Renaissance and 18th Century Literature  Renaissance and 18th Century Literature University of Liverpool ../webroot/files/Institutions/cover_photo/1567060970University-of-Liverpool--2-.jpg

The Renaissance and the 18th Century are two of the richest periods in English literature, as well as areas in which some of the most exciting new critical and textual scholarship has been concentrated. The relations between these periods are made especially close by the conflicts as well as the continuities that can be traced between them. All the major writers of the 18th Century were passionate readers of Shakespeare and Jonson, Milton and Spenser, with some publishing major editions of their works. Yet Pope and Swift, Dryden and Johnson saw themselves not just as the inheritors of their literary forbears, but as their masters, correcting and improving the literature of the Tudor and Stuart eras before them, as the products of a golden but unrefined age. What is at stake in the ?mighty contests? that arise from the great works and the cultural shifts of the Renaissance and 18th Century is ?English Literature?, as it is written and redefined across these two crucial periods. This MA will appeal to students who wish to pursue a programme covering a wide chronological and thematic range. It is carefully designed to allow sustained comparative study of writings from both periods, alongside a focused examination of particular authors and issues within them. We concentrate upon the close reading of major texts ? poetry, prose, and drama ? as well as on broader cultural narratives and changing critical perspectives: indeed, each helps to reveal the other. Central to the MA are modules that explore how key Renaissance writers influence major 18th Century authors and inform their ideas of literary form and style, as well as of politics, religion, science, travel, and ?taste? ? from Paradise Lost to The Rape of the Lock, from the prose fictions of Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe to the novels of Daniel Defoe. Naturally, Shakespeare stands at the heart of this MA. The 18th Century saw the emergence of Shakespeare as the ?National Poet?, becoming the great age of adapting Shakespeare?s plays for performance, of editing them on the page, and of contesting his ?Genius? in criticism and in scholarship. This is a 12 month MA available full-time (1 year), and part-time (2 years), part-time intakes starting every even-numbered year (i.e. 2010, 2012 etc). Teaching is via seminars, with additional individual advice sessions available, particularly regarding essay preparation.