English 310rs - Seminar: Topics in Early Modern Literature and Culture-Renaissance Sex

Poems praising women’s nipples, satires about London brothels, ballads about dildos: this is how English Renaissance writers wrote about sex! English attitudes toward sex were complex, and they devised innovative literary forms to express their ambivalence. This course aims to give students a sense of the range of literary treatments of sex from 1580 to 1680. Placing these texts within contemporary understandings of gender, love and desire, the course asks: What did men write about women? What did women write about men? How was same-sex love depicted? How was race implicated in their writings? Restrictions: Juniors and seniors only. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required.

[CE] JR/SR only