FREN 4710 - [The Song of Songs]

(crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4710, MEDVL 4710, RELST 4710)(HB) (LA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with FGSS 6710/FREN 6710/MEDVL 6710/RELST 6710. Conducted in English.

C. Howie.

The Song of Songs remains one of the most puzzling and inviting texts in the history of Judeo-Christianity. In this course, we’ll take a look at this ancient erotic text as it gives way to the interpretations of early Christians allegorists, medieval monks, and later poets, including such figures as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Bernard of Clairvaux, and John of the Cross. In the process, we’ll have a chance to consider the vexed question of sacred language, the place of eroticism in religious (and literary) production, and the challenges of figural reading for late antique, medieval, and modern notions of embodiment.