Seventeenth-century English literature is haunted by the afterlife of the monastery. Dissolved in the Reformation and remembered largely through polemic, the monastery was recast as a space of unnatural enclosure—an image of idleness, corruption, or confinement that shaped Protestant cultural memory. Yet writers continued to reimagine this figure of the cloister, sometimes reproducing its pathology, sometimes exploring how monastic habits of discipline, devotion, and community might be reinvented. This course examines how literary forms—lyric, sermon, drama, and epic—engage the legacy of monasticism, treating enclosure not only as a site of claustrophobia but also as a resource for imagining freedom. Readings include Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus, Donne’s and Herbert’s devotional works, Milton’s Paradise Regained, Herrick’s Hesperides, and Marvell’s lyrics, alongside key scholarship on poetics, devotion, and cultural memory.

Required Texts: Shakespeare, Henry VIII; Lanyer, Salve Deus, Milton, Paradise Regained. All other texts will be on bCourses.

Grad Distribution Requirement:
Seventeenth through Eighteenth Century

Breadth Requirement:
Seventeenth through Eighteenth Century (British and/or American)

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.