Graduate Studies in Renaissance and Restoration Literature

Catalog description

This course surveys British Literature from the 16th and 17th centuries, a period renowned for the variety and originality of its writers, which left a lasting mark on subsequent English literature. Students will be introduced to central ideas and writers of the English Reformation, English Revolution, and the Restoration of the monarchy. Renaissance authors studied may include More, Marlowe, Elizabeth I, Jonson, Donne, and Webster, along with Shakespeare and Spenser. Writers of the Revolution and Restoration may include Herrick, Marvell, Milton, Dryden, Behn, and Wycherley. Students will encounter Renaissance and Restoration drama, epic poetry, the sonnet, along with early experiments in prose fiction.