A study of the poetry, non-fiction prose, and novels of the major writers of the neoclassical period, including such authors as John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, and Samuel Richardson.

A survey of women's writing in the seventeenth century which examines the poetry, prose, and dramatic works of literary figures such as Lady Mary Wroth, Aemilia Lanyer, Anne Bradstreet, Katherine Philips, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn. The writings of these early-modern women are examined in order to understand how they address not only what it is to be a woman in early- modern times, but what it is to be human, an activity which involves the exploration of historical practices, philosophical concepts, political theories, and theological tenets.

The course examines representative selections of the poetry and prose of the high and late Renaissance period in England, covering a century from about 1580-1680, an era characterized by an impressive range of literary output that has never been rivaled in the western world.

The major poetic works and selected prose of Milton are read in light of his claim to be the delegated spokesperson for God and Parliament in early-modern England. Milton's works are seen both to reflect the tension and trauma of the Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration, and to participate in shaping a new state and new modes of existence.

Students study of seven representative plays (not covered in ENGL 551) of William Shakespeare and a selection of his sonnets. The Shakespearean works are read within the historically specific cultural context in which they were produced. The course pays particular attention to the way in which Shakespeare blurs generic, thematic, and ideological boundaries in his poetic and dramatic works — exploring his fusion of the tragic and the comic, the sacred and the profane, the noble and the plebeian, the fantastic and the historic, and the orthodox and the transgressive.

Students study seven plays by William Shakespeare (representative histories, tragedies, comedies, and romances) in addition to his narrative poem Venus and Adonis. Shakespeare's plays are considered as both established literary works and as scripts written for performance, and students apply different critical approaches to his works in an attempt to discover the source and nature of the play's aesthetic power and dramatic force. The course attempts to determine whether William Shakespeare is, as some have claimed, the greatest and most influential writer of all time.

A survey of European drama and prose classics from the thirteenth to the twentieth century, this course explores and critically evaluates the shift in worldviews from Dante's Christian humanism to Kafka's and Camus' modern existentialist view of human existence. In order to provide depth to our analysis of the works and to highlight the significance of the shift in worldview, the works will be discussed in their historical, philosophical, and cultural contexts, in combination with close reading and various theoretical interpretative approaches.

Focuses on the rich and varied visionary and mystical literature of the early, high and late Middle Ages, including the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux, Richard of St. Victor, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Richard Rolle, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, and Meister Eckhart. The influence of early theologians and philosophers (such as Origen, Plotinus, and Augustine) on these mystics is considered in detail, as is the influence of the medieval mystics on mystical thinkers of Renaissance Europe (including Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross).

This course takes up the study of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Parliament of Fowls, and Legend of Good Women. Care is taken to develop a good reading knowledge of Chaucerian Middle English. The literary, social, economic, political, and spiritual principles in Chaucer’s texts, and the aesthetic techniques employed to shape them, will be situated within the historical and cultural contexts of Ricardian, or late fourteenth-century, England. Chaucer wrote for a populace that had confronted decimating plagues as well as social, economic, and religious upheaval.

A study of poetry, its forms, conventions, and innovations in its development during the twentieth century, with particular representation from the American tradition.