Study of Romantic poems (and some prose), focusing on the role of love and sex in Romantic conceptions of imagination. Passion, sympathy, sensibility; the lover as Romantic subject; gendering the sublime and the beautiful; sexual/textual ambiguity; gender and genius; the sublime potential of unutterable or unspeakable love; the beloved as muse; enchantresses and demon lovers as figures of imagination; the attractions, dangers, excesses, and failures of idealizing erotic imagination (sentimentalism, narcissism, solipsism, disenchantment); desire as Romantic quest; sexual politics; marriage (and its discontents); non-normative or transgressive sex; (homo)erotics of Romantic literary friendship, rivalry, and collaboration. Texts by Charlotte Smith, Coleridge, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Mary Robinson, 'Sapphic' poets, Caroline Lamb, Byron, Felicia Hemans, P.B. Shelley, Mary Shelley, Keats, and John Clare.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 15

Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Not Offered; Spring