English 185A - Winter, 2012

Women's Writing I

Class Information

Instructor: Elsky, Stephanie
Time: TR 9:00-10:20
Location: 207 Olson

Description

Medieval and Early Modern Women Writers in England and the Americas

This course explores the extraordinary range of writing by women in the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, a period when women were expected to be "chaste, silent, and obedient." Women writers defied cultural conventions by taking on subjects such as female friendship, love and erotic desire, women's education, religion, and the rise of scientific experimentation. They lamented the inequalities of life in the big city of London and opposed the global slave trade in Africa, England, and the Americas. But they are equally remarkable for their experiments with conventional literary forms, such as the sonnet, the closet drama, and the novel. We will read in a variety of genres with an eye towards questions of authority - how did women writers establish their own, and how did they navigate their relationship to their husbands, patrons, and monarchs? Our goal throughout will be to consider the connections between political and literary authority.

Grading

Assignments: Short Paper (15%); Midterm Exam (15%); Final Paper(20%); Final Exam (20%); Section Participation (15%); Quizzes (15%)

Texts

The Book of the City of the Ladies, Christine de Pizan
Tragedie of Mariam, Elizabeth Carey
The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford, Anne Clifford
The New World Called the Blazing World, Margaret Cavendish
Oronooko, Aphra Behn
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
Online course reader with selected poetry and other writings