English 222W

Economies of Identity: Public/Private Constructs in

Restoration and Eighteenth-Century British Literature

Our seminar on Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature focuses on the construction of identity, especially the ways in which an emerging awareness of economic concepts informed modes of self-understanding throughout the longer eighteenth century. We'll locate this idea through the various genres of the literature of the eighteenth century. Our approach will be in some ways ahistorical, emphasizing substantial literary, cultural, and philosophical understanding over chronological development. We'll read some bawdy plays, some beautiful love poems, and some bloody prose but most importantly we'll write. Welcome!