Welcome to European Literature, 1350-1800. This course is a continuation of Introduction to Western Literature and will aim to introduce you to important texts of continental European literature. The period 1350-1800 was a period of upheaval in Western Europe. The expansion of trade routes, first with the Silk road, then with the discovery of America in 1492 opened new horizons for European thinkers. At the same time, the “rediscovery” of Antiquity in the middle of the fourteenth century altered the paradigms of the Middle Ages. The period also saw a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between subjects and monarchs, leading to first the English (1642-1660) and then the American (1776-1783) and French (1789-1803) Revolutions.

The course will examine, therefore how this transitional period was affected through the art and literature (mostly literature, but I will add some art) of the time. Starting with Descartes and Kant we will then proceed to reading Racine. Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons will address the genre of Epistolary Novels. Your group discussions will focus on fables of Jean de la Fontaine and his relationship to the Greek Aesop. We will spend three weeks discussing travel literature, through selections from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and, perhaps the most important piece, Candide by Voltaire. The last major work will be Molière’s Tartuffe part of the French Grande Comédie of the reign of Louis XIV. The last piece will be excerpts from The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, and we will address the transition to romanticism.

This course will focus primarily on French and German literature, but I will introduce, in my lectures, other texts, taken from Italian and Spanish literature.