchism (EMEP) Bart Van Es, Spenserian Pastoral (EMEP) Week 3 Greville, Caelica 22, 27,39,44,84 (PB )

3 Shakespeare, Sonnets 1-26, 29-36, 41-47, 55-59, 62, 66-67, 74, 93-96, Gascoigne, A Sonet written in praise of the brown beautie (PB 192) Colin Burrow, Introduction to The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems Jonathan Goldberg, Literary Criticism, Literary History, and the Place of Homoeroticism (EMEP) Sasha Roberts, Shakespeare s Sonnets and English Sonnet Sequences (EMEP) Week 4 Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece Whitney, To her unconstant Lover (PB ) Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, P1-P13, P15-P25, P31-P34, P40, P52-P55, P70, P74, P77-P90, P103 Patrick Cheney, Shakespeare s Literary Career and Narrative Poetry (EMEP) Naomi J. Miller, Lady Mary Wroth and Women s Love Poetry (EMEP) Week 5 Donne, The Good-Morrow, Song (Go and catch a falling star), The Undertaking, The Sun Rising, The Indifferent, The Canonization, Air and Angels, The Anniversary, A Valediction: Of Weeping, Love s Alchemy, The Flea, The Bait, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, The Ecstasy, The Relic, Farewell to Love, Elegy 8. To His Mistress going to bed (Norton 23-44, 46-47) Andrew Hadfield, Donne s Songs and Sonets and Artistic Identity (EMEP) John Dryden, Donne Affects the Metaphysics (Norton) T. S. Eliot, The Metaphysical Poets (Norton) Week 6 Close reading paper due Nashe, The Choise of Valentines (PB ) Marlowe, Hero and Leander (PB ) Carew, A Rapture (Norton ) Herrick, The Vine, Delight in Disorder, Julia s Petticoat, To the Virgins (Norton , 185, 189, ) Marvell, To His Coy Mistress, The Garden (Norton , ) Philips, An Answer to another (PB 378) William Empson, Donne the Space Man and Marvell s Garden (Norton) William Kerrigan, Kiss Fancies in Robert Herrick (Norton) Week 7 Jonson, Inviting a Friend to Supper, To Penshurst (Norton 89-90, ) Philips, Friendship's Mystery, Friendship in Embleme, To my Excellent Lucasia (PB ) Herrick, The Hock Cart (Norton ) Carew, To Saxham (Norton )

4 Marvell, Upon Appleton House (Norton ) Lovelace, The Snail (Norton ) Cowley, The Grasshopper (Norton ) Janel Mueller, Women among the Metaphysicals: A Case, Mostly, of Being Donne For (Norton) William Kerrigan, Transformations of Friendship in the Work of Katherine Philips (Norton) Thomas Healy, Marvell and Pastoral (EMEP) Raymond Williams, Pastoral and Counter-Pastoral (Norton) Week 8 Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum Donne, Satire 3 (Kind pity), Holy Sonnets II ( As due by many titles ), IV ( Oh my black soul ), VI ( This is my play s last scene ), VII ( At the round earth s imagined corners ), IX ( If poisonous minerals ), X ( Death be not proud ), XI ( Spit in my face ), XII ( Why are we by all creatures ), XIII ( What if this present ), XIV ( Batter my heart ), XVII ( Since she whom I loved ), XVIII ( Show me, dear Christ ), XIX ( Oh, to vex me ), Good Friday, Riding Westward (Norton 53-55, 69-76) Helen Wilcox, Lanyer and the Poetry of Land and Devotion (EMEP) Ann Baynes Coiro, Writing in Service: Sexual Politics and Class Position in the Poetry of Aemilia Lanyer and Ben Jonson (Norton) Achsah Guibbory, Donne s Religious Poetry and the Trauma of Grace (EMEP) Danielle Clarke, Mary Sidney Herbert and Women s Religious Verse (EMEP) Week 9 Herbert, The Temple The Altar, The Sacrifice, The Thanksgiving, Redemption, Easter Wings [I], Easter Wings [II], H. Baptism [I], H. Baptism [II], Affliction [I], Prayer [I], The Temper [I], Jordan [I], The H. Scriptures [I], Church-monuments, Church-music, The Windows, The Quiddity, Sunday, Employment [II], Denial, Christmas, Jordan [II], Obedience, The British Church, Dullness, Sin s Round, The Size, Artillery, The Bag, The Collar, The Pulley, The Flower, A True Hymn, Bitter-sweet, The Forerunners, The Elixir, A Wreath, Death, Judgment, Heaven, Love [III] (Norton ) John Drury, General Introduction to George Herbert: The Complete Poetry Michael Schoenfeldt, That Spectacle of Too Much Weight : The Poetics of Sacrifice in Donne, Herbert, and Milton (Norton) Joseph H. Summers, The Poem as Hieroglyph (Norton ) Week 10 Milton, On the Morning of Christ s Nativity, L Allegro, Il Penseroso, Lycidas, On Shakespeare, Sonnet 7, 8, 12, 13, 16, 19, 23 (Norton ) Southwell, The burning Babe (PB 535) Anonymous, Yet if his Majestie our Sovareigne lord (PB 585) Crashaw, A Hymne of the Nativity, To the Noblest and best of Ladyes (PB ) Jonson, On My First Daughter, On My First Son (Norton 85-86) Vaughan, They are all gone into the world of light (PB ) Philips, Epitaph, Orinda upon little Hector Philips (PB )

