English 45A

Other Readings and Media

Chaucer, G: Canterbury Tales; Donne, J: John Donne's Poetry; Marlowe, C: Doctor Faustus; Milton, J: Paradise Lost; Spenser, E: The Faerie Queene, Book One

Description

This class introduces students to the production of poetic narrative in English through the close study of major works in that tradition: the Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queene, Doctor Faustus, Donne's lyrics, and Paradise Lost. Each of these texts reflects differently on the ambition of poetry to encompass the range of a culture’s experience. We will focus particularly on the relationships of different genres to different kinds of knowledge, to see how different ways of expressing things make possible new things to express, as English culture and English poetry transform each other from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries.

NOTE: This class will meet for the first time on Monday, August 30; discussion sections will not be held on Friday the 27th.