This course will focus on some of the most important English poems written before, during and after the 17th century.
The basic textbooks will be Volume I of The Norton Anthology of English Literature (7th edition) and (for the earlier poets) Brother Anthony's Literature in English Society : Volume 2, The Renaissance (Sogang University Press, 1998). Reference should also be made to such general introductions as:
Jill Kraye ed., The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism
Gary Waller, English Poetry of the 16th Century (Longman)
George Parfitt, English Poetry of the 17th Century (Longman)
Arthur F. Kinney ed., The Cambridge Companion to English Literature,
1500-1600
Graham Parry, The Seventeenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural
Context of English Literature 1603-1700. (Longman)
Thomas N. Corns ed., The Cambridge Companion: Donne to Marvell
Steven N. Zwicker ed., The Cambridge Companion to English Literature
1650 - 1740.
James Sambrook, The 18th Century: The intellectual and cultural
context of English literature 1700-1789. (Longman)
Week 1: General Introduction. Wyatt; Surrey. Early Elizabethan
lyrics.
Week 2: Spenser: Shepherd's
Calendar (April,
May,
July,
October,
November).
Amoretti and Epithalamium.
Week 3: Spenser: The Faerie Queene Book 1 (see online
summary)
Week 4: Sidney: Old
Arcadia (Online
summary or you may wish to read Book1);
Defense
of Poesy; Astrophel
and Stella; .
Week 5: Shakespeare: Sonnets. Daniel and Drayton. Campion
and the lyric.
Week 6: John Donne: Secular poems and Ben Jonson: Epigrams
and
The Forest.
Week 7: John Donne and George Herbert: Religious poems.
Week 8: John Milton's early works : Nativity Ode; L'Allegro
and Il Penseroso; Lycidas.
Week 9: John Milton: Paradise Lost
Week 10: Robert Herick; the cavalier poets; Waller;
Andrew Marvell; Abraham Cowley; John
Wilmot.
Week 11: John Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel; Mac Flecknoe;
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day;
Week 12: Alexander Pope: The
Rape of the Lock; Epistle
to Cobham; Epistle
to a Lady; The
Dunciad;
Week 13: Sir John Denham (Cooper's
Hill); and James Thomson The Seasons (extracts): Summer;
Winter.
Hymn
on Solitude; Mark Akenside The
Pleasures of Imagination; Thomas Parnell A
Night-Piece on Death. A
Night Piece by James Macpherson.
Week 14: Thomas Gray Elegy,
Oliver Goldsmith Deserted Village and George Crabbe The Village
Week 15: Thomas Gray
(Ode to Adversity; The Progress of Poesy; The Bard. A Pindaric Ode). William
Collins (Ode on the Poetical Character; An Ode on the Popular
Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland; Ode to Evening).
Written assignments
Each student will write two papers
The first will be a broad study of the Themes, voices, and forms
characterizing the work of two major 17th-century poets.
The second paper will be a summary of the Themes, voices, and forms
of English poetry written after 1700 and before Romanticism.