Imagine a world where Gods and Goddesses walk the earth, nymphs and humans interact, and humans can be transformed into a river, a tree, or a cow. This is the world of Ovid and his Metamorphoses, one of the most influential texts in western history. In this course, we will explore the ways that writers in the 16^th and 17^th centuries used these myths of transformation to contemplate and reimagine their own world.  We will read a selection of Ovidian myths in their first, bestselling, English translation by Arthur Golding (1567) alongside Shakespeare, Spenser, Cavendish, Lyly, and other Renaissance writers. Our readings will span poetry, drama, prose, and literary scholarship and we’ll pay special attention to issues of nature and gender as we think about the boundaries of embodiment. As we read the renaissance versions of these classical myths, we’ll think about what it means to adapt a story even as the stories themselves theorize change and transformation. By taking this course you will gain practice in approaching texts through eco-criticism, animal studies post-humanism, and trans studies as they follow the lead of Renaissance thinkers in asking what it means to be human.

The writer’s strike. Working from home. The “great resignation.” Over the past three years, focus as intensified on who gets to work, who has to work, where work takes place, and what the value of labor is in our lives. This course looks back in time, to an earlier, also plague-ridden era, to see how the writers of the Renaissance grappled with many of these same issues. How did early modern writers conceive of work in their writing, and did they conceive of their writing as work?

Together we will read an array of genres, from poetry to drama to diary to manuals on gardening and housewifery in order to understand the various ways in which early modern people approached labor, idleness, occupation, professionalization, and activity through literature. We will also hold space for considerations of identity, especially gender and social class, as they relate to labors seen and unseen. We will pay close attention to who is imagined to perform work, and whose work receives attention, compensation, and value. We will also pay attention to moments when the expected relationships between work and literature break down.

Along the way, we will think about what brings the realms of work and writing together in the first place, as we reflect on our own practices as writers, readers, and scholars. As such, writing will be an integral part of the assignments for this course, although it will take many different forms. In fact, you will have the option to choose which forms of writing you want to select for your own customized assignment sequence.

What are the foundations of English Literature? What does it mean for a text to be literary? What does it mean for literature to be “English?” This course explores some of the key literary works from the 10^th through the 18^th Century through the lens of “selves and others.” We read the poetry, drama, and prose that shaped its literary moment as well as influenced writers to come. The theme of this survey brings together texts that looked inward, outward, and across boundaries, borders, and identities. We begin with narratives that establish a single hero against the threat of an enemy before moving on to texts that explore a diversifying social world. The second unit thinks about the ways in which premodern literature was shaped as much by other texts as by other people. This unit climaxes with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, perhaps the most central text in the English literary canon, but destabilizes that claim by reading the “bad quarto” along with the Folio edition to think about the lack of an authoritative version. Finally, we wrap up the course by reading texts that think through England’s relationship with the rest of the world by both imagining fictive versions of real places and by creating new ones. Overall, students gain a proficiency in a range of texts while also developing the critical mechanisms to look broadly across historical contexts.

Poetry is art. Poetry is language. Poetry is at the core of humanity and the expression of truth. Poetry is opaque. Poetry is confusing. Poetry is not necessary to live. Poetry is—well, what exactly is poetry? And why do we read it?

This course endeavors to answer these questions, for ourselves, for the poets, and for the world in which they wrote. This class offers an exploration of poetry as a literary genre and a means of communication. We will read a wide range of poems from a variety of authors, traditions, time periods, and styles. We will learn about the basic formal elements of a poem just as we will read poems that challenge and overturn our expectations of what poetry looks and sounds like. We will especially hone our skills at close reading and textual analysis and consider the most effective ways to express our insights in writing.

“How do I love thee,” Elizabeth Barret Browning asks in the beginning of her forty-third sonnet: “Let me count the ways.” Together, we “count the ways” in which Renaissance poets expressed love in their poems, with a particular focus on gender and sexuality. In order to account for the variety of perspective and positions, we will read selections from a wide array of authors from the 14^th through 17^th century.

Our course will ask questions about how both masculinity and femininity are constructed in love poetry, both in terms of authorship and poetic perspective. We will look especially carefully at the ways in which female poets subvert and perpetuate the conventions of their male contemporaries. We will also spend significant time reading love poems from men to and about men—and from women to and about women—in order to construct a full picture of the range of desires that were articulated during this time. We will also consider the nuances and tensions between friendship and erotic love, and the ways in which literature can go beyond history to capture the taboo and the illicit.

We will especially hone our skills at close reading and textual analysis and consider the most effective ways to express our insights in writing.