Lecture List
Lecture List 2007-8
TERM 1 (commencing Monday 1st October 2007)
Week 1: Monday 1st October (11am, SO21)
Introduction to the course Elizabeth Clarke
There will be introductory seminars this week too.
Week 2 : October 8th (11am, SO21)
Seventeenth-Century John Donne Elizabeth Clarke
Texts to read: poems from the anthology as follows--
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
The Holy Sonnets
Hymn to God my God in my sickness.
Article to read: sections 1-4 of James Doelman's article at
http://www.geocities.com/queenswoman/jamesdoelman.html
Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 34, 1994 The accession of King James I and English religious poetry. |
Question to think about:
How do the Holy Sonnets address contemporary seventeenth-century issues?
Poetry for the masses--Francis Quarles and the emblem poem Alice Eardley
Reading: Handout with selected emblems and the extract from Quarles' emblem book in the anthology (if we have got it by then)
Question to think about;
Choose one of the emblem books listed below and discuss it with reference to its political, or religious, or social context.
Francis Quarles, Emblemes (1635).
Henry Peacham, Minerva Britannia (1612)
Both these texts can be found on EEBO.
Or:
Choose one emblematic image (eg. the heliotrope turning to follow the sun) and discuss its significance for seventeenth-century literature.
Week 4: October 22nd
The Jacobean Court Masque Justine Williams
(see website for accessing texts of Jonson's Masque of Blackness and Masque of Queens. Likewise for Oberon. There may be some masques in the Norton anthology which some of you have.)
Question for unassessed essay--
How does The Masque of Blackness, The Masque of Queens or Oberon comment on contemporary court politics?
Week 5: October 29th
Eastward Ho! Kim Martin
We have recommened the New Mermaid text and the bookshop can't get those so have got the RSC version in which has no notes. You can get a web version of Eastward HO with no notes so save your money.
Amazon have loads of copies v cheap so lets just hope the post strike finishes soon. The Library have promised to drum up as many Mermaids as they can.
Question to think about--
What is the significance of particular geographical settings within the City of London to the play Eastward Ho!?
Week 6 READING WEEK
Do your unassessed essay
Read chapter 5 of Kishlansky if you haven't already done so
Week 7: November 12th
George Herbert and the poetics of rhetorical iconoclasm Elizabeth Clarke
Read the selection of poems in your anthology and the article by me on this website.
Question to think about:
How can a poet's theology affect his poetic style in the seventeenth century?
Week 8: November 19th
Read the selection of poems in your anthology by John Suckling, Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace and Thomas Carew
Read their biographies in the online Dictionary of National Biography
Question to think about:
What kinds of code would a Royalist use when writing poetry in a hostile environment?
Week 9: November 26th
Marvell and the Civil War Elizabeth Clarke
Week 10: December 3rd
Milton's 1645 volume Elizabeth ClarkeI shall focus on 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso' and 'Lycidas'--if I have time I will look at Comus too but that isn't in the anthology.
Please bring copies of these poems as I don't want to sacrifice any more trees,
Estra feedback and help session--December 5th, 3pm, SO21.
VACATION (essay 1 due in after Christmas)
The Civil War happens over Christmas so you might want to read the chapters on it in Kishlansky.
TERM 2 (commencing Monday January 7th)
Week 1: January 7th
Katherine Philips and Royalist manuscript culture Elizabeth Clarke
Please read the poems by her in your anthology.
January 9th--trip to The Country Wife.
Week 2: January 14th
Milton's 1671 volume: 'Paradise Regained' and 'Samson Agonistes' Elizabeth Clarke
Samson is in your anthology. Some of you are Milton freaks and have got an edition with Paradise Regained in it and might want to know how it ends...... so I will lecture on both, but you only have to read Samson.
Week 3: January 21st
Rochester!
Look out for different timings/locations of this event....
ACCR (big lecture theatre in the Arts Centre) at 10am This presentation will be two hours long.
Week 4: January 28th
Agnes Beaumont and John Bunyan: spiritual autobiography Elizabeth Clarke
The text is in the bookshop--they only have 27 but they swear that is all you will buy so prove them wrong and get it! it's cheap and has a great introduction and appendix--have a brief look at Bunyan's text (it's long) but do read the cool narrative by Agnes Beaumont--IS SHE INNOCENT?
Week 5: February 4th
Dryden's Absalom and Achitophell and Marvell's Last Instructions to a Painter in Restoration politics Elizabeth Clarke
For this you will need to know about the Exclusion Crisis and the Popish Plot--chapter 10 in Kishlansky.
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Week 6: READING WEEK
Week 7: February 18th
Etheredge's The Man of Mode, Wycherley's The Country Wife Thomas Docherty
Week 8: February 25th
Restoration Comedy: The Rover, Aphra Behn Karen O'Brien
Week 9: March 4th
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
Justine Williams
Week 10: March 12th
Hester Pulter Alice Eardley
TERM 3 (commencing Monday April 21st)
Lectures 11am in SO21. No seminars.
Week 1: April 21st
Exam Revision Elizabeth Clarke
Week 2: April 28th
Exam Revision Elizabeth Clarke
There will be seminars on individual authors in the examination given after the deadline for the second coursework essay in week 3-to be arranged.