Department of English

As an introduction to medieval and Renaissance literature, this course focuses on five canonical texts (or excerpts in some cases): Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Sidney's Astrophil to Stella, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Shakespeare's King Lear, Milton's Paradise Lost. These texts will form the backbone of the course, which will also include samples of contemporary writing, in order to create a familiarity with the literature and culture of the period. There will be a number of one-page reaction papers due throughout the course, as well as two ten-page papers.