ENG 405 - Seventeenth-Century British Literature: The World Turned Upside Down

In the seventeenth century, England experienced dramatic social and political changes: a king was tried and executed for treason; opposing political, religious, and social factions waged battles in pring; puritans emigrated to the New World; men and women argued over the value of womankind; and scientific empiricism and instrumentation began to contend with religious worldviews. As a period in literary history, the century is frequently divided into an Age of Milton (or Donne) and an Age of Dryden. Reading representative works in the major genres of the century, we will attempt to understand the processes of change and the persistence of continuities in its literature.
Lecture
3 Credits
The prerequisite for all courses on the 300(0) or 400(0) level, unless stated in the course description, is the English Core.