Time(s):Monday 1-3 pm, Wednesday 1-2pm
Instructor(s):Christopher Warley
Brief Description of Course:I imagine this course as an antidote to the pessimism and resignation of contemporary life, because it introduces Renaissance literature and the many sorts of rebirths that literature, ever since, makes possible. The poetry, prose, and drama that erupts in the sixteenth century does something amazing: it imagines that human beings are historically diverse, and it generates a conception of art that creates future possibilities by unraveling any claim to an absolute point of view. The course traces these rebirths by focusing especially on the legacy of Petrarchan poetics and ending with Romeo and Juliet and the 2021 film West Side Story.