The Renaissance in England: Sixteenth-Century Poetry

A survey of shorter poetry in the 1500s, from Wyatt to Donne, canvassing a variety of topics from Reformation theology to court politics, but with an emphasis on the century's transformation of the poetic resources of the English language. We study the development of poetic and rhetorical theory alongside the poetry, learning a descriptive and analytic vocabulary that Tudor poets might (partly) recognize. We also imitate their poems--there are weekly exercises in verse composition--just as Sidney and Spenser did with Virgil and Ovid, and with one another.