Overview

This course aims to provide a survey of some of the major literary works of the Medieval and Renaissance periods. We will be reading a wide range of texts and genres in order to sample the feel of these cultures and gain insights into their particular interests and concerns. Our focus - in conjunction with this year’s theme at the Early Modern Center - will be on the concepts of “home” and “world” as they were understood during those periods. By reading closely and taking into account social and cultural contexts, we will try to understand the ways in which the home and the world were constructed and contested, as well as how contemporary writers thought they themselves, their fellow subjects, and their nation(s) related to these spaces. This course will touch on some of the “greats” of these periods, such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, but in the interest of both cultural and generic breadth it will pay considerable attention to writers and texts that have previously been largely obscured or sidelined. Thus alongside Chaucer we will read some of the writings produced by his Scottish contemporaries Henryson and Dunbar, while in the Renaissance section of this course we will read poems, letters and speeches by some of the royalty (Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots and James VI & I) of the period, as well as the poetry and prose of some of their subjects.

(I reserve the right to revise any parts of the syllabus as required.)