HONR 2110 - Renaissance and Reformation in Literature

4 credit hours
Formerly - HONR 211

The period we call the Renaissance, or Early Modern Period, was characterized by tremendous religious, social, political, and cultural changes-and the upheavals that attended them. This seminar examines the literary transformations that occurred as writers reshaped traditions in response to their turbulent times. It will address such topics as the influence of Humanism, the impact of the Reformation on notions of interiority, the development of the professional theatre, the rise of professional authorship, and the role of writers in public and private discourse, as well as the rapid changes in literary style, aesthetic preferences, and approaches to self-fashioning that would lead subsequent poets and scholars to see Renaissance works as foreshadowing some of the concerns of modernity. Possible authors may include Montaigne, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Behn, and others.