English 45B

Other Readings and Media

Norton Anthology : The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century; Norton Anthology: The Romantic Period; Norton Anthology: American Literature 1820-1865; George Eliot: Middlemarch; William Wycherly: The Country Wife.  All are paperbacks and there will be a reader.

Description

This course will provide a survey of many of the most important imaginative writings in Britain and the U.S. from about 1680 to 1860. My primary interest is in providing the critical and social frameworks that will help you not only enjoy what you are reading but see why it has claims to greatness. In general this period can be characterized as the time when secular empiricism comes to dominate cultural life, and to produce a great deal of imaginative searching for ways of life less like what will come to be our own. But it is also important for the range of styles and sensibilities which it fostered.