At the turn of the first century AD, Ovid, the most infamous Roman bad boy, gave birth to the much-derided romantic self-help genre with the "Ars Amatoria" (The Art of Love). The handbook covers matters both trivial and profound, from "not forgetting your partner's birthday" to "persistence on the amorous battlefield." In this class, we will examine several of Ovid's dating tips and compare them with excerpts from contemporary self-help literature, including the late Pauline Phillips' "Dear Abby" columns, Connell Cowan's "The Art of War for Lovers," and Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo's seminal "He's Just Not That into You."

"Someone left the cake out in the rain/ I don't think that I can take it/ 'Cause it took so long to bake it/ And I'll never have that recipe again/ Oh no!" The above lyric comes from Richard Harris' smash hit "MacArthur Park," dubbed the "Worst Song Ever" in a 1997 survey by Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry. Through methods of critical and poetic analysis usually reserved for the likes of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Eliot, we will assess the literary merits of the most maligned song lyrics in popular music history. Can such scrutiny redeem a banal cliché? What defines a "bad" verse? Is there a limit to scholarly evaluation? Sources will include masterworks such as the Black Eyed Peas' "Imma Be," Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," and LFO's "Summer Girls," along with a sampling of missteps from supposed lyrical geniuses like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Bruce Springsteen.