Renaissance & Early Modern

The study of the Renaissance in England is one of the great strengths of our department. We have a remarkable group of scholar-critics, a group that is both various and harmonious. We all know, respect (and read) each other's work, and we all collaborate in our long-running and very successful Renaissance Workshop. Together, our strengths include comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives on the English Renaissance, with close attention to the intersection of formal and historical models of literary study. Here's a rough sketch of how we break down: our scholars are (in alphabetical order): David Bevington, Shakespearean and critic and editor of Medieval and Renaissance drama; Bradin Cormack, who works on poetry and drama in the context of early modern law and disciplinarity, the history of print and the history of sexuality; Michael Murrin, a comparatist, working primarily (and widely) on epic and romance, and on the history of literary criticism in the classical, medieval, and early modern periods; Joshua Scodel, who works on Renaissance literary history's relation to the classical tradition and to intellectual and political history; and Richard Strier, who works on religion, politics, Shakespeare, and the lyric.

Faculty

David Bevington (Emeritus)
Shakespeare, medieval and Renaissance drama

Bradin Cormack
Poetry and drama in the context of early modern law and disciplinarity, the history of print and the history of sexuality

Michael Murrin
Epic and romance, history of literary criticism 

Joshua Scodel
Renaissance literary history's relation to the classical tradition and to intellectual and political history

Richard Strier
Religion, politics, Shakespeare, and the lyric

Selected Courses

• The Matter of Law in Early Modern English Literature
• The Invention of Britain in Early Modern Literature
• Renaissance Intellectual Texts: Petrarch to Descartes
• Literature, the Disciplines, and the Renaissance Book
• Travelers on the Silk Road
• Renaissance Epic
• Spenser and Shakespeare
• Shakespeare and Skepticism
• Shakespeare and the Question of Value
• Shakespeare and His Contemporaries
• Shakespeare: Anatomy, Analysis, and the Archive
• Shakespeare and the Visual World
• Shakespeare’s Sonnets
• Renaissance Drama
• Modes of Renaissance Lyric
• Renaissance Love Poetry
• Religious Lyric in England and America
• Renaissance Romance
• Three Authors: Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson
• Seventeenth Century Secular Poetry
• Metaphysical Poetry
• Milton
• Milton and Early Modern Liberty