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ENGL BC3133 Early Modern Women Writers. 4 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).
Not offered during 2022-23 academic year.

Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 15 students. PLEASE NOTE: starting the spring 2015 semester, there will NOT be a departmental sign-up sheet for this class.

Despite popular conceptions insisting that the ideal Renaissance woman was silent, as well as chaste and obedient, many women in the early modern period (c. 1550-1800) defied such sentiments by writing, circulating and publishing their own literature. Under the influence of humanism, a generation of educated women arose who would become both the audience for and contributors to the great flowering of literature written in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. As we examine how these women addressed questions of love, marriage, age, race and class, we will also consider the roles women and ideas about gender played in the production of English literature. We will read from a range of literary (plays & poetry) and non-literary (cookbooks, broadside, midwifery books) texts. Seminar participants will be asked to circulate a formal paper for peer review and complete two digital projects.