Love and Desire from Dante to Shakespeare (P00428)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : LLC-P-P00428

Examining a range of texts from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the course explores how love, eroticism, and sexuality has been portrayed in medieval literature and considers their aesthetic, cultural, and philosophical significance. Particular attention will be given to the concept of courtly love and its development; the relationship between gender and desire; and the interplay between sacred and secular ideas of love. Texts to be explored include Dante's Vita Nuova and Paradiso, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde; theoretical treatises on love, including those from the Spanish and Arabic traditions; lyric poetry of the troubadours; high medieval prose romance; and the spritualised love visions of the female mystics. The course concludes by examining the post-medieval legacy of artistic models of erotic love in Shakespeare.

Entry Requirements

? Costs : Purchase of essential texts as required.

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Common Courses (School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures), (School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Schedule G)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : To be arranged/Unknown

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

? Other Required Attendance : 2 hour(s) per week for 1 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

To enable students' to undertake a wide-ranging but detailed examination of central texts of the European medieval amatory tradition.
Detailed knowledge of the principle aesthetic, philosophical, and intellectual features of medieval and Renaissance amatory literature.
An awareness of the different cultural and historical contexts which inform and produce this literary corpus in the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods.
Critical awareness of the ways in which discourses of love and desire in the Middle Ages and Renaissance are intimately bound up with questions of interiority, selfhood, free will and destiny, the nature of morality, and gender identities.