This course focuses on British poetry, drama, and fiction from 1700 – 1900. We will closely examine representative texts of the period that take up the topics of disguise, costume, masquerade, and mistaken identity. Our reading will begin with the following questions: How do eighteenth and nineteenth-century authors use costumes, disguises, or assumptions about identity to comment on social issues pertaining to gender or class? What are the standards through which the characters of each text are defined? Can characters achieve self-definition, or are they limited by their class, gender, or family? Can disguises or costuming aid characters in the project of redefinition?

Course texts will include: William Congreve’s “Way of the World,” Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, Jonathan Swift’s “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock,” John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Lord Byron’s “Beppo,” Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest,” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Course requirements will include extensive participation, presentation duties, small response papers, and a midterm and final exam.