18th Century English Literature
COURSE OUTLINE
Course Description: The course aims to familiarize students with prose, poetry and drama produced in the Neo-Classical Period (1660-1785).
I. Historical Background: Neo-Classical Period
II. The Restoration Period (1660-1700)
Samuel Pepys The Diary
John Dryden
“From A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire”
“Absalom and Achitophel” (1681-2)
"MacFlecknoe" (1682)
William Congreve
The Way of the World (1700)
III. The Augustan Period (1700-1745)
Alexander Pope
“An Essay on Criticism” (1711) The Rape of the Lock (1712)
The Periodical Essay
o Addison and Steele: The Tatler (1709-11) and The Spectator (1711-2) Sir Richard Steele [Dueling]
Sir Richard Steele [The Spectator’s Club]
Joseph Addison [The Aims of the Spectator]
o Oliver Goldsmith: The Citizen of the World
“At the Playhouse” (1762)
Jonathan Swift
Gulliver Travels, Book I & Book II (1726) The Modest Proposal (1729)
Henry Fielding: The Historical Register for the Year 1736 (1737) IV. The Age of Sensibility ( Or Age of Johnson) (1745-1785)
Samuel Johnson
From A Dictionary of the English Language
“The Preface to Shakespeare”
Graveyard Poets:
Thomas Gray (1716-719
“Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat” and “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”