European Literature: 17th and 18th century is an elective for third- and fourth-year students. The course focuses on the 17th and 18th centuries in European Literature, including French Classicism, the early Romantic period, and the German Sturm und Drang Period. Students read relevant pieces of French, German, English Literature.

The third section of this course continues with the Literature of Continental Europe, taking up with the Enlightenment period and proceeding through the literature of early European Romanticism. The course will emphasize a pedagogical approach that is best suited to Chinese students of Western languages and literatures: the way that writers from the Enlightenment period reflect a deep concern with the rights of the individual, the growing consciousness of the social and political changes wrought by the French Revolution, the rights of women, and the emergence of the shift from a religious based understanding of the world to one grounded in humanist values and beliefs. We will read both creative and philosophical writings, including essays, novel selections, a play, poetry, fables, political tracts and speeches. Emphasized in particular will be various authors’ changes in approach to conventional literary subject matter, language usage and rhetoric heralded by different concepts of subjectivity brought about by Enlightenment values and Romantic idealism. Styles such as autobiography, satire, social criticism, lyric poetry, epic poetry, the short story and drama will be covered. All of these works will be explored regarding the evolution of the Indo-European languages, along with Western concepts of self, other, home, identity, family, nation, state, justice, divinity, individuality, nature, revolution, etc.

1. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Vol 2. Ed. Sarah Lawall, et. al. 8th
Edition. New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.

2. The professor will provide some additional course materials during the course of the semester. The materials will consist of handouts from various works relevant to the subject material.