COML 123a, Perfect Love?
Instructor: Prof. Randall
Class Hours: 3:40 to 4:50 Mondays and Wednesdays
Office Hours: Monday 12-1, Wednesday 1-2.
Tel. Number: 63204
email:
Course Objective: This course will study the notion of perfect love as it manifests itself in literary and cinematic works. We will be particularly interested in how the notion of perfect love haunts literary and artistic works in the Middle Ages and the early-modern period, but we will also be looking at how the problem of perfect love continues to reverberate in modern culture in works such Wan Kar Wai's film In the Mood for Love. The question at the heart of this class is : why do human beings think they must achieve a "pure" form of love and what happens to them when they do? The theme of perfect love, which is elaborated in St. Paul's Letters to the Romans, and which places human love in an impossible position since it denies their own human sexuality is found in works such as the early-medieval Life of Saint Alexius, the Renaissance Heptameron, an the 17th-century opera Orfeo by Monteverdi, as well as in the 21st-century film, In the Mood for Love, will provide the thematic basis of this class. We will also look at other texts such as the Decameron, and modern films like Mariage Itlalian Style, which stand in defiant opposition to this kind of perfect love and delight in the glories of human imperfection.
Requirement: Students will write two papers and make one oral presentation.
Papers: The first paper will be an argumentative paper. It will be approximately five pages long and will need to refer to at least two texts studied in class. The grade will be largely determined by the quality of the argumentation. Argumentative techniques will be discussed in class. The second paper will be a research paper. It will be approximated 10-12 pages in length and will need to analyze an issue raised in one of the texts studied in class but developed in other literary or cinematic works. The grade will be largely determined by the quality of the research.
Oral Presentation: Every student will have to make an oral presentation treating a text, film or other cultural phenomenon having to do with the question of perfect love as we define it in class. The talk will be approximated 5-8 minutes in length. The grade will be determined largely on the following criteria:
1)structural coherence
2)delivery
3)relevance
Grades: The final grade will be calculated using the following criteria:
1)First Paper: 30%
2)Second Paper: 50%
3)Oral Presentation: 5 %
4)Class Participation: 15 %
Class Attendance: Although class attendance is not mandatory, if you do not come to class your class participation will, inevitably, be poor and the final grade will suffer accordingly.
Texts: All the following texts are available in the University Bookstore. A short photopcopy packet of texts by St. Paul and the Lifeof Saint Alexius will be distributed in class:
Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart
Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung, The Romance of the Rose
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron
Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Clèves
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Class Schedule
I) Introduction:
Wed. August 30Introduction
Mon. Sept. 4Labor Day, No Class
11) Wang Kar Wai:
In this section we look at how the contemporary Hong Kong film-maker Wang Kar Wai manages to create a film of almost unbearable sexual but virtually no sexual contact. The love between the two main characters sets the paradigm for a perfect, if not impossible love, that we will study throughout the rest of the semester.
Wed.6Wang Kar Wai, In the Mood for Love
III) Saint Paul:
Saint Paul's epistles to the Romans and the Corinthians make the underlying distinction on which so many Western art works depend. For Saint Paul, it is better to sacrifice imperfect, or human love, for a more perfect, or spiritual form of love.
Mon.11Wed.St. Paul, Romans 8, 9, 10, 12
I Corinthians, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15
IV) The Life of Saint Alexius:
This very early hagiography, that dates from the 9th century puts into practice the Pauline distinction of human (imperfect) and spiritual (perfect) love in highly dramatic terms.
Wed. 13The Life of Saint Alexius, 92-141
V) Chrétien de Troyes: Lancelot
In the Middle Ages, many poets and writers applied the notion of "perfect love" to the life of real human beings. Chrétien de Troyes' "romances" exemplify this school of "fin amor." In this "romance," Lancelot attempts to be the perfect lover of Guinevere. As often happens in this sort of situation, the lover and his beloved recreate the structural relation of spiritual love found in St. Paul, to often tragic ends.
Mon.18Lancelot 1-75
Wed.20Lancelot, 75-150
Mon.25Lancelot, 151-224
VI) Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung: The Romance of the Rose
Perhaps no other work develops the notion of perfect love as much as The Romance of the Rose. The first section of the Rose, written by Guillaume de Lorris in about 1235 is literary application of an earlier thesis explaining how to be a "perfect lover." The latter part of the work, written some forty years later by Jean de Meung, is a kind of acerbic mockery of the whole concept. Carnal love in this last section becomes the motor which makes the world go round.
Wed.27Romance of the Rose, 1-110
Mon.Oct. 2Romance of the Rose, 111-190
Wed. 4Romance of the Rose, 190-246
VII) Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron
In the fourteenth century, the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio mocks the whole notion of perfect love. As regards nearly all things human in his Decameron, love is highly imperfect and often quite funny.
Mon.9The Decameron, First Day, Preface, I, 2, II, 2.
Wed.11 Brandeis Thursday, no class.
Mon.16Decameron, III, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9.
Wed.18Decameron, IV, 2, 9, 10.
Mon. 23Decameron, V, 3, 4, 78?
VIII) Marguerite de Navarre: The Heptameron
In the sixteenth century, Marguerite de Navarre does a remake of Boccaccio's Decameron but in a decidedly different fashion. In the Heptameron, time and again, perfect love comes into conflict with real, human love. The results are often very unhappy.
Wed. 25The Heptameron, Prologue, Stories 15, 21.
Mon.30Heptameron, Stories 40, 42, 43, 50.
Wed.Nov. 1Heptameron, Story 70.
IX) Monteverdi: Orfeo
Monteverdi's Orfeo is often described as the first opera. This early seventeenth-century work brings music and literature into a blissful but very tragic mix. Here, the early-modern inability to make perfect love work, is brought into spectualar focus. The myth of Orpheus and Euridice revisits the theme of impossible love in a decidedly non Christian fashion. The end result, nonetheless, is not that different from works whose origins are more Christian.
Mon.6Orfeo
X) Madame de Lafayette: The Princess of Cleves
This work zooms in on the sort of courtly love seen in Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron. This close-up view of an impossible love relationship
Wed.8The Princess of Clèves, 1-79
Mon.13The Princess of Clèves, 80-156.
XI) Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
Wed.15The Scarlet Letter, chapters 1-10.
Mon.20The Scarlet Letter, chapters 11-19.
Wed.22Thanksgiving, no class.
Mon.27The Scarlet Letter, 20-24.
Wed.29Princess of Clèves and Scarlet Letter resumé
Mon.4Marriage Italian Style
Wed.6Conclusion
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