Studies in Poetry: From the Sonneteers to the Metaphysicals

Calendar

Lec #	topics	key dates
Lines of Influence: Petrarch and Ovid
1	Introduction
2	Petrarch and Ovid
3	Petrarch
Sidney and the Contexts of Renaissance Verse
4	Sidney’s Precursors: Wyatt and Surrey
5	Constructing the Poetic Self
6	Sidney
7	Screening of Man for All Seasons
8	The English Court under Elizabeth I
9	The English Court under Elizabeth I (cont.)
Sidney to Spenser and Shakespeare
10	Edmund Spenser	Three page response paper due in class
11	Edmund Spenser (cont.)
12	Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Selections)
13	Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Selections) (cont.)	Essay 1 due (4-6 pages) four days after Lec #13 (by midnight)
Donne and Marvell
14	John Donne, Songs and Sonnets (Selections)	Commonplace books and student sonnets due in class
15	Money, Colonialism and Gender
16	Cartography and Poetry: Maps and Bodies
17	Renaissance Neo-Platonism
18	Andrew Marvel
Poetry and Religion
19	John Donne
20	John Donne (cont.)
21	George Herbert
22	George Herbert, Mary Wroth, Amelia Lanyer	Prospectus for research essay along with preliminary annotated bibliography due
Poetry, Place, History
23	Amelia Lanyer, Ben Johnson, Andrew Marvell
24	The Civil War	Draft of research essay due in class
25	Student Meetings to Discuss Final Essay Draft
26	The Civil War (cont.)
27	Student Meetings to Discuss Final Essay Draft (If necessary) (cont.)	Research essay due (12-15 pages) five days after Lec #27