ENGL 287 English Literature 1400-1670

An introduction to early literature in English, from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to Milton’s Paradise Lost. We’ll develop our capacities to hear, feel, and understand the language of some of the greatest and most influential writers in English, and we’ll explore a set of analytic concepts and strategies for interpreting their difficult works that will make you a more sensitive, precise, and persuasive writer. Topics we will consider include: genre and form; allusion and influence; rhetoric and truth; metaphor and allegory; narrative and memory; gender and sexuality; race and power.