Sexual/Textual Transgression in the Eighteenth Century

3 credits

Samuel Johnson defines the creative power of wit as an “unexpected copulation of ideas.” We will study Early Modern writings such as the Earl of Rochester’s poetry, Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, and Sterne’s Tristram Shandy as it pursues the unexpected transgressions of sexual mores as a metaphor for the unexplored regions of human experience. ***Prerequisite: ENGL 100 and either ENGL 110 or completion of 48 credit hours.***