ENGL 513W (1SY) - British Literature II Age of Revolutions: Shakespeare to Austen

BritLitII: Shakespeare-Austen

Durham   Liberal Arts :: English
Credits: 4.0
Term: Spring 2022 - Full Term (01/25/2022 - 05/09/2022)
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
Class Size:   30  
CRN: 56706
The English literary tradition from the Renaissance to the early Romantics spans a period of great social tumult. It includes civil war, new ideas in science, theology, and politics, and expanding British power abroad. Amidst such change flourished reinvented classical genres like the epic, satire, and stage comedy, as well as new forms like the novel, the pamphlet and the newspaper. This class provides a brisk survey of the revolutionary literature of this fascinating age.
Department Approval Required. Contact Academic Department for permission then register through Webcat.
Equivalent(s): ENG 513H, ENGL 513
Attributes: Writing Intensive Course, Scheduled meeting time, Online (no campus visits), Humanities(Disc), EUNH
Instructors: STAFF

Times & Locations

Start Date End Date Days Time Location
1/25/2022 5/9/2022 TR 3:40pm - 5:00pm ONLINE
Additional Course Details: 

English 513.01:  Survey of British Literature 

Instructor:  Prof. Sean Moore.  Contact at sean@unh.edu or 2-3827

In this course, we will read key works of British literature from the first century A.D. to the mid-eighteenth century.  This broad chronology will cover an intriguing variety of literary works (epics, tragedies, lyric poems, etc.), constituting what we conveniently (if somewhat clumsily) call “the first half of British literature.”  Points continually foregrounded in this course will be that virtually none of the writers we will read considered themselves as authoring works of “English literature” as such, and they could never have imagined that they would someday end up being part of a British literature “canon” taught in college courses like this one.  Nor, for that matter, was England even conscious of itself as a “nation” until, roughly, the last few decades of the sixteenth century.  Among other things, we will be examining a broad range of themes, including the nature of heroism, villainy, ambition, power, greed, passion, courtship, love, marriage, family relationships, idealism, cynicism – and much, much more.  This course will pleasantly surprise you at how so-called “old” literature (despite, admittedly, often being more difficult to read than contemporary literature) treats many themes of current, contemporary interest.  WI

In Spring 2022 this course fulfills a Pre-1800 Literature requirement for English Department majors.