In this course, we will read and discuss a selection of eighteenth-century English literature in its historical contexts. Often reductively styled as 'the age of Johnson' or 'the Age of Reason', the eighteenth century in fact offers many (conflicting) perspectives and questions to be explored: for example, the connection between the 'rise of the novel' and the rise of consumer culture; the connection between newspapers and coffehouses; urbanisation and agriculture; poetry and print capitalism; authorship and copyright, among many others. We will read a variety of literary forms: prose and verse satire, literary biography, essays, lyric poems, and at least one novel (Pamela, by Samuel Richardson). One of our starting points will be the prose satire The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift (available online) - please read it before the course begins.
- Teacher: Ingo Berensmeyer