Hispanic traditions and literary representations of love participate of the Western European separation between idealized, non genital, concepts of love--buen amor, in the Arcipreste de Hita´s classification--, and the other kind of love, the troublesome one--loco amor--that is roundly condemned and equated with ideas of death.
In this course we study different ways of representing the passion of love, from the love of God to the love of someone of the same sex. Courtly love practices will be studied in contrast with less fanciful rhetorical expressions of erotic desire. One main theme in the course will be the study in which standards of morality serve the purpose of controlling desire. Forms of forbidden love are always the background against which "good¨or "legitimate" forms of expressing desire--marriage, mystical love of God, etc.--are played. Illegal love, called mad, sinful, and criminal, is never out of the picture. The second part of the course will be dedicated to forms of love that currently stand at the threshold of acceptability. What used to be called sodomy is now gay love. This fenomenon will be studied in its ideological setting of criminalization, the cultural and social practice of the closet, and the emergence of a gay liberation conscience in Mexico and California, but its artistic expression in literature and film will also be analyzed in light of the literary traditions it draws from, especially the courtly love rhetoric of the Middle Ages.
Classes will be conducted in a seminar form. Weekly discussions and presentations from the students are expected, following explanations and indications for further reading from the instructor.
Each student will have to keep a reading journal with weekly entries, with responses to questions and topics that arise in the classroom. The journal entries will be entered in a class discussion group in the Bates internal computer network. Instructions will be forwarded soon.
In addition, four short essays of three-four pages will be completed by each student on a topic indicated by the instructor. The final essay will take the form of a take-home exam and will be due on the day of the final exam, as indicated in the Bates Calendar.
A final research paper of eight to ten pages will be due on the final week of classes. The topic will have to do with the Spanish Middle Ages and/or Spanish Colonial America.
This course meets twice a week officially. It will be taught in English and Spanish simultaneously. On Tuesdays the class will be conducted in English. All students are required to attend this weekly lecture class. On Thursdays, there will be two sessions of forty minutes each, one for Spanish students and the other for those who do not study Spanish. Each of this forty minute sessions will be conducted like a seminar, with questions and explanations of the texts we are reading for the week.
Grades will be granted according to the following criteria:
3 essays 30 %
Reading journal 20 %
Final research paper 30 %
Class participation 20 %
Calendar
Love and Desire
September 4 Presentation. Lecture: Pleasure, Desire, the Law. The art
of love in the Muslim and the Christian traditions.
9-11 Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita. Libro de Buen Amor.
9: Lecture. Mad Love and Good Love,
11: Seminar on the first examples
16-18 Libro de buen amor
16: Lecture: the erotic autobiography and the adventures
of Melón and Endrina. Love in the big city.
18: Seminar on the story of Melón and Endrina
23-25 Libro de buen amor . First Essay due on September 25.
23. Lecture: On the concept of the ugly and the beautiful in men
and women.
23 San Juan de la Cruz, Cántico Espiritual. Musical session: Amancio Prada´s musical version of the Spiritual Canticle. Seminar: Eros and God.
28 San Juan de la Cruz, Cántico Espiritual. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,
Selected poems to the Vicereine.
Seminar: the female voice in poetry.
30 Federico García Lorca: "Oda a Walt Whitman"
Lecture: Walt Whitman and the Gay literary tradition.
November 4 Federico García Lorca: ¨Sonetos de amor oscuro"
Seminar: Comparison betwen San Juan and Lorca
6 Francisco X. Alarcón. De amor oscuro. Of Dark Love.
Seminar: Gay love and the working class in Alarcón´s poetry.
11-13 Rosario Castellanos. Selected Poems.
11: Lecture. The invisible Lesbian in Latin American poetry.
13: Seminar: the feminine body in Rosario Castellano´s poetry.
18-20 Senel Paz: El lobo, el bosque y el hombre nuevo.
18: Lecture. Gays in Cuba. Socialism and the concept of good love.
20: Seminar: The construction of the heterosexual character.
December 2-4 Final Research Paper due on December 4. El lobo, el
bosque y el hombre nuevo.
2: Projection of the film Fresa y chocolate.
4: Final discussion on the film.
Third essay on Gay love due on the date of the exam.
Bibliography:
Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita. Libro de buen amor. The Book of True Love. The Pennsylvania University Press, 1978.
Fernando de Rojas. Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (Celestina).WarminsterÑ Aris and Phillips, 1987.
San Juan de la Cruz. Poesías. Poems.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, A Selection from Obra completa
Federico García Lorca. "Oda a Walt Whitman" from Poeta en Nueva York, and
Sonetos de amor oscuro.
Rosario Castellanos. Selected Poems. Saint Paul, Minnesota, Graywolf
Press, 1988.
F.X. Alarcón. De amor oscuro. Of Dark Love. Santa Cruz, Cal.: Moving Parts
Press, n.d.
Senel Paz. El lobo, el bosque y el hombre nuevo.