Department of Spanish and Portuguese

This course will study intersections of poetry and thinking in Catalan literature. We will explore a variety of heterogeneous texts from the medieval period to the contemporary present that engage in the parallel tasks of poetic creation and speculative thought. The course will survey different authors from the canon of Catalan poetry but the central focus will not revolve around the questions of literary genre or periodization. Rather, the vocation of the course is to study singular forms of writing that aim to incorporate philosophical ideas into the aesthetic practice of poetry and vice versa. More specifically, we will explore how the experience of love represents a central space and thematic for the articulation of these two forms of writing. Indeed, in the thirteenth century the first great Catalan author, Ramon Llull, inaugurated Catalan literature by uniting earthly and divine love in extraordinary mixtures of literature, theology, and philosophy. Readings will include Llull, Ausiàs March, J.V. Foix, Carles Riba, and Blanca Llum Vidal, among others.

The course will be taught in Catalan. Students who have not taken Catalan should seek the consent of the instructor. This course can fulfill the elective 300/400 level requirement for the Spanish major          

H.ISP-C 619    #30846     9:45A-11:00A       TR          GA 0005          Prof. Edgar Illas 

Note: This class meets with HISP-X491 and HISP-C 492

HISP-C 619      #33181     9:45A-11:00A  TR        ONLINE                  Prof. Edgar Illas
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