(Note: This Course Fulfills the Pre-1800 Requirement)

Course Description:

"What seest thou…in the dark-backward and abysm of time?"—Shakespeare, The Tempest

How does our history shape the present moment? The future? Which stories from the past do we tell again (and again), and which we choose to ignore or leave buried?  What, in the words of Shakespeare's Prospero, do we see when we look into the bottomless "abysm" of the past?  We will use these questions to guide our study of sixteenth century English literature, as we explore the various ways this period's poets, artists, dramatists, and other writers adapted their social and cultural heritage—texts that range from religious drama to legends of King Arthur, classical poetry to accounts of a violent civil war.  We will examine the dominant notion of the period as heralding a Renaissance (“rebirth”) of the art and literature of ancient Rome.  We will also look at how other discoveries, including “new” lands and societies in the Americas, gave shape to the literature of the period.  Additionally, we will view the impact of the Protestant Reformation in England, and the period’s vexed relationship to its medieval past.  We will use these various perspectives to gain a richer appreciation of the period’s literature and culture, as well as an understanding of our continuing interest and fascination with “the Renaissance,” a time that we now also call “early modern.” 

Texts for Sixteenth-Century Literature

General Note: If you already own a complete works of Shakespeare (Norton, Riverside, etc.), you should certainly to use it for our class instead of purchasing the single-edition plays listed below. If you own a copy of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1, you will find some of the readings for this class in it. I have marked with an asterisk (*) those texts that can be found in the Norton Anthology.

While Amazon usually has good prices, I really recommend the website http://addall.com, which searches dozens of different bookseller websites to find the best price for you.

Required Texts:

*Thomas More, Utopia (there are many translations, but I really recommend Paul Turner's from Penguin Classics)

Shakespeare, Richard III (The Folger Shakespeare Library Editions of Shakespeare are particularly good)

Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

*Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (Make sure your edition is the "A Text")

*Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (Penguin edition is good and affordable)

Walter Raleigh, The Discovery of Guiana (buy this edition: http://tiny.cc/wCyBn ) try this link if the other isn't working:

http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Guiana-Related-Documents-Bedford/dp/0312154372

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, (make sure you have the new 7th edition)

Optional:

You can find a used copy of The Cambridge Companion to English Literature: 1500-1600, Ed. Arthur Kinney for $5-10 online. I'll be distributing electronic copies of the sections we will use for class, but if you wanted to have your own copy, it'd be worth picking up.