English Literature - 16th- and 17th-century Poetry

Code:

FLUP0834

Acronym:

LI-PS

Instance: 2005/2006 - 2S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Anglo-American Studies
Institution Responsible:	Faculty of Arts

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
EAA	2	Official Study Plan - LEAA	2	2,5	5	-
EE	0	Official Study Plan - LEE	3	2,5	5	-
			4
EFI	5	Official Study Plan - LEFI	2	2,5	5	-
			3
			4
EIA	6	Official Study Plan - LEIA	2	2,5	5	-
			3
EPI	16	Official Study Plan - LEPI	2	2,5	5	-
			3
			4

Objectives

To invert the title of D.W. Harding (Experience into Words) means a change of perspective and not a refusal of a criterion which unites all those who believe in Literature as a mode of enlargement and deepening of the perception of reality: exterior, interior and transcendent. The organization of this programme is consequently based on the presupposition that the class of Literature should be the place where its value is affirmed, as great art and enriching stimulus to the attention of living readers in their situation. We intend to demonstrate that great poetry, although of far off times, “teaches and delights” (Sidney); it teaches because it delights, and it permanently modernizes itself, for successive generations of readers, in a quest for reality. Thus, the objective to aim for will be the strengthening of the critical sense, which will be founded on a perspective that will revitalize, in the light of contemporary preoccupations, relevant and different lyrical expressions of a period of great and profound transformations. But to make the journey from Wyatt to Vaughan, from harmonious fluency to harsh articulation, from decorous observations to mystical visions, will be just one of several possible directions of the act each one of us, facing himself, the other or the Absolute, constantly re-enacts, through the power of words, the power of poetry – “Words into Experience”.

Program

“Words into Experience” – Journeying through lyrical expression from the Renaissance to the Restauration.

Preliminaries

1.Organizing and planning.
2.Justification of the programme and of its title.
3.Elucidation of the plan of studies.

Perspectives

1.Defense of Poetry.
2.The act of reading as an “act of attention”.
3.The effect of awareness and the quest for reality.

Prelude

I. "Sweet Themmes runne softly/ Till I end my song".
1. Confluences: musicalness from Wyatt to Campion.
2. Defence of Poesie and Elizabethan poetics.
3. The sonnet and other poetic forms.
II. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
1. The Shakespearean Moment.
2. The Sonnets – the disturbing sweetness..
3. The sonnet – concentration as “openness”.
III. John Donne (1572-1631)
1. Decentralizations - "All coherence gone".
2. "Strong lines".
3. The Monarch of Wit.
4. Architecture of seduction.
5. The poem as a web.
IV. George Herbert (1593-1633)
1. "Must all be veiled?"
2. Metaphysics of visuality.
V. Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
1. Conjugating two traditions.
2. An aesthetics of the inconclusive.
VI. Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)
1. Hermetism and resonance – the cosmic ring.
2. The poem as a magnetic field.

Main Bibliography

BEDFORD, R. D., Dialogues with Convention: Readings in Renaissance Poetry. Hampstead: Harvester Weatsheaf, 1990.
BENNETT, Joan, Five Metaphysical Poets. Cambridge University Press, 1964.
BRADBURY, Malcolm & PALMER, David (eds.), Metaphysical Poetry. London, Edward Arnold, 1970.
CALDWELL, John (ed.), The Well-Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance. Oxford, Clarendon P., 1990.
CORREIA, Maria Helena Paiva e ABREU, Maria Eduarda Ferraz de, Literatura Inglesa I – Época Renascentista. Lisboa, Universidade Aberta, 1996.
DEAN, Leonard F. (ed.), Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1957.
FAAS, Ekbert, Shakespeare's Poetics. Cambridge University Press, 1986.
FERGUSON, Margaret W., Trials of Desire - Renaissance Defenses of Poetry. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1983.
FINEMAN, Joel, Shakespeare's Perjured Eye - The Invention of Poetic Subjectivity in the Sonnets. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1986.
GRANT, P., Literature and the Discovery of Method in the English Renaissance. London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1985.
HAMMOND, Gerald (ed.), The Metaphysical Poets - A Selection of Critical Essays. London, Macmillan, 1974.
- Elizabethan Poetry: Lyrical and Narrative. London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1984.
KEAST, William R. (ed.), Seventeenth Century English Poetry - Modern Essays in Criticism. New York, Oxford University Press, 1962.
KNIGHT, G. Wilson, The Mutual Flame: On Shakespeare's Sonnets and The Phoenix and the Turtle. London, Methuen, 1973 rep.
KNIGHTS, L. C., Explorations - Essays in Criticism mainly on the Literature of the Seventeenth Century. London, Chatto & Windus, 1963.
- Further Explorations. London, Chatto & Windus, 1970.
LEWIS, C. S., Studies in Words. Cambridge University Press, 1960.
MACK, Maynard & LORD, George de Forest (eds.), Poetic Traditions of the English Renaissance. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1982.
PARTRIDGE, A. C., The Language of Renaissance Poetry - Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton. London, Andre Deutsch, 1971.
PEQUIGNEY, Joseph, Such is my Love: A Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Chicago, Ill., Chicago University Press, 1985.
RICKS, Christopher (ed.), English Poetry and Prose 1540-1674. London, Sphere Books, 1986 rep.
WALLER, Gary, English Poetry of the Sixteenth Century. Harlow, Longman Group, 1986.
WELLS, Stanley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge University Press, 1986.
WILLIAMSON, George, A Reader's Guide to the Metaphysical Poets. London, Thames and Hudson, 1968.

Obs. - This bibliography has been formed only with books available in the Faculty Library.
Editions to be used in the class: the New Penguin Shakespeare for The Sonnets; the anthology The Metaphysical Poets of the Penguin Classics for groups III to VI; for group I the Oficina Gráfica will provide a selection of texts.

Complementary Bibliography

To be indicated during the semester.

Teaching methods and learning activities

Theoretical and practical classes.

Software

Not applicable.

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Eligibility for exams

Pass mark in continuous evaluation or in the final exam.

Calculation formula of final grade

Three written tests of continuous evaluation count for 100% (=20 marks)
or
Final exam counts for 100% (=20 marks) of the final mark.

Examinations or Special Assignments

Not applicable.

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

Not applicable.

Classification improvement

According to the Assessment Regulations of the FLUP.

Observations

Language of instruction: Portuguese.