Sonnets, Sex, and Death
 

This section of English 120 will examine a number of classic literary texts drawn from poetry, drama, fiction and opera, to explore some of the dynamics of love.  Unfortunately, it seems that wherever love surfaces, so do a number of nasty side-effects ranging from jealousy and suspicion tosuicide and murder.  Perhaps it is that the greatest love stories end inevitably with violent death – think of Romeo and Juliet or Anna Karenina or the Aeneid or Tristan and Isolde. Texts for this course will likely include some of the following:  Sonnets of Shakespeare (and others); Euripides’ Medea; Virgil’s Aeneid; Shakespeare’s Othello; Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles; Wharton’s Ethan Frome or The Age of Innocence; Mann’s Death in Venice; Williams’s Streetcar Named Desire; Puccini’s La Boheme; and Bizet’s Carmen.