Arguments of Form in Renaissance Poetry

In the literatures of the European Renaissance, stylistic innovation is a marker of cultural change. The production of sonnets, of neoclassical epigrams, and of poems aspiring to be Ovidian or Vergilian opens up a theoretical space for arguments about faith, thought, words, the self, and society. Readings from Wyatt, Surrey, Gascoigne, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Milton, and others.