Recognizably modern political parties emerged in Britain late in the seventeenth century, and by the time of the so-called Glorious Revolution (1688), it was impossible to write at all without being read in terms of the violent partisan struggle between Whigs and Tories -- the two major political camps. After the flight of King James II in 1689, Whigs and Tories positioned themselves in relation to a third group, loyalist Jacobites intent on restoring the exiled king.

This course examines the participation of imaginative writing in ideological debate between the Glorious Revolution and the last Jacobite rebellion (1745). In the context of a small number of central historical events -- the Glorious Revolution, the Union of England and Scotland (1707), and the two major Jacobite rebellions (1715, 1745) -- we'll work together to understand the relation between imaginative writing and political partisanship in the Augustan period. Emphasis will be placed on novels and drama, and on voices from outside the mainstream, especially those of women and Scots.