In this course we will explore literature written during one of the most volatile decades in English history. The Bastille fell in 1789, and controversial reaction to the Revolution in France dominated English discourse in the early 1790s. As we read explosive non-fiction prose, poetry, and novels of the 1790s, we will pay particular attention to issues of slavery, insurgency, human rights, the power of the imagination, political justice, and the passions. Authors may include Joanna Baillie, William Blake, Edmund Burke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Godwin, Elizabeth Inchbald, Thomas Paine, Charlotte Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, and William Wordsworth. Course requirements include active participation, reading responses, a presentation, two papers, and a final exam.