Lyric and Ecstasy

This seminar principally focuses on ecstatic states in the lyric verse of three extraordinary seventeenth-century English poets—John Donne, Richard Crashaw, and John Milton—who are rarely read together. We will consider lyric poetry—both erotic and religious—not only as an apposite medium for rendering ecstatic experience, but also how lyric poetry itself might function as a stimulus for ecstasy. We might also venture into some consideration of music along similar lines. Limited to 15 graduate students.