The Literature of Love

Critical introductions to a range of literary topics and genres.

Mary Ward (Author)

9780521729819, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 May 2009

130 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 0.8 cm, 0.22 kg

Critical introductions to a range of literary topics and genres. The Literature of Love is designed to introduce students to one of the central themes in literature. Focusing first on different types and aspects of love - physical, emotional, spiritual - it then offers a chronological coverage, aiming to illustrate ways in which attitudes to the representation of love in literature have evolved from Chaucer to the present time. Other sections of the book examine particular genres such as the love sonnet, the love letter and 'romantic' fiction; and the differing reception of this literature over time is also considered. The book includes extracts from a range of authors.

Introduction
Part I. Approaching the literature of love: 1. Plato
2. The Bible
3. The Old Testament
4. The New Testament
5. Ovid
6. Courtly Love
7. Chaucer
8. Petracrch
9. Assignments
Part II. Approaching the texts: 10. The geography of love
11. Food and desire
12. Love as a madness
13. Demon lovers
14. Love as a sickness
15. Transgressive love
16. Unrequited love
17. The proposal
18. The wedding
19. The honeymoon
20. Married love
21. Love and loss
22. Love and betrayal
23. Love, absence and death
24. The love elegy
Part III. Texts and extracts: 25. William Cartright, 'No Platonique Love'
26. John Donne, 'Negative Love'
27. John Milton, from Paradise Lost
28. The Bible: King James Version, from The Song of Songs
29. Edmund Spenser, from 'Epithalamion'
30. Alexander Pope, from Eloisa to Abelard
31. Robert Herrick, 'To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time'
32. W. H. Auden, 'Alone'
33. Geoffrey Chaucer, from Troilus and Criseyde
34. Andreas Capellanus, from De Arte Honesti Amandi
35. Lady Mary Wroth, from Pampilia to Amphilanthus
36. E.E. Cummings, 'somewhere I have never travelled, glady beyond'
37. William Shakespeare, from Othello
38. Emily Bronte, from Wuthering Heights
39. Sir Philip Sidney, from Astrophel and Stella
40. D. H. Lawrence, from The Rainbow
41. Oscar Wilde, from The Importance of Being Earnest
42. Evelyn Waugh, from Vile Bodies
43. Edward Albee, from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
44. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Sonnets from the Portuguese
45. Henry James, from The Portrait of a Lady
46. Vicki Feaver, 'The Crack'
47. Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God
48. Graham Greene, from Brighton Rock
49. Thomas Hardy, 'The Going'
Part IV. Critical approaches: 50. Reading Brideshead Revisited
51. Reading D.H. Lawrence
52. Reading Toni Morrison's Beloved
Part V. How to write about the literature of love: 53. Comparing poems
54. Responding to prose
55. Comparing across genres
56. Assignments
Resources: Further reading
Websites and media resources
Glossary
Index
Acknowledgements.

Subject Areas: Educational: English literature [YQE]