Department of English

This course seeks to reconceive the literary contours of the last generation of the eighteenth century in England, with particular emphasis on its phenomenal last decade. When the label `Pre-Romanticism' was discarded, much of its literature went with it. What didn't ended up in the `Age of Johnson,' which is not an age as I see it, although most contemporary writers were said to have lived under its cultural umbrella. The result of these appropriations and losses has been to leave the literary history of this crucial period manifestly distorted. We will endeavor to recover its main lines within the usual constraints of little time and too few available texts. The following are works from which the final syllabus will be drawn. Prospective classmembers are urged this fall to suggest further texts that would offer potential value to the course.