11:15A-12:15P TR (30) 3 cr

OPEN TO MAJORS ONLY.  DECLARED MINORS OBTAIN
AUTHORIZATION FROM BH402.

The two hundred years covered by this course are perhaps the most
central and exciting in Britain's history and in the history of its
literature.  They witnessed the flowering of English drama, the rise of
the English novel, the development of religious and political poetry, and
the beginnings of journalism and the essay form.  It was a period when
English Protestantism and a variety of Protestant sects developed, when
the British colonial ventures in North America and the Indies bore their
first fruit and made Britain the most commercially prosperous country in
Europe, when a new merchant class loosened the tight political and
social grip of the aristocracy and landed gentry, and when England
experienced a Puritan revolution that beheaded a king.  This was a time
when a new and broad-based reading public came into being and along
with it the new literary form of prose fiction, when women actors were
introduced on the stage, when female readers and writers began to feel
the first signs of their empowerment, and when the bite of capitalism and
the power of money began sharply to be felt.  The vibrancy of a rapidly
developing and changing society is present at the core of almost every
piece of writing during the time span of this course, which stretches from
Shakespeare to the close of the eighteenth century.

In this section of L298, we shall read a wide variety of literature
produced by some of the most gifted and dazzling writers of all time.
We shall discuss Shakespeare and the theatre of his time; religious poets
like John Donne, George Herbert, and John Milton; the social issues
raised in the poetry of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, the theatre of
the late seventeenth century, and the essays of Addison and Steele.  We
shall also read Daniel Defoe's MOLL FLANDERS, one of the first
examples of that new form called the novel.  In the course of the
semester, moreover, we'll have a chance to consider the possibilities and
limits of various literary forms including the drama, fiction, the essay,
satire, lyric and reflective poetry, and narrative poetry.

Most of all in L298, students should feel the vitality in the life and
literature of a country that between 1600 and 1800 was becoming the
first modern nation state in Europe.  The one frustration of the course
will likely be that we cannot dwell long enough on particular writers or
issues, but L298 will give students the basis for exploring their interests
in subsequent courses and in further independent reading.

Students will be asked to write two or three short papers.  There will be
midterm and final examinations.

Texts:    THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE,
volume 1
Daniel Defoe, MOLL FLANDERS
William Shakespeare, THE TEMPEST