Reason and Romance: Literature of the British Eighteenth Century

3 Credits.

Any era can be characterized by its oppositions. Perhaps none were more defined by their polarities, however, than the eighteenth century in Britain. Reason and passion, honor and ribaldry, skepticism and fantasy, tradition and revolution: in capturing the tensions between these dyads, the literature of the period furnishes a wildly energetic field through which to examine questions of consciousness, freedom, gender, celebrity, race, and political theater that continue to shape our lives today. Authors examined may include Jonathan Swift, Mary Wollstonecraft, Daniel Defoe, Frances Burney, Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano, John Gay, Charlotte Lennox, and Alexander Pope.