Love Stories: The Discourses of Desire in Literature and Culture, 1800 – the Present Session One

Agenda Introduction: the Aims and Purposes of the Seminar Loving, Telling, and Reading with Special Reference to John Keats Romanticism Theorising Love Stories: Catherine Belsey, ”Reading Love Stories”

Introduction: the Aims and Purposes of the Seminar Texts – the analysis, history, and theory of a ”genre” – the love story – across the media: e5, e9 Culture(s) – the cultural history of love, the history of the idea of love: e4, e9 The Programme

What is love? Tristan and Isolde Romeo and Juliet Other examples of great couples? What does this suggest about the nature of love?

Loving, Telling, and Reading with Special Reference to John Keats’ ”To Fanny Brawne” ”You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour – for what is in the world? I say you cannot conceive; it is impossible you should look with such eyes upon me as I have upon you: it cannot be” (NE2 : 900)

… ”To Fanny Brawne” Love = the lover’s desire for unity with his beloved

… ”To Fanny Brawne” Love = the lover’s knowledge that unity is impossible lack of feeling of reciprocity Lover not a worthy love object: ”I cannot be admired, I am not a thing to be admired Love creates its own obstacles: Venus

Loving with Special Reference to John Keats’ ”La Belle Dame Sans Merci” Unification revisited: What happens to the knight?

Loving, Telling, and Reading with Special Reference to John Keats’ ”La Belle Dame Sans Merci” The frame story: the knight and his interlocutor The framed story: the knight and the lady The poem and its reader: the literary ballad