Course title: English Baroque Poetry
Instructor: Prof. Janja Ciglar-Žanić
ECTS credits: 6
Status: elective
Semester: 7th and 8th semester
Enrollment requirements: completed 6th semester
Course description:The course will be concerned with the earlier seventeenth-century English poetry from the point of view of its close relationship/ identity with the European poetry of the time. Baroque will be understood as a literary period dominating the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century in the majority of European cultures including, the discussions will be attempt to show, English literature of the time. Concettism as its main feature will be studied together with other rhetorical figures which hallmark the poetic period of Baroque. Special attention will be paid to the so-called Metaphysical school in English poetry which occurs at the beginning of the seventeenth century but other poets outside the original designation “Metaphysical” will also be studied. Both secular and devotional poetry of the period will be analyzed extensively.
Objectives: The main objective of the course will be to re-locate English earlier seventeenth-century poetry from the Renaissance proper into post-Renaissance movement known in the majority of European countries as Baroque. The study of poetics and rhetoric of the mentioned poetry will be in the centre of attention in this literary-historical procedure.
Course requirements: Class work (regular attendance at lectures and active class participation), various section-specific assignments (an oral presentation), and a final essay—style exam.
Week by week schedule:
Week 1: Introduction: Baroque as a literary period.
Week 2: Baroque (continued).
Week 3: Terms and concepts, comparison: Mannerist, Baroque, Metaphysical.
Week 4: Concettism in English Baroque poetry.
Week 5: The Elizabethan world picture as a background of Baroque imagery.
Week 6: Petrarchan topoi and their Baroque transformations.
Week 7: John Donne: from Songs and Sonets (“The Canonization”, “The Sun Rising”, “The Good Morrow”, and “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”).
Week 8: John Donne: from Holy Sonnets.
Week 9: George Herbert: from The Temple (“Easter Wings”, “Jordan” (I), “Jordan” (II), “The Pulley”, “The Forerunners”, and “Virtue”).
Week 10: Henry Vaughan: from Silex Scintillans (“The Retreate” and “Regeneration”).
Week 11: Richard Crashaw: from Carmen Deo Nostro (“The Weeper”).
Week 12: Andrew Marvell: from Collected Poems (“To His Coy Mistress” and “The Garden”).
Week 13: Thomas Traherne: from Commentaries of Heaven (“Shadows in the Water”).
Week 14: Ben Jonson: from Underwood (“My Picture Left in Scotland”).
Week 15: Final exam.
Required reading:
Gardner, Helen (ed), The Metaphysical Poets, Harmondsworth [etc.]: Penguin Books, 1988.
Grierson, Herbert J. C (ed), Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler, London, Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 1972.
Sidney, Philip, An Apology for Poetry, in D. J. Enright & Ernst de Chickero (eds.), English Critical Texts, London: Oxford UP, 1962; 12-17.
Johnson, Samuel, Lives of the English Poets, vol. 1, London: Oxford UP, 1961; 3-49.
Eliot, T. S, “The Metaphysical Poets”, in: D. J. Enright & Ernst de Chickero (eds), English Critical Texts, London: Oxford UP, London, 1962, 302-311.
Ciglar-Žanić, Janja, Domišljato stvoren svijet: Barok u engleskoj književnosti, Zagreb: Slap, 2008.
Ciglar-Žanić, Janja. “Fatal Fascination or Calculated Choice: The Conceit in Seventeenth Century English Poetry”, Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia 31-31, 1986/ 87; 3-20.
Ciglar-Žanić, Janja. “Koliko je metafizička engleska metafizička poezija?”, Umjetnost riječi 1, Zagreb, 1988; 73-92.
Ciglar-Žanić, Janja. “Barokno pjesništvo, englesko i hrvatsko: značenje nekih analogija”, Književna smotra, XXI, nos. 69-72, 1988; 165-172.
Ciglar-Žanić, Janja. “Neki aspekti engleskog književnog baroka: Formalni manirizmi i njihove funkcije u engleskom postrenesansnom pjesništvu”, in Fališevac, Dunja, and Živa Benčić (eds), Književni barok, Zagreb: Zavod za znanost o književnosti, 1988; 191-223.
Curtius, Ernst Robert, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973; 273-301.
Ford, Boris (ed), From Donne to Marvell: The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, 1988.
Kravar, Zoran, “Književnost 17. stoljeća i pojam ‘barok’”, in Fališevac, Dunja, and Živa Benčić (eds), Književni barok, Zagreb: Zavod za znanost o književnosti, 1988; 7-48.
Pavličić, Pavao, “Manirizam i barok: jedno ili dvoje?”, in Fališevac, Dunja, and Živa Benčić (eds), Književni barok, Zagreb: Zavod za znanost o književnosti, 1988; 49-71.
Praz, Mario. The Flaming Heart, New York: The Norton Library, 1973; 204-263.
Segel, Harold B. The Baroque Poem: A Comparative Survey, New York: Dutton Paperback, 1974; 12-142.
Warnke, Frank J, Versions of Baroque: Terms and Concepts, New Haven & London: Yale UP, 1975; 1-20.
Recommended reading:
Empson, William, Seven Types of Ambiguity, London: Chatto & Windus, 1956.
Fališevac, Dunja, Poezija Dživa Bunića Vučića (PhD dissertation), Zagreb, 1983.
Forster, Leonard, The Icy Fire, London: Cambridge UP, 1979.
Hocke, Gustav René, Svijet kao labirint: manira i manija u evropskoj umjetnosti od 1520 do 1650 i u suvremenosti, translated by Nadežda Čačinović—Puhovski, Zagreb: Biblioteka August Cesarec, 1991.
Keast, William R (ur), Seventeenth-Century English Poetry: modern essays in criticism, New York: Oxford UP, 1962.
Leishman, J. B, The Art of Marvell’s Poetry, London: Hutchinson, 1972.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. The great chain of being: a study of the history of an idea. Cambridge (Mass) & London: Harvard UP, 1964.
Kravar, Zoran, Studije o hrvatskom književnom baroku, Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Matice Hrvatske, 1975.
Pavličić, Pavao, Rasprave of hrvatskoj baroknoj kjiževnosti, Split: Čakavski sabor, 1979.
Stein, Arnold. John Donne’s Lyrics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.
Sypher, Wylie, Four Stages of Renaissance Style: transformations in art and literature: 1400-1700, New York: Garden City & Doubleday, 1955.
Tuve, Rosemond. Elizabethan and Metaphysical Imagery: Renaissance poetic and twentieth-century critics, Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1972.
Vendler, Helen. The Poetry of George Herbert, Cambridge (Mass) and London: Harvard UP, 1975.
Wellek, René (ed), Concepts of criticism, Introduction by Stephena G. Nicholsa, Jr, New Haven & London: Yale UP, 1963.
Willey, Basil, The Seventeenth-Century Background: studies in the thought of the age in relation to poetry and religion, Harmondsworth & Ringwood: Penguin Books and Chatto & Windus, 1972.
Witherspoon,, Alexander M, and F. J. Warnke, Seventeenth—Century Prose and Poetry, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963.