Forms of Desire: Pre-Modern French Voices

Harvard FAS

What voices can we hear in pre-modern literature? How did literary forms (the novel, tragic drama, lyric poetry) emerge or evolve over the course of several centuries? In this class, we will examine a wide range of texts from the 12th to the 18th centuries, from a diverse range of forms, genres, and authors. Rather than trying to establish an exhaustive history of literary form, we will conduct close, contextualised readings focussing on questions of desire; gender and sexuality…