ENGL 343-01, London Calling: Studies in 18th Century British Literature, Fall 2015

Abstract

The city that rose from the ashes of the Great Fire of 1666 was only one part of the political, economic, and cultural capital that was eighteenth-century London. A magnet for people, products, and wealth, London dramatically increased in size and power over the course of the 1700s. This class will constitute a literary tour of its key locales: we will visit the stockjobbers of the Royal Exchange, the court and coffeehouses of Westminster, the hacks of Grub Street, the criminals of Newgate Prison, and the theaters of Drury Lane. We will also encounter a wide range of urban identities and social concerns, from authors and authorship to commerce and imperialism, gender and government to scandal and satire. Our course will examine the interrelation of these sites and subjects and the ways writers situated themselves within them as they represented and defined the complexities of London, its developing public sphere, and its relationship to changing conceptions of “Britishness.”