4:00P-5:15P TR (30) 3 cr

OPEN TO MAJORS ONLY.  DECLARED MINORS OBTAIN AUTHORIZATION FROM
BH402.

This course considers a range of English texts, literary and
extra-literary, written during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Beginning with Shakespeare's MACBETH in the context of
Jacobean England, we will end with Mary Wollstonecraft's
VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN in the context of the impact
of the American and French Revolutions. Along the way we'll read
works by Donne, Milton, Swift, Aphra Behn, Pope, and other
writers, well and less well-known, female and male. We will pay
special attention to how the assumptions of the "age of reason"
shifted literary focus away from a politics couched largely in
religious, philosophical and ethical terms onto concerns with
manners, "civility" and the nuances of "polite" social behavior.=20
Requirements: There will be two papers, a midterm,  and a final
exam. Attendance and participation in discussion is mandatory,
and will count for a portion of the course grade.