Studies in Poetry: From the Sonneteers to the Metaphysicals

Readings

Readings are also available by session.

Required Texts

Sidney, Philip. An Apology for Poetry and Astrophil and Stella: Texts and Contexts. Boston, MA: College Publishing, 2001. ISBN: 0967912113.

Donne, John and A. J. Smith, ed. John Donne: The Complete English Poems. New York, NY: Penguin, 1986. ISBN: 0140422099.

Marvell, Andrew, Frank Kermode, ed., and Keith Walker, ed. Andrew Marvell. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN: 0192822713.

Shakespeare, William and Stephen Booth, ed. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977. ISBN: 0300019599.

In addition, copies of poems by Petrarch, Ovid Wyatt, Spenser and others, along with secondary material (historical and critical) will be made available on the MIT Server for this course at appropriate moments in the term. Some of these are noted in the readings, but there will be others that I will decide on, depending upon how the class discussions progress.

Readings by Session

Lec #	topics	readings
Lines of Influence: Petrarch and Ovid
1	Introduction	Ovid’s “Apollo and Daphne.”
2	Petrarch and Ovid	Petrarch Sonnets: 1 through 6, 12, 17, 18, 21, 31, 32, 35, 36, 44 through 46, 52, 61, 76, 82, 90, 101, 102, 107, 108, 110, and 111. Ovid: “Echo and Narcissus,” “Orpheus and Eurydice,” and “Actaeon.”
3	Petrarch	Sonnets: 122, 123, 132 to 134, 144, 145, 150, 151, 159, 161, 171, 182, 183, 189, 196, 197, 211, 292, 311, 326, 327, 343, 344, 355, and 356.
Sidney and the Contexts of Renaissance Verse
4	Sidney’s Precursors: Wyatt and Surrey
5	Constructing the Poetic Self	Astrophil and Stella.
6	Sidney	Sidney’s A Defense of Poetry. Astrophil and Stella.
7	Screening of Man for All Seasons
8	The English Court under Elizabeth I	Astrophil and Stella. Additional Reading: Marotti, Arthur. “‘Love is not Love’: Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences and the Social Order.” ELH 49, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 396-428.
9	The English Court under Elizabeth I (cont.)	Astrophil and Stella. Additional Reading: King, John N. “Queen Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen.” Renaissance Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 30-74.
Sidney to Spenser and Shakespeare
10	Edmund Spenser	Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti (Selections).
11	Edmund Spenser (cont.)	Spenser’s Amoretti (Selections).
12	Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Selections)	Shakespeare’s Sonnets at The Literature Network Shakespeare’s Sonnets Gutenberg E-text
13	Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Selections) (cont.)
Donne and Marvell
14	John Donne, Songs and Sonnets (Selections)	Additional Reading: Marotti, Arthur. John Donne, Coterie Poet. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986, chapter 1. ISBN: 0299104907.
15	Money, Colonialism and Gender	Donne’s “Elegy XI: The Bracelet,” “Elegy XVIII: Loves Progress ,” “Elegy XX: To His Mistress Going to Bed,” “Sermon to the Virginia Company,” and “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”; and Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress,” and “Bermudas.” Additional Reading: Raman, Shankar. “Can’t Buy me Love: Money, Gender, and Colonialism in Donne’s Erotic Verse.” Criticism 43, no. 2 (Spring 2002): 135-168.
16	Cartography and Poetry: Maps and Bodies	Extracts from Donne’s Devotions, and “Hymn to God, My God, In My Sickness.”
17	Renaissance Neo-Platonism	Donne and Marvell: Donne’s “Air and Angels,” and “The Ecstasy”; Andrew Marvell’s “Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body,” “On a Drop of Dew,” and “The Garden.”
18	Andrew Marvell: Pastoral Poems	Marvell’s Mower poems: “The Mower, Against Gardens,” “Damon The Mower,” “The Mower to the Glow-Worms,” “The Mower’s Song.”
Poetry and Religion
19	John Donne: New Science and Doubt	Donne: “The Anniversary,” and “A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day.”
20	John Donne (cont.)	Donne’s “Satire 3,” and Selected Holy Sonnets.
21	George Herbert	George Herbert (Selections).
22	George Herbert, Mary Wroth, Amelia Lanyer	George Herbert (Selections); Mary Wroth (Selected sonnets); and Amelia Lanyer’s “Defense of Eve.”
Poetry, Place, History
23	Amelia Lanyer, Ben Johnson, Andrew Marvell	Amelia Lanyer’s “To Cookham”; Ben Jonson’s “To Penshurst”; Andrew Marvell’s “Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax.”
24	The Civil War	“Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax,” and Marvell’s “Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return From Ireland.”
25	Student Meetings to Discuss Final Essay Draft
26	The Civil War (cont.)	“Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax,” and “Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return From Ireland.”
27	Student Meetings to Discuss Final Essay Draft (If necessary) (cont.)