Graduate lecture courses surveying broad areas and periods of literary history, and directing students in wide reading. Offerings vary from semester to semester. Students should consult the department's "Announcement of Classes" for offerings well before the beginning of the semester.

Sidney wrote that the poet's task was to "grow in effect into another nature." No poet in English has fulfilled that charge more luxuriantly than Edmund Spenser. We will read widely in Spenser's oeuvre and milieu, but most of our attention will be devoted to exploring the strange landscapes and structures of The Faerie Queene. As the semester progresses we will address the poem's books and worlds from the multiple perspectives they invite, from the psychological to the ecological.

Book List

Spenser, E., The Faerie Queene; Spenser, E., Shorter Poems; Spenser, E., A View of the Present State of Ireland

Repeat Rules