Resistance, Repression, and Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Catalog description

Amid the caustic religious turmoil of the Reformation, early modern Europe saw the development both of new absolutist visions of sovereignty and of radical theories of popular resistance. Events like the 1572 Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Protestants in France fed English concerns about international Catholic conspiracies, while in the next century the English civil wars, the brutal repression of rebellion in Ireland, and the execution of Charles I marked the violent culmination of decades of theorizing about resistance, revolt, and regicide. This course will trace early modern theories of resistance and sovereignty across drama, poetry, and political writing, beginning with French Wars of Religion and continuing through the years following the English civil wars. Together, we will explore the following questions: how were early modern ideas about rebellion and leadership different than ours today? How did early modern writers justify their theories of resistance in different national and confessional contexts? What, exactly, can be revolutionary about poetry and prose? How have early modern ideas influenced modern revolutionary projects? And perhaps most importantly, who was "allowed" to be a revolutionary subject in the early modern imagination? Readings will include plays by William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Lope de Vega, and Caryl Churchill; poetry by John Milton; and a variety of transnational political writing and poetry.