ENGL 5330
The Age of Reason
In August 2007, a band of intrepid graduate students set out on a quest to learn about Age of Reason literature in England. Armed with several books, many websites, other digital and print resources, and one rather odd professor, the students arrived safely in December to an understanding of and appreciation for this literature and its direct impact on their own 21st-century cultural landscape.
This page is dedicated to their story and to their desire (even if it is an assigned one) to share their knowledge with others and raise awareness of this oft-overlooked and criminally understudied period among many undergraduates.
21st-century Beginnings in 18th-century Culture
| Travel Writing | Women and Marriage | Relationship Between the Centuries |
| Nature of Satire | Reading Papers |
Appreciating and Contextualizing Samuel Richardson's Pamela
Full text available via Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/pam1w10.txt .
The students had to choose themes that they wanted to explore and analyze in this novel and then select 10 passages or items to annotate. They used the Oxford World Classics edition of the novel.
Annotation Themes and Topics
| A young Englishwoman’s expected behaviors, obligations, and rights in eighteenth-century marriage | ||
| Class structure and social status 18th-century Girl Dispossession Understanding Virtue |
webpage contact:
Samantha M. Curtis