MENMD2SCL: Seventeenth-century Literature and Society
Credits: 20 credits (10 ECTS credits)
Course Director: Dr Claire Bartram
Are you concerned about how the global economic downturn has affected you? Do you feel that the government is effective in responding to your needs or do you feel restless for political change? If so, how far would you go to promote or protect your interests? Do you feel that this age of austerity is a welcome opportunity for people to reassess their economic priorities and live more modestly, or do you lament the end of an era of glamour and high living associated with infinite credit and big bonuses?
Although the social conditions are very different, the questions that we may currently be asking are largely the same as those that preoccupied our seventeenth century predecessors. For instance if you felt that the reigning monarch was ineffective, how far would you go to challenge his authority – would you turn to violence in support of your desire for democracy; would you sanction his execution? Would you take the Puritan view that hard work and clean living should enable anyone to advance socially and economically or would you seek to maintain a status quo in which class and lineage, in short, inherited wealth dictated status and power?
Discover how poets and dramatists responded to these and other questions and how they wrote about the extraordinary social and cultural challenges of the seventeenth century in literature that ranges from the sublime to the obscene. Key topic areas include the court culture of James I and Charles I, the Civil War, Republic and Restoration. Key authors usually include Ben Jonson, Aemilia Lanyer, Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, John Milton and Lord Rochester. The recommended core text for this module is The Norton Critical Anthology of Seventeenth Century British Poetry 1603-1660 eds. John P. Rumrich and Gregory Chaplin, (London: Norton, 2006).
Assessment is by two pieces of coursework (10% + 40%) and a closed-book exam (50%).