Παρουσίαση/Προβολή

(ENL498) -  Χάρης Χαραλάμπους

Περιγραφή Μαθήματος

This module aims at studying the ways in which early modern poetic expression anticipates, reacts to and prompts revolutions during which established power structures are reformed, dismantled or supplanted. Political and ideological revolutions redirect the course of history, and their analysis through the prism of poetry becomes a privileged subject for the study of the contradictions inherent in capitalist modernity itself. During this period, England came to grips with fundamental changes in the national religion; it saw civil wars pitting neighbour against neighbour and family against family, and witnessed a steep rise in women authors and the emergence of modern science. This is a period of revolutionary political conflict, of rapid social and economic transformation, of unprecedented growth in the power of the state, of imperial and commercial expansion, and of profound cultural and intellectual change as the country’s values were challenged, overturned and re-formed.

Some of the questions, we will address are: can poetry propel revolution as well as respond to it? Does poetry merely crystallise revolutionary concepts and consequences, or is it woven into the very fabric of the social conjunctures and ideological undercurrents that forged the path towards revolutions? It is often argued that poetry flourishes during revolutions, but does poetry also generate revolutions? How did literary responses to shifts in values and culture affect the literate population? How did writers imagine their own power in the face of unprecedented social changes? Did poetry itself undergo a revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Does political poetry have a particular style? We will analyse the brilliant wit, rich imagery and evocative sound patterns of the period’s poems and ask what they tell us about the historical conditions of their production, and vice versa. We will investigate the models and precedents that poets called upon to write about these unprecedented events.

To capture the complex interconnections between all these phenomena, the course blends political with social, cultural and intellectual history. We will explore a wide range of writers, from Thomas Wyatt and Jon Skelton to John Milton and Andrew Marvell, and from Queen Elizabeth and Aemilia Lanyer to Anne Bradstreet and Margaret Cavendish.

Ημερομηνία δημιουργίας

Παρασκευή 7 Φεβρουαρίου 2020