The French Renaissance: The Birth of Modernity?

This class will read works from the French Renaissance in historical and cultural context. Did the Renaissance mark the birth of what we call the modern period? So much of twentieth and twentieth-century thought relies on the notion that our modern paradigm came into being with the Renaissance. We will read literary works by writers such François Rabelais, Louise Labé, Marguerite de Navarre and Agrippa d'Aubigné in relation to both medieval and Renaissance writers and philosophers such as Jean Calvin, Martin Luther, Marsilio Ficino and Erasmus and political actors such as Francis Ist, Charles IX and Henry IV. Enrollment limited to 40.