Introduction to English I: What Women Want in Med/Ren Literature

This course grapples with female desire - for knowledge, for sex (straight and queer), and for sovereignty - in the canonical works of early English literature. It features heroines who are transgressive, bold, and unapologetic, including Chaucer's proto-feminist Wife of Bath and Shakespeare's diva Cleopatra and froward Rosalind. Female poets, including Mary Wroth and Aemilia Lanyer, wrote of and for women's right to education, power, and love. As Lanyer puts it, "If Eve did error, it was for knowledge sake."