The Renaissance

This course is a survey of the literature of the European Renaissance of the sixteenth century, with comparisons to the visual arts. Major authors will include Shakespeare, Cervantes, Teresa of Avila, Montaigne, Marguerite de Navarre, Erasmus, Thomas More, Luther, Vasari, and Machiavelli. Innovations in literary techniques, including new modes of versification, the rediscovery of classical tragedy, and new narrative structures, will be set beside the expanding worldview created by print, global exploration and colonialism, the increased pace of trade, the Reformation, and the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution.