Renaissance Literature and Culture (Pre-1800)

In this course we will explore the contribution of various aspects of society to literature and literary self-consciousness during the Renaissance, the "golden age" of English literature. The course will cover literatures of the Court and state, love and sex, city and country, science and discovery, and religion and reformation. We will discuss historical difference, political and social conflict, subjectivity and creativity, ethnic and cultural confrontation, and authorship and ownership. Readings will include prose fiction and non-fiction, lyric and epic, and drama by such authors as More, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Wroth, Bacon, Jonson, Donne, Marvell, and Milton.