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Updated: 08-Dec-2009

Renaissance Literature

  Home   >>   English   >>   Renaissance Literature

Email course leader: stefan.hawlin@buckingham.ac.uk
One term: 15 units

1500 to 1670 is seminal, the period when some of the finest world literature was written amid the confused political / religious situations of Tudor-Stuart England. This course explores a selection of great works by masters like Spenser, Donne, Herbert, Webster, Marlowe and Milton.

The course aims to:

  • give an overview of the period.
  • allow you to understand important trends in the literature of the period.
  • set a range of writers within appropriate critical / cultural contexts.
  • give an understanding of the critical complexity of the debate surrounding Renaissance literature.
  • allow you to evaluate contemporary criticism on these writers.

The course is assessed by course work: one essay of 2,000-4,000 words (no exam). It can be taken on its own, or paired with the study of Shakespeare in Shakespearean Drama to achieve a broader overview of the Renaissance.

The topics studied include:

  1. Protestant nationalism and Pastoral: Edmund Spenser
  2. From city wit to Churchman: John Donne
  3. Philip Sidney and Shakespeare: the sonnet sequence
  4. The Protestant plain style: George Herbert's The Temple
  5. Orthodoxy and subversion in Marlowe's Dr Faustus
  6. Milton and the Prophetic tradition: the early poetry
  7. Gender politics and power: Webster's Duchess of Malfi
  8. Essay writing workshop

Key texts and/or other learning materials:

  • Ferguson, M., M.J.Salter & J. Stallworthy (eds). The Norton Anthology of Poetry (5th ed., New York and London: Norton, 2005). ISBN: 978-0-393-97920-6. This has most of the important poetry for Spenser, Sidney, Donne, Herbert, Shakespeare and Milton.
    Specific editions:
  • Maclean, H. & A. Lake Prescott (eds.), Edmund Spenser's Poetry (3rd ed., London: Norton Critical Editions, 1993). ISBN: 0-393-96299-7.
  • Carey, J. (ed.). John Donne: Selected Poetry (Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2008). ISBN: 978-0-19-953906-2.
  • Duncan-Jones, K. (ed.). Sir Philip Sidney: The Major Works (Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2008). ISBN: 978-0-19-953841-6.
  • Duncan-Jones, K. (ed.). Shakespeare's Sonnets (London: Arden, 1997, repr. 2006/7). ISBN: 978-1-903436-57-8.
  • Bevington, D. & E. Rasmussen (eds). Doctor Faustus, A- and B- Texts (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1993). ISBN: 0-7190-1643-6. Also available in Penguin, with other Marlowe plays.
  • Carey, J. (ed.). Milton: The Complete Shorter Poems (2nd ed., London: Longman, 2006). ISBN 978-14058-3279-3.
  • Brown, J.R. (ed.). Webster: The Duchess of Malfi (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1997). ISBN: 0-7190-4357-3.
    A useful general critical work:
  • Hadfield, A. The English Renaissance, 1500-1620 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001). ISBN: 0-631-22024-0.