ENG 323 SEX, POLITICS, RELIGION POETRY

Sex, Politics, and Religion in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry.  Sex, politics, and religion are the three topics that should be avoided at dinner parties, but they are central to the poetry of seventeenth-century England. In this course, students will discover the formal innovations of this poetry, its mind- and world-bending vocabulary and figures of speech, and its engagement with current events, both through close reading and discussion and by engaging creatively with the intellectual practices of creating commonplace books and cabinets of curiosity. Authors may include Donne, Herbert, Lanyer, Behn, Marvell, and Cavendish.