English 115A

The English Renaissance (through the 16th Century)

Other Readings and Media

Erasmus, Desiderius, Praise of Folly; Thomas More, Utopia; Baldasarre Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier; Nashe, Thomas, The Unfortunate Traveller;  Marlowe, Christopher, Edward the Second; William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice; Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene. There will also be a xerox course reader (containing some poems and critical materials) available at Copy Central, 2560 Bancroft.

Description

An interdisciplinary exploration of literature produced in England mainly from 1550 to 1600 --a period that marks a considerable shift not only in literary production and consumption, but also in social, political, and ideological formations.  Issues to be discussed will include: the place of literary imitation in the construction of individual as well as national identities; the tensions between the established elite culture and the emerging institutions of "middle-class" and popular culture; the role of discourses of sex/gender in various domains of domination and marginalization.  Reading will be drawn from canonical literary figures, such as Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare as well as more "marginal" and/or "non-literary" texts, including contemporary pamphlets (and ballads).  

This course satisfies the pre-1800 requirement for the English major.

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