Title: THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE: 1500-1603

PRQ:

This century initiated the “Renaissance” or “early modern” era of English literary history.  The sixteenth-century brought important changes in intellectual culture, global exploration, and also momentous (often violent) religious changes tied to shifts in political regime from one monarch to the next within the Tudor dynasty (1485–1603).  We will attend to these contexts while analyzing literary texts and tracing influential changes in the forms and the focus of English poetry and prose.

Learning will be assessed by participation [including attendance and in-class discussion], three exams, two short critical essays, and a research essay.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B: The Sixteenth Century / The Early Seventeenth Century, ed. Stephen Greenblatt [et al], 8^th Edition (New York: Norton, 2005). ISBN: 0393927180.