5 Report Barbara Lewalski, Milton, the Nativity Ode, the Companion Poems, and Lycidas (EMEP) Week 11 Jonson, To the Reader, To My Book, To William Camden, To Sir Horace Vere, To John Donne, Why I Write Not of Love, To Sir Robert Wroth, Songs To Celia ( Come, my Celia, Kiss me, sweet, Drink to me only ), Epode, To Heaven, An Epistle to Master John Selden, An Ode to Himself, An Epistle Answering to One That Asked to Be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben, To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair (Norton ) Constable, To St Mary Magdalen (PB 536) Marvell, A Coronet (PB ) Askew, The Balade (PB ) Laura Lunger Knoppers, Cavalier Poetry and Civil War (EMEP) Earl Miner, The Cavalier Ideal of the Good Life (Norton) Week 12 Vaughan, The Retreate, The World, Cock-crowing, The Water-fall (PB ) Trapnel, selection from The Cry of a Stone (PB 613) Collins, Another Song exciting to spirituall Mirth (PB ) Traherne, The Salutation, Wonder, Eden, The Rapture, My Spirit, Love (Norton ) Suckling, A Sessions of the Poets (Norton ), Out upon it (Norton 427) Randolph, An Elegy (Norton ) Cowley, Ode. Of Wit (Norton ), Platonic Love (Norton ) Lovelace, Song. To Lucasta, Gratiana dauncing and singing, To Althea, From Prison (PB ) Gordon Braden, Beyond Frustration: Petrarchan Laurels in the Seventeenth Century (Norton) Gerald Hammond, Caught in the Web of Dreams: The Dead (Norton) Leah Marcus, Children of Light: Vaughan and Traherne (Norton) Week 13 Annotated bibliography for final paper due Bradstreet, The Author to her Book, Before the Birth of One of Her Children, By Night when Others Soundly Slept, Contemplations, A Dialogue between Old England and New, The Four Ages of Man, To Her Father with Some Verses, To My Dear and Loving Husband (handouts) Cavendish, The Poetress s Hasty Resolution, The Poetress s Petition, An Apology for Writing so Much upon This Book, A World Made by Atoms, All Things Are Governed by Atoms, A War betwixt Atoms, If Infinite Worlds, Of Infinite Matter, Of the Motion of the Blood, Of Many Worlds in this World (Norton ) Week 14 Presentation of research questions for final papers Examinations Week Critical analysis paper due