The syllabus below is now up to date for 2019/20. Lectures will take place 1pm-2pm on Mondays. Place tbc.

Term One

Week 1: Introduction; John Donne's religious poetry (John West)

PLACE

Week 2: The Individual and the World: essays by Francis Bacon and Michel Montaigne (John West)

Week 3: Estate Poetry: Ben Jonson, 'To Penshurst'; Amelia Lanyer, 'The Description of Cookham'; Thomas Carew, 'To Saxham'; Andrew Marvell, 'Upon Appleton House' (John West)

Week 4: Spiritual Place and Space: George Herbert, poems from The Temple (John West)

Week 5: Literature and the Countryside: John Milton's early poems, principally 'L'Allegro', 'Il Penseroso', 'Lycidas' and 'Comus' (John West)

Reading Week

TIME

Week 7: Seizing and Losing Time (I): Cavalier Poetry by Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace and John Suckling (John West)

Week 8: Seizing and Losing Time (II): Andrew Marvell, selected poems (John West)

Week 9: Salvation, Apocalypse and Spiritual Autobiography: Laurence Clarkson, The Lost Sheep Found and Agnes Beaumont, The Narrative of the Persecution of Agnes Beaumont (John West)

Week 10: Carnival Time: Aphra Behn, The Rover (Tess Grant)

Term 2

POLITICS

Week 1: Jacobean Masques: Ben Jonson, The Masque of Blackness and The Masque of Queens (Tess Grant)

Week 2: John Milton, Samson Agonistes (John West)

Week 3: Literature and Scientific Authority: Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso (Alice Leonard)

Week 4: John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (John West)

Week 5: Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (Natalya Din-Kariuki)

Reading Week

DIFFERENCE

Week 7: James Shirley, The Bird in a Cage (Tess Grant)

Week 8: Katherine Philips and Hester Pulter, selections from their poems (Sophie Shorland)

Week 9: Restoration Drama: William Wycherley, The Country Wife and George Etherege, The Man of Mode (Tess Grant)

Week 10: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, selections from his poetry (John West)