ENG 362 - Studies in Early Modern Literature

Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in Early Modern Drama
This course explores early modern drama’s engagement with intersecting questions of gender, sex, and sexuality in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Readings will include an introduction to influential scholarship in the history of sexuality and literary criticism employing feminist, queer, and trans approaches to the plays. Authors will include Elizabeth Cary, Margaret Cavendish, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson.

John Donne
Obsessed with death, love, piety, loss, science, and the power of the written word, John Donne lived and worked on very private and public levels throughout his career. This course will consider the writer who noted that “no man is an island” and pondered “for whom the bell tolls,” reading the prose works in which these words first appeared together with his poetry and letters. We will also consider adaptations of Donne’s poetry and concerns by other writers in other genres in the seventeenth century; modern engagements with his work; and critical receptions from his death to the present. This course will assume familiarity with prosodic analysis.

John Milton
Full course for one semester. From imagining his presence at the birth of Christ, attacking censorship, defending divorce, and ultimately justifying the ways of God to man, John Milton’s literary, political, and religious interests were both wide-ranging and impassioned. This course immerses students in Milton’s major works with attention to generic range, reading his political prose, shorter poems, dramas, and the complete Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. This course will assume familiarity with and skills in prosodic analysis.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): Two ENG courses at the 200 level or higher. Recommended: ENG 211, ENG 212, or ENG 213.
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Repeatable for Credit: May be taken up to 4 times for credit if different topics.
Notes:

Not all topics offered every year.
Review schedule of classes for availability.
Review specific descriptions for applicability to department requirements.
Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in Early Modern Drama: This course applies toward the department’s pre-1700 requirement.
John Donne: This course applies toward the department’s pre-1700 requirement. Recommended: ENG 211 , ENG 212 , or ENG 213 .
John Milton: This course applies toward the department’s pre-1700 requirement. Recommended: ENG 211 , ENG 212 , or ENG 213 .

Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).