The Secret History of Eighteenth-Century Literature

Catalog description

This course looks at the underside of eighteenth-century literature to uncover the major concerns of the period, and how they continue to affect us today. While it has conventionally been known as the Age of Enlightenment, with an ideology of secular, rational progress, the long eighteenth century was also marked by intense political factions, belief in superstition and sorcery, a precarious social and economic situation for women, the growth of chattel slavery, and a cult of individual feeling and emotion. Much like today, new genres of writing made it difficult for readers to know whom and what to trust, and how to distinguish fact from fiction.