Literature and Seduction

This course will look at works of erotic and emotional persuasion: some represent seductions, some (love poems and love letters) are intended as persuasive documents themselves, while others (some first person narratives) are arguably designed to seduce the reader. As we explore material from antiquity through the 21st century, we will examine the ways in which the idea of seduction has (or has not) changed, and what cultural conceptions of seduction say about ideologies of gender, subjectivity, sexuality, and literary representation. Texts will include works by Ovid, Plutarch, Keats, Wilde, Bronte, Nabokov, Rostand, Laclos, Wittig, and others; numerous historical documents and theoretical texts; and contemporary treatments of the subject from Nora Roberts to Cosmo to Neil Strauss. (This course satisfies the ENAM seminar requirement; this course meets the major requirement for WAGS 0400 for 2011-2012 only). Sem.