Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / week
Course Description
The Renaissance has justly become both famous and notorious as an age of discovery, and its voyages took place in many realms. This semester, we will read several history making narratives of early modern travel: first-hand accounts of discovery, captivity, conquest, or cultural encounter. As Europeans came to acquire experience of unfamiliar places, literary texts of the period began to assimilate this experience by describing imagined voyages across real or fantastic landscapes. Finally, voyages of exploration served Renaissance writers as a metaphor: for intellectual inquiry, for spiritual development, or for the pursuit of love. Among the literary genres sampled this semester will be sonnets, plays, prose narratives, utopias, and chivalric romance. Authors and travelers will include Francis Petrarch, Amerigo Vespucci, Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Hernán Cortés, John Donne, Francis Drake, Mary Rowlandson, Francis Bacon.
Course Reading
An online anthology of English literature from the middle ages through the late 1600’s; includes texts as well as background information and links to other resources.
Course Grades
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Presentations and work in class | 25% |
| 3 Essays (writing) | 75% |
MIT Literature Statement on Plagiarism
Plagiarism—use of another’s intellectual work without acknowledgement—is a serious offense. It is the policy of the Literature Faculty that students who plagiarize will receive an F in the subject, and that the instructor will forward the case to the Committee on Discipline. Full acknowledgement for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. All ideas, arguments, and direct phrasings taken from someone else’s work must be identified and properly footnoted. Quotations from other sources must be clearly marked as distinct from the student’s own work. For further guidance on the proper forms of attribution, consult the style guides available at the Writing and Communication Center and the MIT Web site on Plagiarism.
Calendar
| SES # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introductions | |
| 2 |
Columbus, Cabot Vespucci: diaries and letters |
|
| 3 |
Petrarch, “The Ascent of Mount Ventoux” letter to “Socrates”, “Canzoniere”. |
|
| 4 | More, Utopia | |
| 5 |
More, Utopia (cont.) |
|
| 6 | Cortes/Sahagun, The war of Conquest | |
| 7 | Cortes/Sahagun, The war of Conquest (cont.) | |
| 8 | Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book I | |
| 9 |
Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book I Conferences on essay 1 |
|
| 10 | Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II | |
| 11 |
Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II (cont.) |
|
| 12 | Marlowe, Faustus | |
| 13 | Marlowe, Faustus (cont.) | Essay 1 due |
| 14 | Marlowe, Tamburlaine | |
| 15 | Marlowe, Tamburlaine (cont.) | |
| 16 | Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (selections) | |
| 17 | Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (selections) (cont.) | |
| 18 | Writing workshop | |
| 19 | (Tentative) Boston Public Library field trip | Essay 2 due |
| 20 | Bacon, New Atlantis | |
| 21 | Donne, poems and prose | |
| 22 | Donne, poems and prose (cont.) | Optional revision due |
| 23 | Bradford, Plimoth Plantation | |
| 24 | Rowlandson, Sovereignty | |
| 25 | Rowlandson, Sovereignty (cont.) | |
| 26 | Dinner | Essay 3 due |
