| Wk |
Day |
Date |
Topic |
| 1 |
T |
19-Aug |
Introduction
Background Links:
|
| 2 |
T |
26-Aug |
Readings:
- Castiglione, The Courtier (Norton; other readings on Blackboard)
- Skelton, Bowge of Courte (1599)
- Early Modern Prose: Beware the Cat
- LRBR (Literary Research and the British Renaissance) Chapters 1,2,4
Context:
|
| 3 |
T |
2-Sep |
Readings:
- Nashe, Unfortunate Traveler
- LRBR 5, 9, 11
|
| 4 |
T |
9-Sep |
Readings:
- Heywood, Merry Play Between Pardoner and Friar (Renaissance Drama)
- Dekker, Shoemaker’s Holiday (RD)
- LRBR 12, 13 (Blackboard)
|
| 5 |
T |
16-Sep |
Reading:
- Shakespeare Richard II
- Sonnets
- Critical Approaches to Shakespeare and recent approaches (Blackboard)
- Textual Issues: Presentation
- Recent textual discussion of Richard II (Blackboard)
Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland (excerpts)
|
| 6 |
T |
23-Sep |
Reading:
- Percy, Mahomet and his Heaven
- Turkish Captivity Narratives (read one narrative, starting on either 96, 121, or 218)
Context:
|
| 7 |
T |
30-Sep |
Reading:
- Jonson, Masque of Queens or Munday, Triumph of Reunited Britannia
- Overview of masque and street theater: Middleton, Triumph of Truth; Chapman, Memorable Masque; Jonson, Masque of Blackness
- Shakespeare’s The Tempest
Context
|
| 8 |
T |
7-Oct |
Reading:
|
| 9 |
T |
14-Oct |
|
| 10 |
T |
21-Oct |
Reading:
- Wroth, Blazing World (Blackboard)
- article: Utopia and Utopianism
- Swetnam and Speght (Norton)
- Vespucci, Letters (read the Medici letter)
Context:
|
| 11 |
T |
28-Oct |
Advising day: no class |
| 12 |
T |
4-Nov |
Metaphysical Poets: A Study Guide
Reading: Donne and Herbert
See articles on Blackboard
Donne
- Sermon April 1, 1627 (Blackboard)
- The Sun Rising
- Valediction: Of Weeping
- Elegy: to His Mistress Going to Bed
- 7,10,11,14
- Good Friday, 1613: Riding Westward
Herbert
- Herbert (59); The Altar, The Collar, The Pulley
- Marvell, To His Coy Mistress 776
- Carew, A Rapture
- Herrick, The Vine
- Crashaw, Flaming Heart
|
| 13 |
T |
11-Nov |
Reading: Early modern nonfiction prose
Context:
Prose
Maps:
Science
some videos about Bacon
|
| 14 |
T |
18-Nov |
Reading:
Context
History of Civil War
Hobbes, Leviathan 1651 (pp. 748-52)
|
| 15 |
T |
25-Nov |
Reading:
Milton, Paradise Lost
- Selections:
- Book 1: 1-430; 572-795
- Book 2: 119-465; 630-end; cf. 5.666
- Book 3: 372-end
- Book 4: all
- Discussion questions online
- See Rogers lecture on epic similes on Blackboard: Three things about the epic similes about Satan:
- They create a sense of the unknowable (Stanley Fish) that remind us as our fallenness as readers; we submit that God is in control of the universe (shield/spear similes 1.284).Most important word is "or."
- They have a plot (fallen) undermined by a counterplot (providential) which reassure us about the orthodox theological message; reinforce our faith in the coexistence of free will and divine providence (Geoffrey Hartmann)
- They aestheticize the fallen state (“embower” the falling leaves which are falling angels 1.300+) (uneasy coexistence of free will and divine foreknowledge and their logical inconsistency). So free will has a menacing quality....(John H. Rogers). See also 1.777.
|
| 16 |
T |
2-Dec |
Paradise Lost:
- Book 5:545-end;
- Book 6 (all);
- Book 8 (1-180; 612-end)
- Book 9 (all)
For a correlative to Milton's disillusionment with the republic, see Isle of Pines, Henry Neville 1668 |
|
T |
9-Dec |
Final exam or another topic |
