Spring 2010

E 374K • Elizabethan Poetry and Prose-W

Course Description

In this course, we will read some of the most influential, most experimental and most powerful poetry and prose in the English language. We will explore questions of artistic representation, nationalism, religious reformation, new audiences, genre, form and linguistic innovation (to name but a few) by immersing ourselves in the fictions of an age renowned for its insatiable literary appetite. We will survey the major shorter poems of such authors as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and we will turn also to large-scale poetic and imaginative projects including Sir Philip Sidney's Old Arcadia and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. As we investigate the particularities of the Elizabethan dedication to poetic creation, we will also encounter some critical writing from the period itself.

Grading Policy

Short essays: 30% Research exercises: 15% Memorized recitation: 5% Final essay: 30% Participation, etc.: 20%

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