Renaissance Studies

Renaissance Studies will consider English poetry, prose, and drama from the late sixteenth to the mid- seventeenth century. We will examine the formal features of a variety of texts, as well as the political, social, and historical contexts in which they were created, looking at such themes as the development of genre, the pastoral, religion, gender, patronage, and the role of literature in the formation of national and individual identity. Outside of the text, in its cultural and architectural offerings, Oxford itself is full of Renaissance traces. Some of this evidence the class will explore together; students are also expected to discover, like early modern explorers in reverse, more of this ‘Old World’ on their own.