The Literature and Politics of Friendship

Considers changing concepts of friendship as a key to major developments in British and American literature from the Renaissance through the 19th century. Special attention given to the ways the literary history of friendship intersects with leading political questions of the day. Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Defoe, Wordsworth, Keats, Percy and Mary Shelley, Dickens, Poe, Melville, and Henry James. Enrollment limited to 30.