ENGL 40246 - Faith, Love, and Devotion: The Sacred and the Secular in 17th-Century Poetry

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

England witnessed an explosion of religious poetry during the seventeenth century, one of the most turbulent periods in England's religious history. The devotional poems written in this period express a wide variety of attitudes toward salvation, toward divine love, and toward the Church:: a longing for salvation, a fear of damnation, a deep desire to feel God's love and approval, and a turbulent vacillation between despair and ecstatic praise. Paradoxically, this poetry reacted against older models of courtly poetry and profane love at the same time as it was deeply indebted to those models. In addition, the religious debates and battles of the Reformation were far from resolved in this period: English Catholics and Protestants produced poetry that offered praise and sacrifice to God while often simultaneously criticizing the beliefs of their Christian opponents. Hence, this course examines seventeenth-century poetry through two major lenses: the conflicts and tensions between "sacred" and "profane" poetry, and the divisions and complications between Catholic and Protestant religious identities as created or expressed in that poetry. How does religious identity shape poetic devotion toward God? What is the effect of different conceptions of the Church on religious poetry of this period? To what extent do the categories of sacred and secular overlap, complement, complicate, or antagonize one another? And what are the possible relationships between devotional poetry, the English nation, and religious identities? To explore these questions, this course includes (among others) the works of major figures like John Donne, George Herbert, John Milton, and Andrew Marvell, as well as the poems of previously neglected Catholic poets like St. Robert Southwell, William Alabaster, and John Beaumont.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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