Renaissance Poetry (10 credit points)

Content of Course

1. The Godfather of Renaissance poetry: excerpts from Dante's Inferno (c.1315).

2. The birthpangs of Renaissance love-poetry: Petrarch's sonnets with translations with Sir Thomas Wyatt and other Tudor writers.

3. The torments of art: sonnets by Michelangelo to a beautiful young man.

4. Classical passions: Ronsard, the French court, and Mary Queen of Scots.

5. Witty virtuous love: Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella (1579) and Edmund Spenser's Amoretti (c.1590).

6. The greatest love poetry ever written: Shakespeare's Sonnets (c.1594-1604).

7. The love poetry of John Donne (c.1595).

8. A different kind of love: the religious poetry of Donne and George Herbert (c.1610-1630).

Teaching method(s)

2-hour discussion-based seminars using visual material. All the texts are available over the Internet in large print.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Delineate the main genres of Renaissance verse;

• Analyse the use of complex language in Renaissance verse;

• Situate Renaissance verse in its cultural and political context.

Sources

Core Readings

Essential:

• Greenblatt, S. ed., 2012. The Norton Anthology of English Literature vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton.

• Musa, M. ed., 2002. Dante, the Divine Comedy Vol. 1: The Inferno. London: Penguin.

• Mortimer, A. ed., 2002. Petrarch: Canzoniere. London: Penguin.

• Handout will be provided for Ronsard.

Recommended:

• Norbrook, D. and Woudhuysen, H., 1993. The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse. London: Penguin.

• Norbrook, D., 2002. Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance. Oxford: OUP.

Web Sources

www.luminarium.org.

Class Handouts

Powerpoint presentations, parallel texts of poems, historical backgrounders.

Assessments

10 credit courses have one assessment. Normally, the assessment is a 2000 word essay, worth 100% of the total mark, submitted by week 12. To pass, students must achieve a minimum of 40%. There are a small number of exceptions to this model which are identified in the Studying for Credit Guide.

Studying for Credit

If you choose to study for credit you will need to allocate significant time outwith classes for coursework and assessment preparation. Credit points gained from this course can count towards the Certificate of Higher Education.

Queries

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email COL@ed.ac.uk or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website.