ENG 222-01. Renaissance Literature and the History of Media (WELLESLEY COLLEGE)

Sarah Wall-Randell
The literary flowering of the English Renaissance was made possible by technology. The arrival of the printing press in England in the 1490s enabled a much wider circulation of literary texts, encouraging writers to influence each other and feeding the tastes of an expanding reading public. At the same time, older manuscript technologies persisted and cross-pollinated with new cultures of print. This course will examine central texts of Renaissance literature, including works by Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton, investigating how their texts were produced and shaped by the media technologies of their times. The course will use Wellesley’s Special Collections and Book Arts Lab to offer students hands-on experience with Renaissance books and production methods such as papermaking and letterpress printing.