This introductory survey of seventeenth and eighteenth-century British Literature will focus on the topic of character, conduct, and behavior. We will begin our reading with the following questions: How did authors of this time period construct and comment upon behavioral norms through literature? How do the genre conventions of the time influence their treatment of conduct? And, how do the categories of class, gender, and race complicate the behavioral norms that are being prescribed and troubled?

We will begin with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Milton’s Paradise Lost, but other authors may include: John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Aphra Behn, William Wycherley, William Congreve, John Gay, Eliza Haywood, and Olaudah Equiano.

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

Texts:

• William Shakespeare. The Taming of the Shrew. Penguin. [9780140714517]
• John Milton. Paradise Lost. Norton Critical. [0393924829]
• Stephen Greenblatt. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Restoration and Eighteenth-century (v. C, 8th ed.). Norton. [0393927199]