COML 6445 - [Early Modern Literature]

(crosslisted)
(also ENGL 6445)

Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015.

W. Cohen.

An attempt to define a Eurasian-wide literary system in the era prior to European hegemony, from the rise of Islam to the Industrial Revolution. A set of paired readings of European and Asian texts designed to show, through structural parallels and influences across a number of genres, the value of thinking about early modern literature in this expanded fashion. Problems of geography, historiography, periodization, and cultural agency. Readings from epic: Hildebrandslied-Firdowsi; romance: Gorgani-Gottfried von Strasburg; religious lyric: Occitan/Petrarchan tradition-South Asian bhakti; religious epic: Tulsidas-Milton; frame tale: 1001 Nights-Boccaccio; drama: Shakespeare-Chikamatsu; novel: Richardson-Cao Xueqin. Readings available in English.