Admission Requirements
None.
Description
In recent years, religion has re-emerged as a major theme in political and cultural debates. As a result, there has been a renewed scholarly interest in the representations of religious issues in literary texts. This is especially true for the literature of the early modern period (approximately 1500–1700). Indeed, this era forms a particularly fascinating case study, since the origins of many of the religious questions that still preoccupy us today can be traced to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For example, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations led to a radical rethinking of the nature of salvation, the definition of denominational identity and of religious conversion, and of the relations between the living and the dead. This course will investigate how the drama and poetry of the early modern period addressed these issues. In doing so, we will also discuss some of the most recent literary scholarship in the field of early modern studies. Among other things, we will look at the representation of Purgatory in Hamlet, religious conversion in The Merchant of Venice and Philip Massinger’s The Renegado, exorcism rituals in King Lear, and notions of suffering in the spiritual poetry of John Donne and George Herbert.
Course Objectives
This course will extend and deepen the power of students’ literary critical analysis through in-depth consideration of texts. Students will gain a broader understanding of early modern English drama and poetry, especially in relation to the religious culture of its time, and of current critical debates about this topic. Students will share analytical and critical views on the texts ascribed in class discussions and short presentations, and will focus on research skills in the writing of a final research paper.
Timetable
The timetable will be available from July 1 onwards on the Department website.
Mode of Instruction
Two-hour seminar per week.
Assessment
Weekly assignments and classroom participation (30%)
Class-room presentation (10%)
Short essay (20%)
Long essay (40%)
Blackboard
This course is supported by Blackboard.
Reading list
Patrick Collinson, The Reformation: A History. ISBN 978-0812972955.
George Herbert, The Complete English Poems. ISBN 978-0140424553.
John Donne, The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne. ISBN 978-0375757341.
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Oxford World’s Classics. ISBN 978-0192834249.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Arden III edition. ISBN 978-1904271338.
William Shakespeare, King Lear. Arden III edition. ISBN 978-1903436592.
Further material in course reader and to be downloaded from Early English Books Online (EEBO) and/or Blackboard.
N.B. For the Shakespeare plays, please contact the course coordinators if you would like to use a different edition.
Registration
Students can register through uSis.
Contact information
English Department, P.N. van Eyckhof 4, room 103c. Phone: 071 527 2144, or mail: english@hum.leidenuniv.nl