European literature of the Renaissance.

In this course we will study the rise of Renaissance literature against the backdrop of the travels by Europeans outside the European world at the dawn of the modern era. We will read major works by such authors as Shakespeare, More, Rabelais, Montaigne, and Cervantes next to accounts of travel by such figures as Columbus, Vespucci, and Vasco da Gama, as well as contemporary documents about the “encounter” by natives in South America and writers from North Africa. Among the questions we will ask: How can you describe something that has never been described? How can you tell a peaceful encounter from an ambush? Who controls the sea? How is a literary text like a map?

Books on order:
Cervantes, Don Quixote (trans. Rutherford, Penguin)
More, Utopia (Yale)
Camoens, The Lusiads (Oxford World Classics)
Columbus, Journeys (Penguin)
Other texts will be provided in pdf form.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills