The empirical research is unequivocal: relationships are the key to happiness. They also break our hearts. In this course we will study texts on heartbreak and happiness from classical thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Lao Tzu, and the authors of the Hebrew Bible to contemporary classics like Taylor Swift and Beyonce. Sorrow and heartbreak await us all; indeed, such experiences provide the scaffolding that shapes our truest selves. How are heartbreak and happiness interwoven and imaginatively reconciled? How and why do we fall in and out of love? What can experiences of love and death and the death of love teach us? Asking these questions, class discussion will seek out the soaring heights and plumb the darkest depths of human experience, addressing tales of heartbreak and happiness written by authors of diverse historical periods, literary traditions, and sexual orientations. Contemporary writers include Florence Williams, Rachel Cusk, bell hooks, Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Alexander, and more. Students will investigate the subject through critical, creative, persuasive, and introspective writing, wrestling along the way with some of life’s deathless questions: What makes a good life? Is it possible to disentangle love and loss? What literary genres, modes, and forms can help us on our journey?