Department of English

This introduction to the period focuses on a number of different key literary texts. We will be looking at excerpts from the Canterbury Tales, some sonnet sequences, parts of the Faerie Queene, King Lear, The Alchemist, and Paradise Lost. Alongside these major literary works we will be reading contemporary political tracts and other prose works to help us place these pieces of literature in their Renaissance contexts. Students will be expected to write brief responses for each text we are reading, prepare a textual background report on one of the texts, write two 10-page papers and take a final exam.