E102B | Restoration and Revolution: 1660-1700 | Spring 2008
This course is in part framed by political events.   We begin in 1660--with the restoration of the monarchy after civil war, the beheading of a king (Charles I), and several years of Puritan dominance-- and end just after 1700, approximately a decade after what became known as the "Glorious Revolution." We will read drama--both aggressive wit comedy and heroic tragedy-- satiric poetry, fiction, and feminist and political essays.  Lectures will also provide material from scientific reports and from contemporary philosophy.  Our material invites us to ask  questions about literary form, political structures and  principles, marriage, property, and the status of women. And it invites us to consider fundamental  contrasts in a period marked both by restoration and by revolution.