Literature of the English Renaissance

Engl 3305 sec 04522

T & Th 10:00 - 11:30 Room 110C

David Judkins, Ph.D.

The English Renaissance spans a period from approximately 1475 with the introduction of printing into England by William Caxton, until 1667 with the publication of the first edition of Paradise Lost, arguably the finest poem in the English language.  This is a period of enormous cultural and political changes including Henry VIII's reformation of the Catholic Church in 1532 and Oliver Cromwell's puritan rebellion, which culminated in the public beheading of Charles I outside his palace, Whitehall, in downtown London on a chilly January morning in 1649.

It is a period rich with some of the most famous names in English literature including: Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Ben Jonson.  It also marks the first bold initiatives of English expansion, or as we might say today globalism.  In the class we will read an account of Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, we will follow the mild mannered Ralph Fitch as he makes his way across India and down the Malayan peninsula to Malacca, and we will follow the adventures of Miles Philips, captured by the Spanish in Mexico but finally escaping to Honduras. 

Our excursion into travel literature will be just that, a brief side trip off the broader road of major literary works beginning with the satires of John Skelton, continuing into the sonnets of Wyatt, Surry, Spenser, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Donne.  We will also read a Shakespearean play, probably The Tempest, picking up on the travel theme, as well as a collection of other poetry.  We will read some of the women poets including Mary Stuart, Lady Mary Wroth, and Katherine Phillips. The class will conclude with Paradise Lost, and if there is sufficient interest, we may mount another marathon reading of this classic as I have done in the class before. 

All in all it promises to be an exciting semester.  Oh, yes, requirements.  We will have three tests, including the final, and two papers.  I also put above average credit on class discussion making a different member of the class responsible for leading discussion at each meeting.  I invite you to join me and other like-minded souls on this odyssey into Britain's cultural past.