ENGL 524

Fall 2021 All Classes

All Classes

Seminar in Early Modern Literature

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Credit: 4 hours.

Seminar dedicated to the study of texts, genres, themes, and/or theoretical issues from the non-Shakespearean literature of the early modern period (approximately 1500-1700).

4 graduate hours. No professional credit. May be repeated in separate terms to a maximum of 16 hours, if topics vary. Prerequisite: A college course devoted entirely to an aspect of Renaissance studies or consent of instructor.

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ENGL 524 class schedule data for fall 2021
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	30191	Lecture-Discussion	F	12:30PM -2:50PM	R	1110 Foreign Languages Building	Gray, C	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/23/21-12/08/21 Section Info: Gray, 524: Milton, Conflict, and Vulnerable Bodies - Writing at a time of religio-political turbulence and civil war, John Milton addressed key issues of state and gendered conflict by focusing on fragile political and individual bodies under duress or threat. In particular, his polemical prose and his epic, Paradise Lost, consider the ethics, affective roots, and consequences of insurrection, political assassination, and civil warfare by asking when and why these forms of violence may be justified, alongside exploring their political, physical, and psychological effects. As part of this exploration of effects, both his early works and his epic also focus on the bodily and emotional vulnerability of individuals living through times of extreme discord and contention, as they analyze states of exposure and endangerment caused by a wide range of factors, from sexual predation and tyranny to isolation and loneliness. Focusing on these diverse themes, this course aims to offer a comprehensive guide to Milton’s prodigious, dense, and often contradictory textual output, starting with his early verse and prose works published in the first half of the seventeenth century and spending much of the second half of the semester on reading his 1667, twelve-book epic. Throughout, we will situate his work within two main contexts. First, we will consider the political turmoil of the mid-seventeenth century. To do this, we will explore a handful of important interlocutors for Milton, from the republicans Andrew Marvell and Lucy Hutchinson to the royalists Aphra Behn and John Wilmot. Second, we will read scholarship by a range of Miltonists who have grappled with these issues of individual and political bodies under duress. Throughout, we will situate Milton in his historical moment, while also considering whether this most canonical of authors has anything to tell us about our own period of conflict and vulnerability. Restriction(s): Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.