Department of English

With the recent "discovery" of texts by women in Renaissance England, the task of integrating this new material into our understanding of Renaissance literature has become imperative. Formerly viewed as part of a "woman's tradition," this work has been taken out of its proper context, that is, the work by Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton to which it
speaks. We shall thus take up writing by women authors, particularly Mary Wroth's sonnet sequence and prose romance, the "Urania", and Elizabeth's Carey's closet drama "The Tragedy of Mariam", and read them alongside of selected parts of Sidney's "Acadia", Spenser's "Faerie Queene", Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew", and Milton's "Paradise Lost" and "Sampson Agonistes." A major effect of this rearranged list will be a readjusted sense of the male-authored texts themselves, and how they respond to each other within this new tradition.

Note: This course, taken along with any medieval literature course, may be used to satisfy the usual English 201 requirement alternatively.