Annotation
OBJECTIVES
In the eighteenth century Britain achieved, politically, economically and culturally, the position of a great power in Europe. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the complex aesthetics of this sophisticated age, as reflected in e.g. the daring libertine lyrics of the Restoration, intricate political allegories, theatre culture, the bristling topicality of Augustan satires, as well as the imaginative flights of mid- and late- eighteenth century fiction. Students will be given the opportunity to read major texts, think about the central intellectual practices of the age and to imagine the relations among books, people and politics in Restoration and eighteenth-century Britain.
MATERIAL
Selected texts include drama (Congreve), verse (Pope - The Rape of the Lock; Dryden, Rochester, the graveyard poets etc.), prose (e.g. Smollet - Humphry Clinker, Sterne - A Sentimental Journey or Goldsmith - The Vicar of Wakefield).
ASSESSMENT
Class presentation, attendance and one critical review or essay.