ENG 5325 Augustan Literature
Considers works that represent the rich varieties of genre, style, authorial stance, and subject matter in English literature throughout the eighteenth century, showing the period at both its most traditional and its most innovative. Particular emphasis on eighteenth-century writers’ adaptations of literary conventions in response to the political, social, religious, and aesthetic conditions of their own age, and on their complicated relationship with the classical inheritance. Genres discussed may include the essay, the novel, the drama, lyric, satirical, pastoral, georgic, and mock-epic poetry, and historical narrative; authors may include Addison, Steele, Swift, Pope, Johnson, Congreve, Goldsmith, Cowper, Smollett, Fielding, and Hume.