What does it mean to experience love? How do we write about it? What beliefs about love do we hold most dear? What stories or myths do we use to inscribe the indescribable? This course investigates several myths, literary works, and philosophical treatises that attempt to represent, understand, explain, and immortalize the experience of love. From contemporary pop lyrics to Renaissance love poetry and Romanticism, we will look at the ways in which social, personal, and metaphysical experiences of love are illustrated and reimagined in the art of verbal language and literary representation. Beginning with 21st-century pop records like those of Adele, we will rediscover the tradition of love that has come down to us. This course is taught in translation and focused on close readings and discussions of the assigned texts. Students will be given the opportunity to write analytically and creatively in response to the assigned readings. |