English 4310: Renaissance Literature
Renaissance Women Writers
Weekly
Schedule
I reserve
the right to make changes to the following schedule; if this occurs, I will
announce changes in advance. Please consult the schedule daily because I may not
always announce assignments for the next class meeting. Please note that the
online schedule may not always be updated. If you are absent from class,
it is your responsibility to check on announcements made while you were absent.
I expect you to have completed the reading for the day and be prepared to
discuss it when you come to class. Bring your book to each class meeting or you
will be considered absent
from the class. The same rule applies to all
reading materials posted on Blackboard.
Week One
T
1/10
Familiarize yourselves with the syllabus.
Th
1/12
Virginia Woolf, from “A Room of One’s Own,” 1929 (posted on Blackboard).
Jane Anger, from Her Protection
for Women, 1589 (SHW 2-6).
Homework writing assignment (bring to class on January 17):
1. List the main
points Woolf makes about the situation of women in the Renaissance.
2. List the evidence
found in Anger’s and Whitney’s writing that supports and / or contradicts
Woolf’s claims.
Fill in the
following chart, using bullet points. Include quotations when possible. Mark
evidence from Anger as A; evidence from Whitney as W. You may not find both
supporting AND contradicting evidence for Woolf’s points. He goal is to evaluate
how these points hold up in relation to Anger’s and Whitney’s texts. Feel free
to list more than four points and corresponding pieces of evidence, but include
at least a set of three.
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Woolf’s points |
Supporting evidence |
Contradicting evidence |
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Week Two
T
1/17
Isabella Whitney,
from A Sweet Nosgay, 1573
(posted
on Blackboard):
Dedication to George Mainwaring (3-4);
“The Auctor to the Reader” (4-8);
“A modest meane for Maides In order prescribed”
(10-11);
“A communication which the Auctor had to London, before she made her Wyll” and
“The maner of her Wyll” (18-28);
“To her unconstant Lover” (29-33);
“The admonition by the Auctor, to all yong Gentilwomen: And to al other Maids
being in Love” (34-38).
Th
1/19
Elizabeth I,
poems (SW 1-30).
Week Three
T
1/24
Elizabeth I, speeches (SW
31-92).
Th
1/26
MARY and PHILIP SIDNEY.
Mary Sidney Herbert,
“A Dialogue between two shepherds, Thenot and Piers, in
Praise of Astraea”
(SHW 17-19); “Even now that care”; “To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent
Sir Philip Sidney”; “Psalm 73.”
Philip Sidney,
“Psalm 37.”
George Herbert, “The
Collar.” (Handout / Blackboard)
Week Four
T
1/31
Aemilia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex
Judaeorum (SHW 20-77).
Th
2/2
Ben Jonson, “To Penshurst.”
Aemilia Lanyer, “The Description of Cookeham.” (Handout or Blackboard)
Week Five
T
2/7
Due:
Essay
# 1.
In class reading and
discussion: Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to
Amphilantus, Sonnets 1-6; Song 1 (SHW 143-47.)
Philip Sidney,
Astophil and Stella, #1 (handout).
Th
2/9
Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to
Amphilantus (SHW 147-99).
Week Six
T
2/14
Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of
Mariam (SHW 78-136).
Th
2/16
Mary Wroth,
Urania (39-73).
Week Seven
M
2/20
4:30 pm, AU Conference Center: Kris Straub. "Variety and Georgian
London Theatre: The
Case of A Midsummer Night's Dream."
For
extra credit,
attend the talk and write a 1.5-2 page response.
T
2/21
"UNCONSTANT
WOMEN," "EXCELLENT WOMEN": A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY
DEBATE.
John Donne,
from Paradox 1: "A Defense of Women's Inconstancy"
Paradox 6: "That it is Possible to Find Some
Virtue in Some Women"
Problem 6: "Why Hath the Common Opinion Afforded
Women Souls?"
Joseph Swetnam,
from The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Forward, and Unconstant Women.
(Blackboard or handout)
Rachel Speght,
from A Muzzle for Melastomus (SHW
137-42).
Esther Sowernam,
from Ester Hath Hanged Haman: An Answer To a Lewd Pamphlet, Entitled The
Arraignment of Women. (Blackboard
or handout)
Owen Felltham,
"Of Woman," from Resolves.
(Blackboard or handout)
Th
2/23
Midterm exam.
Week Eight
T
2/28
Mary
Wroth, Urania (73-127).
***Tuesday, February 28 is last day to withdraw from a course with no
grade penalty.***
Th
3/01
No class: Reading Day /
Preparation for Sharing of the Creative Projects.
Mary Wroth, Urania (127-180).
Week Nine
T
3/06
Due:
Creative
Project.
Th
3/08
Library Instruction
session: Research.
We will meet at the
library, in the
lobby next to the
Mell Street entrance, and proceed to the
2nd floor Lobby Lab.
Mary Wroth,
Urania (176-216).
Week Ten
Spring Break.
Week Eleven
3/20
Mary Wroth, Urania (216-253).
Th
3/22
Geraldine Wagner, “Contesting Love’s Tyranny: Socially Outcast Women and
the Marginalized Female Body in Lady Mary
Wroth’s Urania,”
English Studies
87.5 (October 2006): 577-601.
Diana Primrose, from A Chain of
Pearl (SHW 199-202).
William Shakespeare,
Henry VIII, 5.4 (handout).
Week Twelve
T
3/27
Katherine
Philips (SHW 225-56).
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 20.
John
Donne, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (handout).
Th
3/29
Margaret Cavendish, from The
Blazing World (handout / Blackboard).
Week Thirteen
T
4/3
Margaret Cavendish,
The Convent of Pleasure (SHW
257-286).
Th
4/5
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, or
the Royal Slave (SHW 314-368).
Week Fourteen
T
4/10
Due:
Essay # 2.
Margaret Fell, “Women’s Speaking Justified.”
http://www.qhpress.org/texts/fell.html
Th
4/12
Aphra Behn, “The Dissapointment.” (Handout / Blackboard)
The Widow
Ranter, Acts I and II (SHW 369-398).
Week Fifteen
T
4/17
Aphra Behn,
The Widow Ranter, Acts III - V (SHW
398-432).
Th
4/19
Bathsua Makin, from An Essay to
Revive the Ancient Art of Educating
Gentlewomen (SHW 287-92).
Anne Bradstreet, poems (SHW 293-312).
Week Sixteen
T
4/24
Margaret J. M. Ezell. “The Myth of
Judith Shakespeare: Creating
the Canon of Women’s Literature in the Twentieth
Century,” in Writing
Women’s
Literary History. Baltimore & London:
John Hopkins UP, 1993, 39-
65 (posted on Blackboard).
Week Seventeen