I've spent most of the day checking old syllabi and tinkering with the list of authors. I'm thinking now that I'll cut back on the secondary reading, and try to pump up the non-Western aspect of the class just a bit, but not jettison the overall chronological structure, which always gives students a handle on the material.
Here's where I am right now with the list of authors and weeks:
Week 1: Introductions
Wednesday: Introduction
to the class and to each other.
Week 2:
Classical Foundations
Monday: Sappho, Eros, and the
origins of the “Idealist” love tradition.
Read the Sappho poems and fragments posted on D2L.
Wednesday: Ovid; origins of the “Realist”
tradition. A selection of the "Amores" and all three parts of “The Art of Love.”
Week 3:
Jewish / Christian / Muslim Foundations
Monday: The Song of Songs as
love song and allegory; the origins (perhaps) of companionate love. Read pp. 3-131 in your edition, and browse
the pages of line-by-line commentary when you find passages you particularly
like.
Wednesday: Ibn Arabi, Stations of Desire. Read the
Introduction and the poems on pages 53-75 and 105-138. Consult the glossary in the back as you read,
for helpful definitions. (Or maybe Ibn ‘Arabi
and Rumi, the "two oceans," instead.)
Weeks 4-5:
Cultures of Love
Monday Dante, Vita Nuova;
Canto 5 of Inferno, and perhaps
other parts of the Divine Comedy (by handout)
Wednesday NO CLASS: Professor in UK
Monday The Age of Beloveds (a fascinating book about Ottoman and European love poetry, from Venice to London, during the "long 16th century"--and a chance to learn how to read and situate poems in historical / cultural contexts, to think about the uses of love poems, as well as their ideas and aesthetics)
Wednesday The Age of Beloveds, continued.
Weeks 6-7:
The Companionate Revolution
Monday Donne
Wednesday More Donne
Tuesday
5/2 Bradstreet, early American love poems, Whitman
Thursday
5/4 Dickinson
Week 8: Modern(ist) Love
Tuesday
5/16 Cavafy
Thursday
5/18 Rilke
Weeks 9-11: Love and Revolution
Tuesday
5/23 Surrealists
Thursday
5/25
Faiz
Week 10: Love and Politics
Tuesday
5/30
Darwish
Thursday
6/1 Rich
The week I'm least comfortable with at the moment is week 8, which reduces Modernist Love to two poets, although we get a handful more in the sheaf of Surrealist work in the following week. Still, I'm torn between really getting to know Cavafy and Rilke (which is a joy) and introducing students to a wider range of Modernist poets, including several female ones. And I'm thinking of leaving a slot open for another poet, just in case.
But it's a start!
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